Tag: birth rate

Maybe the Korean government’s focus on trying the raise the national birth rate might be having some success if this small statistical is an indication of things to come:

The number of babies born in South Korea rose for the first time in more than eight years in the second quarter of 2024, data showed Wednesday, as the country is grappling with its ultralow birth rate.

A total of 56,838 babies were born in the April-June period, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

It was the first time since the fourth quarter of 2015, when the number went up 0.6 percent.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I had said before that the Filipina caregivers will likely be hired by people who already have caregivers in order to save money. It appears that is what is happening:

Nearly four out of 10 households in Seoul that will hire Filipino caregivers starting in September are located in the affluent southern parts of the capital, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Wednesday.

The hiring of Filipino caregivers by parents in affluent areas under the government’s pilot program aimed at addressing the nation’s low birthrate suggests the initiative may not fully meet its expectations. This trend indicates that the program, intended to offer affordable support through foreign caregivers, might not be effectively reaching all parents as initially hoped.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but something I did not anticipate is that people hiring these Filipina caregivers are also using them as in-house English teachers for their kids.

Here is the life most young South Korean couples have:

Korea’s newlywed couples were burdened with record-high amounts of debt last year while having the least number of babies in history. The number of married couples also decreased by 6.3 percent to 1.03 million in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Korea on Monday. 
  
The statistics agency polled the country’s newlyweds whose marriage registration is less than five years old as of November last year.   
  
The median debt for respondents came to 164.2 million won ($124,600), up 7.3 percentage points from a year ago, with 89 percent of the surveyed couples in debt.

More newlyweds in Korea are falling into the category of DINK (Dual Income No Kid). The majority, or 57.2 percent, of the newlyweds have a dual income, up 2.3 percentage points on year. 
  
The proportion of dual-income households is on the decline with many females quitting their jobs to concentrate on child-rearing. 
  
The average income of dual-income couples stood at 84.3 million won compared to a single-income household with 49.9 million won. 
  
As for children, 46.4 percent of the surveyed couples had no child, marking the highest rate since the data was collected.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but racking up records amount of debt before having kids is a sure way to keep the birth rate low because kids will greatly add to expenses. If the Korean government can find ways to relieve the debt crisis they will likely solve the birth rate crisis at the same time.

From a national security perspective this is not good news because it means a smaller population of young men to conscript to defend the country. Hopefully North Korea, China, and Russia are not even greater threats than they are now in the next 30 years towards the ROK:

The number of young South Koreans is forecast to halve in 30 years amid a rapid aging trend and a record low birthrate, the statistics agency said Monday.

The number of people aged 19-34 came to 10.21 million in 2020, and the figure is forecast to tumble to 5.21 million in 2050, according to the analysis by Statistics Korea.

The proportion of the young population out of the country’s total came to 20.4 percent in 2020, but it is expected to fall to 11 percent in 2050, it added.

The number of young people has been on a steady decline over the past decades from 13.85 million in 1990, accounting for 31.9 percent of the total, to 12.88 million in 2000, 10.97 million in 2010 and 10.21 million in 2020.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

That is what this Bloomberg article is calling for:

Back in Seoul, officials appear more focused on addressing a cyclical slowdown than the broader shift in economic and social life. The Bank of Korea is on its way to zero interest rates and fiscal taps are being opened to buttress slowing activity. Yet only policies that create more people have a prayer.

That’s why immigration has to be part of the solution. Foreigners make up about 3.7% of South Korea’s population, according to an OECD report in January. While that’s low by global standards, the good news is that this proportion is growing fast. During a recent cross-country trip, I noticed that few of the servers at restaurants were local. Vietnamese, Chinese and South Asians took orders and whisked food to tables. “Without foreigners, work won’t get done,” Lee, the shop owner, explained. “Korean young people won’t do it; the few that are left here don’t want to do physical work.”

Many immigrants work in manufacturing, construction and retail, filling gaps left by aging locals. The risk is that foreigners get hemmed into low-paying jobs. Korea has attracted a lot of students from abroad in the past decade, but only 15% of graduates remain. More needs to be done to retain this talent.

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.

This is the nearly empty infant unit of a hospital in Seoul on Feb. 22, 2017, when Statistics Korea announced that the number of babies born in 2016 reached 406,300, the lowest since 1970 when the statistics agency started to compile such data. (Yonhap)

That is what this grandmother writing in the Korea Times believes:

It seems true that 50 percent of marriages end up in divorce. A Korean friend of mine in New York told me that her daughter, 45, is in a divorce suit after 25 years of marriage after having two children who are now in high school. The American husband told his wife that he wanted a divorce because she does not contribute at home while he has to work hard. He thinks it’s not fair.

In Korea too, men are beginning to think that having a wife is quite expensive. And raising children, the product and main purpose of a marriage, is even more expensive. Young men are scared of having a wife and it has pushed many youngsters into marrying later resulting in a low birth rate which Korean and Japanese governments are concerned will mean their countries lose national competitiveness.

Actually it’s not a wife’s responsibility but blame should go to the profit seeking enterprises that first supplied all those kitchen appliances: refrigerator, kimchi fermenting machine, microwave ovens, automatic rice cooker, dishwasher, and so on. Then again there’s the food producers who sell a pantry full of canned foods, instant foods, ramen and instant noodles. The simplified cooking appliances and the factory produced foods have pushed women out of their kitchen.

Now it takes less than 15 minutes to prepare a family dinner and men who were reluctant to lift a finger now can easily do kitchen chores. So too do children who make their lunch or a snack without the help of their mother. Women have lost their status as a housewife.

It wasn’t always like that. When I married 54 years ago, I was the most important member of the family holding full control over the kitchen and laundry affairs. I knew the whole family would starve or wear dirty clothes for a month if I got sick or went on strike. Men didn’t know even know how to fire the hearth, not to mention boil rice without burning it or prepare side dishes.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think the biggest reason for a low birth rate is the cost of education in Korea. It is absolutely ridiculous when the costs for hagwons are factored into raising kids.  As far as the divorce rate that has more to do with women not being locked into poor marriage survive anymore.  If their husbands are treating them poorly women now have the option leave and still be able to support themselves without the husband.  I don’t think living without modern appliances is going to do much to lower the divorce rate in Korea, but cooking a home cook meal and having dinner together as a family would definitely help.