South Korea is headed for an unprecedented crisis. The reason? Its population is not growing at the rate it should.
In 2021, the Asian country once again registered the lowest birth rate in the world, since the National Statistics Office barely recorded the birth of 260,600 children, 11,800 less than the previous year, the Yonhap agency reported.
Since 2018, the birth rate in South Korea is less than one child per woman. The latest official figures show that this trend, far from reversing, is tending to worsen. Thus, in the last 12 months, women had 0.81 children on average, a figure that represents a decrease of three points compared to 2020, and which also represents the sixth consecutive decrease.
This drop in the birth rate threatens to complicate the problems that the country’s economy is going through, which is barely growing. In the world’s most advanced economies, the average number of children per couple is 1.6; that is, twice as much as in the Asian country.
The causes
In recent years, economic pressure and professional factors have been key in making the decision to have children, experts say.
For the 2021 figures, analysts point to the increasingly high cost of living, the rise in house prices and the impact of the covid pandemic as the main factors that discourage the population from having children.
In the specific case of professional careers, South Korean women have a great education, explains the BBC correspondent in Seoul, Jean Mackenzie, but they are far from having achieved equal conditions at work with respect to men.
“The country has the largest wage gap between men and women of any rich country,” says Mackenzie.
In addition, the fact that housework and childcare continue to fall heavily on them makes it more common for women to stop working after having children or for their careers to stall.
In essence, indicates the BBC correspondent, many women are still forced to choose between having a career or a family. Increasingly they decide they don’t want to sacrifice their careers.
As one woman told the journalist, “we are on a procreation strike.”
“I have no plans to have a child. I don’t want to suffer the physical pain of giving birth or see how my career is harmed,” South Korean Jang Yun-hwa explained in an interview she gave to the BBC in 2018.
“I’d rather live alone and pursue my dreams than be part of a family,” Jang added.
The consequences
Birth rates have “decreased markedly” in the last six decades in the largest and most advanced economies, according to data handled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Countries such as Spain also face similar demographic problems, although the migratory waves registered in recent decades, especially those from Africa and Latin America, have mitigated their effects.
However, the case of South Korea is particular, because the size of their families has shrunk considerably in just a few generations. In the early 1970s, women had an average of four children.
This decrease has caused an aging of the population and the consequent increase in the mortality rate. Since 2020, South Korea has seen its population decline, as the number of deaths is exceeding the number of newborns. Only in May of this year the country registered 28,859 deaths compared to 20,007 births.
Experts maintain that countries need at least two children per couple – a rate of 2.1 – to maintain their population at the same size, without having to resort to immigration.
The decrease in population can generate multiple economic problems. On the one hand, it requires more public spending to respond to the increased demand for health and pension systems, and on the other hand, the decline in the young population also causes labor shortages.
forecasts
Experts warn that South Korea could face a “demographic earthquake” as early as 2030, due to its rapidly aging and declining population.
Studies by the government itself cited by the Yonhap agency affirm that if the situation is not reversed, the population of working age will fall 35% over the next 30 years.
In Latin America, Uruguay faces a demographic challenge similar to that of South Korea. Since 2015, the birth rate of the South American country has gone from 1.9 children per woman to 1.4, and to this must be added the emigration of its young people, a combination that explains why its population has been declining.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-62679545, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-08-25 18:50:05
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