Grim situation of Birth Rates in South Korea

South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, and it continues to plummet, beating its own staggeringly low record year after year. The rate fell by another 8% in 2023 to 0.72.

How grim is this situation?

• Globally, developed countries are seeing birth rates fall, but none in such an extreme way as South Korea.
• In 50 years time, the number of working age people will have halved, the pool eligible to take part in the country's mandatory military service will have shrunk by 58%, and nearly half the population will be older than 65.
• This bodes so badly for the country's economy, pension pot, and security that politicians have declared it "a national emergency".
• What South Korean government is doing to solve the problem?
  • Financial incentives: Couples who have children are showered with cash, from monthly handouts to subsidised housing and free taxis. Hospital bills and even IVF treatments are covered, though only for those who are married.
  • Creative solutions: hiring nannies from South East Asia and paying them below minimum wage, and exempting men from serving in the military service if they have three children before turning 30.

Why South Koreans aren’t having Babies?

• Career vs family: Korean women are the most highly educated of those in OECD countries, and yet the country has the worst gender pay gap and a higher-than-average proportion of women out of work compared to men. They are being presented with a trade-off - have a career or have a family. Increasingly, they are choosing a career.
• Discrimination at workplace: Discrimination against working mothers by employers is also absurdly common.
• Huge pressure of earning: More than half the population live in or around the capital Seoul, which is where the vast majority of opportunities are, creating huge pressure on apartments and resources.
• High cost of private education: From the age of four, children are sent to an array of expensive extra-curricular classes - from math and English, to music and Taekwondo. This has made it the most expensive country in the world to raise a child.
• Ambitions over role of mother: Over the past 50 years, Korea's economy has developed at break-neck speed, propelling women into higher education and the workforce, and expanding their ambitions, but the roles of wife and mother have not evolved at nearly the same pace.
• IVF, not an option: Same-sex marriage is illegal in South Korea, and unmarried women are not generally permitted to use sperm donors to conceive.

Gender, rather than race or age or immigration status, has become the country’s sharpest social fault line.

What are going to be the long-term impacts?

• Aging populations and shrinking workforces: The drop in fertility rates has left countries facing a future of aging populations and shrinking workforces.
• Burdening economy: It will make it harder for governments to care for older people as they continue to make up a larger share of the population.
• Slower economic growth: Fewer young adults working means slower economic growth.

Way forward (Finding the right balance)

• While falling fertility rates have become the norm in most developed countries, there are still important lessons to take from nations that have managed to avoid dramatic declines.
  • France boasts the highest fertility rate in the European Union at 1.8, while Denmark continues to see fertility rates more than double that of Korea at 1.67.