Korea and Japan are both developed countries with the lowest birth rates. Both nations have set various policies and benefits to persuade people to have more children; with some programs more successful than others. Pregnant women may sit in the reserved seating as it is for the elderly, the injured, pregnant women, or mothers with small children. But as these seats are frequently filled with retirees, some subway operators have created new seats specifically for expecting mothers. A similiar system of general reserved seating and pregnant reserved seating has been setup in some city buses as well.

The seats reserved exclusively for pregnant women are the single end seat on the larger bench seating in the middle section of cars. Notice there is a sticker above the seat on the very left and there is also a very large pink Korean language sticker on the floor where people rest their feet. There are several versions of these floor stickers with different kinds of writing.

Taking a closer look at the sticker on the wall, we see the Korean phrase 임산부 먼저 (姙産婦 먼저, imsanbu meonjeo) which means “pregnant women have priority.” Technically, this means anyone can sit in these seats, but as soon as a pregnant woman approaches, the seated party must give up their seat. In real life, it is dependent on the social awareness and kindness of people who sit in these seats who are not pregnant.

In order to clearly identify who is pregnant from who isn’t, there are special tags that expecting mothers can attach to their bags. It does not matter if there are no visible signs of pregnancy; if you see this badge, you need to give up your seat.

If you are pregnant, you can get one of these badges at your local government “gu” or “dong” center, i.e. county or district, respectively. Alternatively, some larger subway stations are rumored to have these badges as well. To make sure the system is not abused, they will want to confirm you are pregnant. This is easiest done by bringing a note from your gynecologist which states you are pregnant.

Another common sticker declaring a seat is reserved for those who are pregnant looks like this. It is written in several languages and has the icon we saw on the badge above.

Although this sticker on the wall is translated, the stickers on the floor are not. We also see another example of a standard seat which does not look different from the others, and beneath that we see a specialized seat with pink and the other pregnant symbol to help people know it is reserved.

Several subway lines have also placed tethered teddy bears on these reserved seats as an additional social cue and indicator that this is to be used by pregnant women. In practicality, there have been some complaints as these teddy bears need to take up space on the lap of a pregnant woman.

While it is common for there is be sign built into the floor in front of safety screen doors for the general reserved seating, it is not normal for there to be a clear sign for these pregnant seats. Here is an instance found in Daejeon.

Multiple years after starting pregnant reserved seating in subways, the general public still was not very aware of the system, leading to campaigns telling people of its existence and contests to raise awareness. Here is an example of one such campaign and contest from 2019. If you want to read the words more clearly, click the image to see a larger size.