Review: A Novel About Pronatalist Government Programs

Set in South Korea, Apartment Women reflects real concerns about the country's lagging birth rate.

In an effort to boost birth rates, South Korean authorities start moving select families into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments. There, below-market rents await married couples who already have one child and pledge to have at least two more in the next 10 years. Yojin arrives, anxious but hopeful as her family starts adjusting—sometimes uncomfortably—to the small community.

Thus begins Apartment Women, a new novel by the Korean author Gu Byeong-mo. Though fiction, the book reflects real concerns in South Korea, which has the world's lowest birth rate.

The book chronicles the experiences of four pilot families in the fictional Dream Future program as they struggle with work/life balance, money, marital issues, gender roles, educating their children, and communal living. A brief but captivating read, Apartment Women slyly suggests the futility of state-sponsored pronatalist programs. Three of the four families fail—quickly—at completing the government's agenda for them, for reasons that have nothing to do with infertility or finances.