In a survey carried out for the Joongang Ilbo newspaper earlier this year, 27.4 percent of respondents said they believed the burden of childcare costs is the primary reason for low birth rates. Other cited reasons included job insecurity, housing instability and other economic factors.
Marriage and children are more closely linked in South Korea than nearly anywhere else, with just 2.5 percent of children born outside of marriage in 2020, compared with an OECD average of more than 40 percent. For nearly 20 years, the Korean government has tried to encourage more marriages and more babies.
South Korea has had the lowest fertility rate in the world since 2013. The fertility rate is the average number of children born to a woman in her reproductive years. The drop in fertility rates has left countries facing a future of aging populations and shrinking workforces.
Dropping birth rates are a result of a number of reasons, such as growing living expenses, an increase in the number of women in the workforce, as well as easier access to contraception, which encourages women to have fewer children. The declining social and cultural values are a major factor in Japan's low birth rate.
Such a low fertility rate has already made South Korea the most rapidly aging society in the world. The other factor behind the country's rapidly population aging is its rising life expectancy at birth, which was 83.5 years in 2020 — the third highest in the world.
The fertility rate in the United States in 2020 was 56.0 per 1,000 women ages 15-44. Of all live births in the United States during 2018-2020 (average), 23.7% were Hispanic, 52.1% were white, 15.2% were black, 0.8% were American Indian/Alaska Native and 6.8% were Asian/Pacific Islander.
Reasons for poverty
First, public social spending in South Korea is low. Social spending by the government in South Korea was 7.6% of GDP in 2007, compared to the OECD average of 19%. This can be explained by the Korean traditional reliance on family and the private sector to provide such services.
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”.
Angola, Benin, DR Congo, Mali, and Niger have the highest TFR. The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, had an estimated TFR of 4.57 in 2023. The second most populous country, Ethiopia, had an estimated TFR of 3.92 in 2023.
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.
South Korea has smashed its own record for the world's lowest fertility rate again, according to official data. The average number of expected babies per South Korean woman over her reproductive life fell to 0.78 in 2022, down from 0.81 a year earlier, according to data published by Statistics Korea on Wednesday.
The average age at the birth of the first child in South Korea is high compared to other countries. As of 2020, the OECD average was 29.3 years old, while South Korea was 32.3. The US was 27.1, France 28.9, the UK 29.1, and Japan 30.7.
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.
Deforestation. Cultivation, logging, and natural disasters have all put pressure on North Korea's forests. During the economic crisis of the 1990s, deforestation accelerated, as people turned to the woodlands to provide firewood and food.
This is the result of rapid economic growth that initially spawned a nouveau-riche culture of ostentatiously displaying wealth. The economic growth itself is precipitated by status-conscious, affirmation-hungry South Koreans who enjoy showing off their success through material goods.
Many experts blame the two countries' persistently declining birthrates on the lack of gender equality in sharing housework and parental duties.
With a fertility rate of almost 7 children per woman, Niger is the country with the highest fertility rate in the world followed by Mali.
Explanatory models for the decline in birth rates that demographers have identified in the past are linked either to economic trends and the labour market situation or to family policy, says Gunnar Andersson. This correlation has been particularly strong in Sweden.
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.
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.
Australia has experienced a long-term decline in its TFR. Following a long baby boom that culminated in a TFR of 3.56 children per woman in 1961, fertility fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman in 1975, and by 2020 the TFR had fallen to 1.58, its lowest recorded level (Figure 1).
It's no secret that Australians are having fewer children. The latest ABS statistics reveal our fertility rate was 1.7 – well below the so-called replacement rate needed to keep the population growing. The last time our fertility rate was this low we started literally paying people to have babies.
South Korea is the largest shipbuilder in the world. The third largest car manufacturer and a technology hub rival Silicon Valley and Tokyo. These industries helped South Korea to become one of the richest economies in the world. South Korea GDP per capita went from 79 dollars in the 1960s to 34,758 dollars.
After the Korean war, South Korea was one of the world's poorest countries with only $64 per capita income. Economically, in the 1960s it lagged behind the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – currently holding elections marred by violence .
The military government initiated a strong drive for economic growth and population control in 1962, and its efforts were rewarded. Before its economy rose out of its traditional stagnation, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, with few natural resources and rapidly growing population pressures.