South Korea Breaks Its Own Record For World's Lowest Fertility Rate

South Korea is officially the country with the lowest birth rate in the world—for the second year in a row. As every year passes by, new statistics and records are calculated for every country based on the ebbs and flows based on their respective populations. 

Back in 2020, South Korea became the country with the lowest fertility rate, trumping countries like Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, and even China who has instilled limiting child-bearing policies since 2015, however all of them have been dropped by July of last year. 

The statistics came in just last week, where it was recorded that South Korea’s official fertility rate had dropped to an average 0.81 children born per woman—0.03% less than the previous year. The fact that can be a cause for concern is that for there to be stable population growth, the average country should maintain a fertility rate of about 2.1. To add to that, women in South Korea are also tending to have children later in life, with the average South Korean woman having her first child at 33.4 years old, which would be 0.2 years older than the previous year. 

With all of this in mind, South Korea has been dealing with what is called a “population death cross” since 2020. This basically means that in South Korea, there have been more deaths recorded than births since 2020. This, on top of the several other statistics that point to a declining population, is the clearest way to know whether a country’s number of inhabitants is shrinking. With a population where the number of elders surpasses the number of working class folks (people between the ages of 15-64), there is a high concern over there not being enough working-age people to support its growing elderly population. 

With women not having the time, money, or emotional capacity to partake in dating or building a family due to the ever-competitive job market, patriarchal culture, and because of their encounters with workplace inequality. Therefore, the South Korean government is introducing many measures to attempt to reverse the declining fertility rate by allowing both parents to take parental leave as well as extending paid parental leave for all parents of all genders. “New baby vouchers” are being handed out by authorities to encourage parents to have more children, as well as social campaigns encouraging men to take on more active roles in childcare and housework.

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