A lady holding her daughter seems to be at a view of Seoul in 2019. The fertility fee in South Korea, which has the world’s lowest fee, hit 0.78 in February.

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

cover caption

toggle caption

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

A lady holding her daughter seems to be at a view of Seoul in 2019. The fertility fee in South Korea, which has the world’s lowest fee, hit 0.78 in February.

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Yun-Jeong Kim grew up imagining what her future household would appear to be — married with a number of youngsters, a pleasant residence and a canine. But when the lease on her condominium in Seoul, South Korea, grew to become an excessive amount of to afford, she discovered herself someplace she’d by no means imagined: 31 years outdated and residing again at residence together with her youthful brother and their dad and mom.

Kim, a product designer and artwork teacher, calls her hopes of sooner or later having kids “just a fantasy” — particularly now, when housing prices are hovering, the job market is oversaturated and marriage charges are plummeting.

“I can’t believe that [not having children] is the current situation in Korea,” she mentioned. “But this is the reality.”

It’s a actuality that has left the nation with the bottom fertility fee on the planet since 2013. Across South Korea, ladies are selecting to have fewer kids — or none in any respect — as they take care of an increase in the price of residing that has hit younger folks disproportionately onerous. At the identical time, marriage charges are down more than 35%, in keeping with the final 10 years of accessible information, as extra South Koreans are more and more prioritizing work over beginning a household.

In South Korea, the fertility fee — the typical variety of kids born to a girl in her reproductive years — is now 0.78, in keeping with figures released by the Korean authorities in February. It may very well be years earlier than the nation can attain the 2.1 rate that specialists say is required for a rustic to take care of a secure inhabitants with out migration.

South Korea is much from alone. In 2020, the United States noticed 43 states register their lowest fertility charges in not less than three many years. And the U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2034, folks 65 and older will outnumber these beneath the age of 18 for the primary time in U.S. historical past. In January, China additionally recorded its first inhabitants decline in many years.

The drop in fertility charges has left nations dealing with a way forward for growing old populations and shrinking workforces. Fewer younger adults working means slower financial progress, which is able to make it tougher for governments to look after older folks as they proceed to make up a bigger share of the inhabitants.

South Korea has moved aggressively to stem the decline in births, and its actions present a mannequin for steps different governments can take to deal with the problem. But its ongoing struggles additionally illustrate the complexity of a problem that’s solely changing into extra salient around the globe.

The limits of huge spending

South Korea has invested closely to stem what’s now a seven-year decline within the nationwide fertility fee, however it hasn’t made a lot distinction. President Yoon Suk Yeol mentioned in September that the federal government has poured more than $200 billion into packages to assist new moms up to now 16 years alone, solely to look at the fertility fee drop greater than 25% in that point span.

At the middle of the federal government response is a pledge to increase the stipend given to oldsters with a toddler beneath the age of 1 from 300,000 gained per thirty days (about $230) to 1 million gained ($765) by 2024.

The nation’s youngster care insurance policies are additionally among the many finest on the planet, in keeping with UNICEF, and proceed to broaden. The authorities announced plans in January to extend the paid parental depart interval from one yr to a year-and-a-half. The U.S., by comparability, has no nationwide paid depart plan, and solely about 35% of workers are employed at firms that provide any paid parental depart.

So why does the fertility fee proceed to drop?

One downside is that the federal government’s method is a “Band-Aid solution,” mentioned Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow on the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies.

“The child care subsidies, the leaves — these are all things you can visibly see and argue ‘Yes, we are making these attempts,'” he mentioned. “But dealing with the structural problems that aren’t directly related to fertility, that’s a big ship to turn around.”

Among the thorniest points is the lack of affordable housing — significantly in main cities like Seoul which were drawing rising numbers of younger folks from the countryside with prospects of higher academic and job alternatives.

People of their 20s and 30s typically say, “I’ll have kids once I have my own place,” in keeping with Jessica Ryu, a 27-year-old Korean citizen who’s pursuing a postdoctoral diploma in communications within the U.S.

But with a lot competitors for an condominium in Seoul — the place 18% of South Korea’s population is concentrated — younger persons are discovering it troublesome to afford a spot of their very own, and subsequently, begin a household.

Ryu recalled a dialog together with her older cousin about her struggles to lift two kids, 5 and seven years outdated, in Seoul. Her cousin mentioned she would somewhat the federal government arrange extra day care facilities than give her a few hundred {dollars} a month, which she mentioned will not be sufficient to cowl necessities like diapers and meals.

Success could hinge on altering attitudes about household and work

This image taken in December 2017 exhibits child garments displayed at a child honest in Seoul. Rapid financial progress over a number of many years has seen South Korea’s GDP increase, however delivery charges have gone in the wrong way.

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP through Getty Images

cover caption

toggle caption

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP through Getty Images

This image taken in December 2017 exhibits child garments displayed at a child honest in Seoul. Rapid financial progress over a number of many years has seen South Korea’s GDP increase, however delivery charges have gone in the wrong way.

