South Korea Issues Update on Yearslong Birth Rate Crisis

South Korea’s births ticked upward in 2024 for the first time in nine years, according to Seoul earlier this week, but the country’s long-term demographic outlook remains grim.

Newsweek has reached out to the South Korean embassy in Washington, D.C., with an emailed request for comment.

Why It Matters

South Korean authorities consider the birth rate—the lowest in the world—to be a national emergency, and the more than $200 billion allocated for initiatives since 2006 has done little to reverse the trend.

Making matters worse is the country’s rapidly aging population. In December, official statistics show South Korea had officially joined Japan as a fellow “super-aged” society, the United Nations’ term for countries where people aged 65 and older exceed 20 percent of the population.

What To Know

The East Asian country posted 240,000 births last year, according to preliminary estimates, boosting the country’s fertility rate to 0.75 from 0.72 in 2023. A fertility rate of 2.1 births expected per woman’s lifetime is considered necessary to sustain a population.

This modest increase marked the first annual increase since 2015 and slightly exceeded projections of 0.74. Births rose for five consecutive months starting in June. The country’s statistics agency has cited the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed marriages and in turn births, as the driving factor.

What People Are Saying

Joo Hyung-hwan, vice chairman South Korea’s Presidential Committee on Low Birthrate and Aging Society: “In the November ’24 population trend released yesterday, the number of births increased by 14.6 percent year-on-year, continuing the upward trend for the fifth consecutive month, and the cumulative number of births from January to November was also 3 percent higher than the previous year, and the rebound in the number of births for the first time in nine years is assured.”

He added: “[This year] will be an important year in which we should further consolidate the momentum of the reversal of the low birthrate and at the same time lay the foundation for our society to have a soft landing in response to the super-aged society that began on December 23 last year.”

David Coleman, emeritus professor and associate member at Oxford University’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention: “[South Koreans] have to take the pressure off of work […] and calm down about education. No matter how much people study, only 10 percent get into the best universities. Women’s lives and marriages need to be more comfortable. As one of my colleagues always says, take care of women’s interests and the population will take care of itself. If that doesn’t happen, the population problem will not be solved. It has nothing to do with huge subsidies or throwing money at them.”

What Happens Next?

Joo pointed out that the population is set to age even faster over the next 15 years, with the proportion of elderly expected to be a whopping 37 percent by 2045.

Statistics Korea announced a number of initiatives for the short and long term, including expanding care service for the elderly and “strengthening job linkages” between companies and universities in a bid to improve the productivity of the dwindling future generations.