Woman's place no longer at home in S Korea textbooks

SEOUL, Sep 18 (Reuters) South Korea is set to cleanse gender stereotypes from its school textbooks, where women have long been depicted as housekeepers and men as the breadwinners.

The government said today that it would also encourage bigger families to boost the country's sagging birth rate.

''I personally don't believe there's anything wrong with a mother cooking a meal,'' said Education Ministry official Kim Soon-ju. ''But there's imbalance about gender roles still in our textbooks that should look undesirable to anybody.'' The ministry said it wanted to promote the idea of a flexible family life and reverse a trend where women marry and bear children later in life or choose not to have them at all.

South Korea has struggled to erase deeply entrenched stereotypes about gender roles and to boost its birth rate, which -- at an average of 1.08 children per woman -- is the lowest in the developed world.

Gone from primary and high school textbooks from next year will be suggestions that it is a woman's job to iron and cook.

The new books will promote working mothers and fathers who help at home, and will show families that have more than one child.

The ministry plans to cut items from textbooks such as: ''It's important not only for family happiness but also for national stability that fathers work hard and lead the family while mothers make sure that everyone in the family can freely focus on their jobs''.

The ministry also plans to delete suggestions that the elderly are passive, inactive and waiting to be supported. And, to cut discrimination, it will place less emphasis on extolling the single-race make-up of the Korean people.

REUTERS PB HS0942