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP through Getty Images

South Korea has one of many longest workweeks of any of the 38 member nations that make up the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). If the nation needs to enhance its fertility fee, officers want to begin by addressing what economist Lyman Stone calls an overarching tradition round “workism.”

Stone has studied world attitudes towards work and found that nations the place folks place a excessive significance on work and derive extra private worth from their job are related to decrease fertility charges.

“There’s a sense [in South Korea] that, particularly for men but increasingly for women as well, that your contribution in the office is really what makes you a person of status and standing in society, even more than in America,” mentioned Stone, a analysis fellow on the Institute for Family Studies.

But in Korea, the place ladies maintain solely about 21% of managerial positions and 5% of executive posts, specialists say it isn’t solely tougher for girls to ascend in management, however to additionally survive within the workforce once they have a toddler.

Yeo mentioned some ladies could really feel averse to taking depart in concern of constructing managers and associates resentful about how which may decrease productiveness, given the nation’s hyper-competitive enterprise tradition.

“If you’ve been gone a year-and-a-half, people may not treat you the same way,” he mentioned. “Women who take time off may not necessarily return to work, or if they do, they may feel a stigma.”

For Ryu, she mentioned having kids will not be value sacrificing her profession.

“The reality is that one of the parents has to resign from work or take a long break, but the problem is, it’s almost always the female or the mom who has to take a leave,” she mentioned.

The entrenched patriarchy has set expectations for girls to bear the brunt of kid rearing and family chores, Stone says, making the concept of elevating kids even much less interesting to many ladies of their 20s and 30s.

While Ryu hopes to get married sooner or later, Kim mentioned she has dominated out each marriage and youngsters. She blames deeply rooted gender roles in Korea that depart many ladies sacrificing extra of their private life in marriage than males.

“My mother had three children in her early to mid-20s and I hated seeing her struggle just to take care of us,” Kim mentioned. “The family culture in Korea is still very patriarchal, and based on the reality I saw, everything incurs a loss [for the woman] and I don’t want to do that.”

Anti-feminist sentiments in South Korea are additional complicating the fertility subject, in keeping with the journalist Hawon Jung, creator of the #MeToo motion e-book Flowers of Fire. She says that Yoon’s anti-feminist stance, together with his plan to abolish the nation’s gender equality ministry, are exacerbating the gender conflict in South Korea and countering efforts to resolve the fertility subject.

“Although no previous governments in South Korea managed to reverse the downward trend in fertility rates for the past decade, the current government’s policies could make it even more difficult to tackle the issue than it already is,” she mentioned.

The declining marriage fee might be seen as one results of the intense workism tradition, coupled with ongoing gender points in Korea, specialists say.

“[The Korean government] successfully discouraged nonmarital fertility, but they’ve also very successfully discouraged marriage,” Stone mentioned.

And stigma in opposition to having kids outdoors of marriage has left Korea with one of many lowest out-of-wedlock birth rates within the OECD. Korea noticed 2.5% of births outdoors marriage in 2020; the U.S., by comparability, recorded 40.5% of births out of wedlock that yr.

Finding the correct steadiness

While falling fertility charges have turn out to be the norm in most developed nations, specialists say there are nonetheless essential classes to take from nations which have managed to keep away from dramatic declines.

France boasts the best fertility fee within the European Union at 1.8, whereas Denmark continues to see fertility charges greater than double that of Korea at 1.67.

Driving that success, specialists say, is an important interaction between attitudes about work and household.

France and Denmark have lengthy been touted for gender egalitarian attitudes that make them extra forgiving locations for working ladies who additionally wish to have kids. Both nations had been among the many high 10 nations for working ladies in 2022, whereas Korea ranked final, in keeping with The Economist journal’s glass ceiling index. The U.S. was 19, under the OECD common.

Work hours and general attitudes towards work in Denmark and France are additionally way more lax than in South Korea, in keeping with Stone. OECD information exhibits that solely 6% of the Denmark workforce and 10% of the French workforce work greater than 50 hours every week, in comparison with 19% in South Korea.

Then there’s Latvia and Hungary, the place fertility charges have risen greater than 20% since 2010. Latvia’s case exhibits how typically bettering the fertility subject requires some luck. The Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia has attributed the rise to a era born throughout a child increase within the Eighties that has now reached the standard age of marriage and childbearing.

But not all nations with traditionally excessive fertility charges are discovering it simple to keep away from a steep decline.

Denmark’s Nordic neighbors of Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden have seen a number of the largest share drops in fertility charges since 2010, in keeping with an evaluation of OECD information. Stone mentioned the drop is related to attitudes additionally changing into extra work-centric.

By addressing work cultures, Stone believes nations with declining populations can increase fertility charges. And nowhere is that extra essential than in Korea, he says.

“[The Korean government] successfully achieved some of the fastest economic growth in human history and the price has been that there isn’t a next generation to inherit it,” Stone mentioned.