South Korea's birthrate hits record low, deepening population crisis

ISTANBUL

The number of newborns in South Korea hit a new record low in March, worsening the population crisis which faces the fourth-largest economy in Asia, official data showed on Wednesday.

In March, 21,138 babies were born only, which marked an 8.1% decrease compared to the previous year. This represents the lowest number of births recorded for March since the country’s statistical agency began compiling monthly data in 1981.

The declining birth trend in South Korea has been continuing for 88 consecutive months.

The country is grappling with a significant crisis resulting from a low birth rate, as younger generations are choosing to delay or forgo having children due to high housing prices and economic uncertainties.

In the first quarter of 2023, Korea's total fertility rate, which measures the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime, dropped by 0.06% compared to the previous year, reaching a value of 0.81, according to Statistics Korea.

The current fertility rate is considerably below the replacement level of 2.1, which is necessary to maintain a stable population of 51.5 million in South Korea.

To encourage parents for more children, experts suggested reforms to the current education system, which is very expensive and out of reach of many parents.

"There are several factors underlying South Korea’s low birth rate. First, Koreans are typically getting married at older ages due to longer schooling," wrote Andrew Eungi Kim, a professor of international studies at Korea University, in a recent article published by East Asia Forum.

Other factors behind the declining birth rate include a growing number of people staying unmarried due to a lack of financial resources, job security, and parents spending more than $400 per student every month, the professor argued.

"The persistence of an abnormally low fertility rate will have serious consequences for South Korea’s economy," Kim wrote.

He warned that the number of people who are economically active (age between 15 and 64) could fall from 37.4 million in 2015 to 20.6 million in 2065, a significant decline of more than 55% in 50 years.