Apartment Women by Gu Byeong-mo

A company in South Korea made headlines last year when it announced it would award employees 100 million won (about $75,000) for every baby that they have. It's part of an effort to reverse the country’s low birth rate, which has been fueled by high living costs, a grinding work culture, and the growing sentiment among many young women that marriage isn't worth the hassle.

In the short and sly novel Apartment Women, first published in Korean in 2018 and translated into English in 2024, novelist Gu Byeong-mo addresses these issues head-on. The plot centers on the inaugural residents of the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments in the hills outside Seoul. The community is part of a government program to provide low-cost rentals to couples who promise to try to have at least three children. Many of the women who snag the coveted spots are highly ambivalent about fulfilling this commitment. Still, the offer of a cheap apartment is too good to pass up.

In another writer's hands, this could have been a very different book. When I read the premise, I was bracing for something sinister and dystopian, like The Handmaid's Tale. Instead, this is a book about ordinary women navigating marriage, family and socioeconomic pressures. The brilliance of Gu's book is that everyday life for them can be a nightmare itself.

The book opens by introducing Yojin, who has just moved into the apartment complex with her husband, Euno, and their young daughter. Within moments, it's clear that this new family is out of step with societal norms. Yojin is the primary breadwinner, while Euno, a failed screenwriter, stays home. Still, the neighbors frown on Yojin, viewing her as unimpressive because she works as a pharmacy cashier rather than holding down a more high-powered job. Yojin finds herself driving a male neighbor, Jaegang, to work each day as a favor, but the power imbalance between them becomes immediately apparent. She ends up waiting around for him at the end of each workday, since he is seen as having the more important job, and he starts to make suggestive remarks during their long car rides that make her deeply uncomfortable.

Another character is Hyonae, who struggles to take care of her baby by day and to complete her assignments as a freelance illustrator late at night. The other women in the apartment complex view her as aloof and ungrateful, while her actual ambitions are depressingly modest. She yearns for a day free from baby paraphernalia, nosy neighbors and recycling rules. Above all, she just wants to "put the finishing touches on a project, no matter how shoddily," so that she can "sprawl across any surface and fall fast asleep."

In Apartment Women, a cheap apartment comes with strings attached.

Tensions flare when the parents decide to form a childcare cooperative in the building rather than coughing up the hefty tuition for a daycare center nearby. Some parents shirk their duties, while others use the opportunity to flirt. There is a lot of obsessing by the young mothers over organic snacks, handmade ointments and procuring expensive British strollers they cannot afford, all of which underscore the impossible expectations that they face.

Unsurprisingly, things don't work out very well for most of the couples in the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments. If this book is at all a reflection of real life, it suggests that South Korea may need some different ideas to encourage people to have more babies.

Apartment Women is a quick read and has a clever conclusion. I liked it a lot and look forward to discovering more books by this talented author.