South Korea is heading for an unprecedented crisis. The reason? Its population is not growing at the rate it should.
In 2021, the Asian country once again recorded the lowest birth rate in the world: the National Statistics Office recorded the birth of 260,600 children, 11,800 fewer than in 2020.
As of 2018, the birth rate in South Korea is less than one child per woman. The latest official figures show that this trend, far from reversing, should increase. In the last 12 months, women had an average of 0.81 children — a decrease for the sixth year in a row.
This drop in the birth rate threatens to complicate the problems facing the country’s barely growing economy. In the world’s most advanced economies, the average number of children per couple is 1.6 — that is, twice as many as in the Asian country. In Brazil, 1.72.
The causes
In recent years, economic pressure and professional issues have been instrumental in deciding whether or not to have children, experts say.
Considering data from 2021, analysts point to an increasingly high cost of living, rising property prices and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as factors that discourage the population from having children.
In the specific case of careers, South Korean women have a great education, explains the BBC’s Seoul correspondent, Jean Mackenzie. But they are far from having achieved equality of working conditions with men.
“The country has the biggest wage gap between men and women of any rich country,” says Mackenzie.
In addition, the fact that housework and child care continue to fall more heavily on them makes it a frequent situation that women stop working after having children or that their careers come to a halt.
In essence, points out the BBC correspondent, many women are still forced to choose between having a career or a family. More and more, they choose the first option.
As one woman told the journalist, “we are on strike to have babies.”
“I have no plans to have a child. I don’t want to suffer the physical pain of giving birth or my career being jeopardized,” South Korea’s Jang Yun-hwa explained in an interview with the BBC in 2018.
“I’d rather live alone and follow my dreams than be part of a family,” she added at the time.
Its consequences
Over the past six decades, birth rates have “decreased sharply” in the most advanced economies, according to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Countries like Spain also face similar demographic problems, although the migratory waves registered in recent decades, especially from Africa and Latin America, have mitigated their effects.
However, the case of South Korea is particular because the size of families has decreased considerably in just a few generations. In the early 1970s, women in the country had an average of four children.
This decrease has caused an aging of the population and the consequent increase in the mortality rate.
Since 2020, South Korea has seen its population decline as the number of deaths is outnumbering newborns. In May this year alone, the country recorded 28,859 deaths against 20,007 births.
Experts warn that South Korea could face a “demographic earthquake” from 2030 onwards, due to its declining and rapidly aging population. They maintain that countries need at least two children per couple — a rate of 2.1 — to keep the population the same size, not considering immigration.
The decrease in population can bring many economic problems. On the one hand, it requires more public spending to respond to the increased demand for health and pension systems and, on the other hand, the decline of the young population causes a shortage of labor.
Studies by the South Korean government itself cited by the Yonhap agency say that if the situation in the country is not reversed, the working-age population will fall by 35% over the next 30 years.
This text was originally published here
