For the first time in nine years, South Korea’s birthrate has risen, reversing a long-term trend which has seen it decline to record lows.
The country’s fertility rate had fallen for eight consecutive years, making it the only member of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) with a rate below 1.
A birthrate figure denotes the number of children born to each woman within a population in her lifetime. Experts say that a birthrate of 2.1 is required to sustain a population at current levels.
Even neighbouring Japan, which has long been considered to have a particularly aged population, has a birthrate higher than that of South Korea – at 1.2.
So does the latest recorded rise in the birthrate in South Korea signify a turn in the country’s future or is it too early to celebrate?
What has happened to the birthrate in South Korea?
According to the national statistics agency, Statistics Korea, the birthrate (often referred to as the fertility rate) rose to 0.75 in 2024 after hitting an historic low of 0.72 the previous year.
After posting a rate of 1.24 in 2015, eight consecutive years of declining birthrates have resulted in South Korea having the world’s lowest birthrate. Rates vary across the country, however, and the birthrate remains particularly low – just 0.58 percent – in the capital, Seoul, where more than 18 percent of the country’s population live.
The country’s latest national demographics report, released last Wednesday, showed that there were more than 240,000 registered births nationwide last year.
This is a little higher than the previous year’s 235,000 births but remains markedly below the 600,000 to 700,000 births recorded in each year of the 1990s. Furthermore, last year, 120,000 more people died than were born.
A surprise rise in the number of marriages in South Korea may be a cause of the new rise in the birthrate, experts say. There were 14.9 percent more marriages in 2024 compared with the previous year, the biggest spike since records began in 1970.
What effect has the falling birthrate had on the population in South Korea?
The national population has remained essentially flat for several years. It edged down to just more than 51.2 percent last year, after a peak of 51.83 in 2020, as the number of deaths rose by 1.7 percent compared with the previous year.
People in their 50s make up a high proportion of the population, at 17 percent, while children under 10 still make up the smallest proportion, at 6.13 percent.
Both the number of children aged up to 14 and that of the working-age population (ages 15 to 64) fell last year. And as people aged 65 or older rose by 5.41 percent to make up more than 20 percent of the population now, South Korea is now considered a super-aged society.
Why are more South Koreans getting married?
Statistics Korea officials told a news briefing this week that a “rising trend in marriages following the COVID-19 pandemic”, demographic shifts, and changes in social behaviours explain the uptick.
“There was a change in social value, with more positive views about marriage and childbirth,” Park Hyun-jung, an official at Statistics Korea, said at the briefing.
“It is difficult to measure how much each factor contributed to the rise in new births, but they themselves had an impact on each other, too.”
However, the prime driver for the rise in the birth and marriage rate seems to be the increase in the number of people in their early 30s who are considered to be the key childbearing age group.
Consisting of people born between 1991 and 1995, the group is made up of children of second-generation baby boomers born between 1964 and 1974, who are considered the largest single generation in the country, accounting for 18.6 percent of the total population.
Why has South Korea’s birthrate been declining in recent years?
According to officials in the city of Seoul, the high costs of living, an imbalance between work and life and the difficulty in affording quality childcare are some of the main reasons that people say they are delaying or rejecting the idea of marriage and raising children altogether.
In a country where youth unemployment rates have deteriorated sharply in recent years, the number of economically active young people has also declined steadily – a trend that has continued over the past decades.
Despite a very high level of education among young people, more companies are demanding “specs” – or a collection of qualifications, certificates, and other achievements to enhance one’s competitiveness – and work experience, the latter of which is difficult to acquire and complete alongside the demanding South Korean education system.
Even when one is employed, the country has one of the longest work weeks among OECD members at an average of nearly 36 hours per week. As a result, experts say, achieving a satisfying work-life balance has become harder.
What steps has the government taken to address this?
The South Korean government has spent more than 360 trillion won ($270bn) on programmes such as childcare subsidies since 2006, and since 2022, parents have been given a cash payment of two million won ($1,510) upon the birth of a child. From this year, the city of Seoul also plans to give 1 million won ($685) to newlywed couples who register their marriage in the capital.
From this year, new regulations will entitle fathers to 20 days of paid paternity leave.
Before his impeachment in December after declaring emergency martial law in the country, President Yoon Suk Yeol also declared a “national demographic crisis” and a plan to create a new ministry devoted to tackling low birth rates. Measures include increasing parental leave allowances, implementing flexible work hours, extending the age limit for reduced working hours for parents of young children and providing subsidies for employers who hire temporary replacements for employees on parental leave.
Yoon also pledged to increase support for child care and expand after-school programmes at elementary schools to ease the burden on working parents.
South Korea has also attempted programmes aimed at reviving communities with declining fertility rates. In the city of Pyeongtaek, a couple of hours’ drive south of Seoul, for example, newly constructed apartments around the city and job creation schemes including the new Samsung Electronics campus have attracted more families in the region. It is now one of two cities with a population of more than 300,000 that has maintained a fertility rate of more than 1.
In 2022, Seoul rolled out a 6.7 trillion won ($4.58bn) “Birth Support Project” to encourage more marriages and child births in the capital city. This has included reducing costs of living for newlyweds by providing welfare housing and increasing the number of daycare centres.
The government has turned to more imaginative schemes as well. Officials in Seoul, for example, organise get-togethers for single people in the city who find it difficult to find the time or space to meet other single people.
This past Valentine’s Day, the Seoul Metropolitan Government organised an event called “Romance, Art Night”, pairing 50 men and 50 women at a venue in the city. The event was complete with dinner, champagne, “love-themed bingo” and an exercise where the 100 participants gazed into each other’s eyes for 10 seconds. After attracting nearly 2,400 people, the event ended on a high note as half of the participants said they found a partner.
Will the birthrate continue to rise?
Probably not. Cho Eunjoo, an associate professor of sociology at Jeonbuk National University, downplayed the significance of the recent uptick in the country’s birthrate.
In addition to the rate still being 0.75, far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain a country’s population at its current level, she believes the birthrate will decline again in the near future.
“The number of births in the 1990s hovered around 600,000 to 700,000 births a year, but this number just plummets when we go into the 2000s,” Cho told Al Jazeera.
The country experienced a drop in births to the 300,000s per year in 2017 and went into the 200,000s in 2020.
“So, even if the birthrate is maintained to some extent, the number of births will inevitably shrink considerably,” Cho said. “We need to prepare for the various social changes and problems that will arise with this steep decline in population.”
As an example, Cho emphasised that the government needs to prepare for the demands on the national pension in a country that has already reached super-aged society levels.
The government should also be focusing on how the education system will have to adapt to the declining need for schools and teachers in the country, and how regional policies will have to change in rural areas facing risk of extinction.
South Korea’s population, which has hovered around the 50 million mark for some time, is expected to shrink to 36.22 million by 2072, according to the latest projection by Statistics Korea.
Cho also noted that South Korean society has not changed its views on marriage or childbirth, whereas partnerships outside of marriage have made up big portions of birth rates in Western societies since the late 20th century.
“But the most important issue is the fact that the percentage of people in South Korean society who are able to plan or envision their lives in a stable manner is so low,” Cho stated. “People don’t get married or become pregnant because the government tells them to.”
Instead, she said, society must examine why people don’t want to get married or raise children in the first place.
“How do we make it possible for the younger generation to envision their future, to look forward to it, to plan for it.”
