S. Korea in demographic crisis as birthrate falls

SEOUL — Back in the day, Yoo Young-yi's grandmother gave birth to six children. Her mother birthed two, and Yoo does not want any.

"My husband and I like babies so much … but there are things that we'd have to sacrifice if we raised kids," said Yoo, a 30-year-old financial company employee in Seoul. "So it's become a matter of choice between two things, and we've agreed to focus more on ourselves."

There are many like Yoo in South Korea who have chosen either not to have children or not to marry. Other advanced countries have similar trends, but South Korea's demographic crisis is much worse.

South Korea's statistics agency announced in September that the total fertility rate — the average number of babies born to each woman in their reproductive years — was 0.81 last year. That is the world's lowest for the third consecutive year.

The population shrank for the first time last year, stoking worry that a declining population could severely damage the economy — the world's 10th largest — because of labor shortages and greater welfare spending as the number of older people increases and the number of taxpayers shrinks.

Many young South Koreans say that, unlike their parents and grandparents, they do not feel an obligation to have a family. They cite the uncertainty of a bleak job market, expensive housing, gender and social inequality, low levels of social mobility and the huge expense of raising children in a brutally competitive society.

Choi Yoon-kyung, an expert at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education, said many people who fail to enter good schools and land decent jobs feel they have become "dropouts" who "cannot be happy" even if they marry and have children because South Korea lacks advanced social safety nets.

United Nations figures show a South Korean woman gave birth to about four to six children in the 1950s and 1960s on average, three to four in the 1970s, and less than two in the mid-1980s.

South Korea has been offering a variety of incentives and other support programs for those who give birth to many children.

But Choi said the fertility rate has been falling too fast to see any tangible effects. During a government task force meeting last month, officials said they would soon formulate comprehensive measures to cope with demographic challenges.

Agencies Via Xinhua