SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s fertility rate, already the lowest in the world, has fallen to a record low in 2023 despite billions of dollars invested by the country to try to reverse the trend.
According to Statistics Korea data released Wednesday, the fertility rate rose last year to 0.72 children per South Korean woman on average, compared to 0.78 in 2022.
As of 2018, South Korea is the only member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to have a rate below 1.
The South Korean government has made lowering the birth rate a national priority and promised in December to take “extraordinary measures” to remedy the situation.
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Since then, and with elections looming in April, South Korea’s main political parties have promised to increase the number of social housing units and make it easier to grant credit in an attempt to stem demographic decline and avoid a “national extinction” as fertility rates decline.
The importance of demographic measures in the electoral programs reflects the growing concern in the country, which, despite more than 360,000 billion won (249 billion euros) in subsidies paid since 2006, has failed to boost the fertility rate.
South Koreans consider marriage a prerequisite for having children, but the number of marriages is also declining because they are considered too expensive.
South Korea is not the only country in the region to face a rapidly aging population. Japan’s fertility rate fell to 1.26 in 2022, while China posted a rate of 1.09, the lowest for either country.
In South Korea, the fertility rate was lowest in Seoul, the capital, at 0.55.
South Korea has already predicted that its fertility rate will fall further to 0.68 in 2024.
(Written by Jihoon Lee, French version Corentin Chappron, edited by Kate Entringer)
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