South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate, a struggle with lessons for us all. A woman holding her daughter looks at a view of Seoul in 2019. The fertility rate in South Korea, which has the world's lowest rate, hit 0.78 in February.
Fertility rates in Asia
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate globally at 0.9 children per woman, closely followed by Puerto Rico at 1.0 and a trio of Malta, Singapore, and the Chinese Special Administrative Region Hong Kong all at 1.1 children per woman.
In 2020-21, the fertility rate was 1.66 babies per woman, similar to the rate recorded in 2018-19. In 2019-20, the rate had fallen to 1.61 babies per woman. According to the report, the data suggests people “adapted to the uncertainty of the pandemic and quickly caught-up on delayed childbearing plans”.
Existing research suggests that economic factors such as income, labor market conditions, as well as socio-cultural factors including changes in the values of education and gender roles, and family and health policy are the main causes of lower fertility rates.
Japan's high cost of living, limited space and lack of child care support in cities make it difficult to raise children, meaning fewer couples are having kids.
Retrieved May 20, 2023, from www.marchofdimes.org/peristats. In the United States, the highest fertility rates (per 1,000 women ages 15-44) during 2018-2020 (average) were to Hispanic women (64.8), followed by blacks (62.6), American Indian/Alaska Natives (60.8), Asian/Pacific Islanders (55.6) and Whites (55.3).
China is facing a population crisis in part due to more women choosing to focus on their careers and personal goals, instead of starting a family. The Chinese government abolished its one-child policy in 2016, and scrapped childbirth limits in 2021 — but married couples are still having fewer children.
South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate, a struggle with lessons for us all. A woman holding her daughter looks at a view of Seoul in 2019. The fertility rate in South Korea, which has the world's lowest rate, hit 0.78 in February.
In the past 20 years, South Korea has recorded some of the lowest fertility and marriage levels in the world. As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021.
The total fertility rate, a measure that gives the average number of children an Australian woman would have during her lifetime should she experience the age-specific fertility rates present at the time was 1.7 births per woman in 2021. This was up from the 1.59 for 2020, the lowest total fertility rate ever reported.
The Australian Academy of Science has recommended that 23 million people would be a safe upper limit for Australia.
Net overseas migration (NOM) has been the major contributor to Australia's annual population growth since 2006–07. The change in NOM to more departures than arrivals slowed Australia's population growth in 2020–21, particularly in locations favoured by overseas migrants such as Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
One study estimated a woman can have around 15 pregnancies in a lifetime. And depending on how many babies she births for each pregnancy, she'd probably have around 15-30 children. But the "most prolific mother ever," according to Guinness World Records, was Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev in 19th century Russia.
It is claimed that Barbara Stratzmann (c. 1448 – 1503) of Bönnigheim, Germany, gave birth to 53 children (38 sons and 15 daughters) in a total of 29 births by 1498. She had one set of septuplets, one set of sextuplets, four sets of triplets and five sets of twins.
According to a local monastery's report to the government in Moscow, between 1725 and 1765 Mrs Vassilyev popped out 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets, over 27 separate labours. The grand total: 69 children.
In addition, would-be parents may have more difficult conceiving as they get older. Larger economic and social forces are also having an impact on birth rates. The birth rate declined significantly during the Great Recession that started in 2008, which is a typical response to an economic downturn.
Indranee Rajah, who serves as minister in the Prime Minister's Office, told a parliamentary committee that the falling fertility rate was because of people marrying later and parents caring for older family members at the same time as children as the population grays.
Young Koreans cite as obstacles the high cost of housing in greater Seoul (home to roughly half the country's 52 million citizens), the expense of raising a child in a hypercompetitive academic culture, and grueling workplace norms that are inhospitable to family life, especially for women, who are still expected to do ...
The one-child policy was a program in China that limited most Chinese families to one child each. It was implemented nationwide by the Chinese government in 1980, and it ended in 2016. The policy was enacted to address the growth rate of the country's population, which the government viewed as being too rapid.
Qatar has the lowest mortality rate in the world at 1.2 deaths per 1,000 people. This low mortality rate can be attributed to Qatar's improved health care system, renowned for its technologically advanced facilities and ability to deliver some of the world's best patient care.
A near-universal one-child limit was imposed in 1980 and written into the country's constitution in 1982. Numerous exceptions were established over time, and by 1984, only about 35.4% of the population was subject to the original restriction of the policy.
World's population could plummet to 6 billion by the end of the century, study suggests. A new model has predicted that Earth's population is likely to decrease in all scenarios across the next century and will peak nowhere near the 11 billion previously forecast.
China is forecast to lose almost half of its people by 2100, plunging from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million inhabitants. Russia, Germany, South Korea and Spain are all set to join this downward movement, with their populations beginning to decline by 2030.