South Korea Still Becomes the World-lowest Fertility Rate
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Women also find it hard to maintain job security and wages after coming back from childcare.
South Korea has the highest share of late-middle-aged women with temporary jobs in the OECD, a factor that feeds into the worst gender wage gap in the developed world.
The challenge of declining populations isn’t unique to South Korea. Aging is increasing the fiscal burden in other developed countries, spurring concerns over long-term debt sustainability, reducing spending on infrastructure and eventually hurting the quality of life.
A separate report by the UN Population Fund showed South Korea ranked second lowest at 0.9 in fertility, just after Hong Kong at 0.8.
The UN and Statistics Korea use different modeling methods with South Korea basing its figure on actual population statistics rather than projections.
Still, among nations with larger populations, South Korea’s population crisis is acute. A Statistics Korea forecast last year projected the population in 2072 would fall to 36.2 million, a 30% decline from the current 51 million.
Other moves by the government to address the country’s demographic challenges, include a tripling of monthly allowances for parents of newborns and a reduction of mortgage interest rates.
South Korea also plans to ease regulations on hiring foreign nannies to boost the limited options available for childcare.
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