South Korea Sets Record for Lowest Number of First Grade Elementary Students
The decline is students is expected to impact the entire educational industry to include the number of teachers hired in the future:
South Korea is set to record the lowest number of first graders entering elementary school next year, signaling the consequences of an apparent demographic crisis driven by the world’s lowest birth rate.
According to local reports quoting the statistics agency’s birth rate data, fewer than 400,000 children are expected to enter elementary school next year. This will be the first time the number has dropped below 400,000 since the agency started compiling data.
This comes amid a sharp decline in the number of infants born in 2017, who will be entering elementary school in March next year.
Korea Herald
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South Korea will have to halve the conscripted soldiers because it’s running out of men. Conscripting women should also be a priority as well as upping the nuclear option to rely less on manpower for defense.
More than 42% of foreign wives reported having suffered domestic violence — including physical, verbal, sexual, and financial abuse — in a 2017 poll by the National Human Rights Commission.
By comparison, about 29% of South Korean women surveyed by the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family last year said they were victims of domestic violence — again including a range of forms of abuse.
Julia Hollingsworth, Yoonjung Seo and Gawon Bae, CNN
Updated 5:35 AM EDT, Wed August 05, 2020
Given the high cost of living in the ROK, single female parenthood is not really an option.
But if women don’t get married they don’t have babies.
Although the Cambodian Government lifted the ban on marriage to ROK men ten years ago, the ROK birthrate continues to fall.