SEOUL – The number of deaths in South Korea has exceeded the number of babies born there last year for the first time in the country’s history, which has led to calls for stronger policies and incentives to renew demographic growth and sustain the economy.
Births in 2020 fell 10.65% compared to the previous year at 275,815, while deaths increased 3.1% to 307,764, according to the census of the Ministry of Interior and Security of South Korea. South currently stands at 51,839,408.
“This drop in population is an extremely dire situation,” Jung Choun-sook, a women’s rights activist and a member of the National Assembly of South Korea, told ABC News.
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate of any nation in the world, at 0.84, meaning that less than one child is born to the mother. The global average is about 2.4 children, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
“In South Korean society, weddings and births cost a considerable amount of money. Therefore, financial charges are a big factor,” Cho Youngtae, professor of demography at Seoul National University in the capital of South Korea, told ABC. News. “The economic situation worsened with the pandemic, the future is even more uncertain, which means fewer marriages”.
Marriages registered across the country last year fell 9% compared to the previous year, according to data from Statistics Korea, indicating that birth rates this year are likely to fall more than in 2020.
Analysts like Eun Ki-Soo, head of the Population Association of Korea, said that the reasons why South Korean society records such bleak birth rates are complex, but that, fundamentally, boil down to the financial uncertainties that young South Koreans face in the future.
“Economic growth has staggered, there are fewer jobs, poverty has increased and housing shortages. All of this has generally affected the population to decline in recent decades,” he told ABC News.
In fact, 70.9% of young people over 19 in South Korea depend on their parents to provide housing, according to a 2020 survey conducted by online recruitment company SaraminHR. Only 29.9% of newlyweds last year were able to pay for housing during the first year of marriage, with many supported by their parents, according to data from Statistics Korea. Property prices have skyrocketed to record levels, and it is estimated that it will take more than 15 years to buy a medium-priced home, even if all your income is saved, according to the Korea Real Estate Board’s projection last year.
“The fact that marriage and childbirth leads to a disadvantage in promoting or transferring people at work prevents me from forming a family,” said Kim Dongkyu, a 30-year-old plastic surgeon who is determined to remain single.
Even if a couple gets married, planning a family is a far-fetched dream in modern South Korea, where people spend mercilessly on raising their children. In 2019, more than $ 19 billion was spent on private education, in addition to regular school classes, according to the South Korean Ministry of Education. Three out of four elementary, middle and high school students received some form of extracurricular private education. On average, parents spend about $ 300 on tutoring after a child’s school each month.
In an effort to combat falling marriage and birth rates, the South Korean government has implemented a number of policies and initiatives, including cash incentives. As of 2022, each pregnant woman will receive 1 million won ($ 919.5) and 2 million won ($ 1,839.1) at birth. And if both parents opt for parental leave in the first year of birth, each parent will receive 3 million won ($ 2,758.6) for three months. The benefits expand to families with several children, with subsidies offered for university education.
But Eunjin Shin, a 33-year-old bank teller in Seoul, told ABC News that “no one I know makes the decision to have children based on government policies.” She gave birth to her second child last year.
“My district gave me $ 275 for my second child, although nothing for my first child,” said Shin. “Monthly allowances barely cover the cost of diapers, and we overpay for a nanny from a completely separate pocket.”
For a young mother of two who works, like Kim Hojeong, these cash bonuses barely cover what she pays to the nanny – about $ 2,000 a month.
“The government grant helps buy hundreds of baby products, but it will never solve the low birth rate,” Hojeong told ABC News. “What we want is an environment with flexible working hours and accessible public daycare that you can trust.”
Hakyung Kate Lee, Aaron Kwon and Haley HyunJoo Yang from ABC News contributed to this report.