South Korea has set a new low for the world's lowest fertility rate, marking yet another grim milestone. CNN reported that as a result of this, the nation has once more broken its own record for the lowest fertility rate in the world.
According to statistics released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the average number of babies a South Korean woman expects to have during her lifetime decreased to 0.78 from 0.81. The number of newborns decreased from 260,600 the previous year to 249,000 the previous year, or less than 5% of the population. Among the more than 260 countries that the World Bank monitors, this is the lowest.
CNN reports that countries need a 2.1 fertility rate to keep their population stable. The South East Asian nation's birth rate has been declining since 2015, but for the first time since 2020, there have been more deaths than births.
According to projections from the United Nations and data from the World Bank, the nation also has the fastest-shrinking population of any economy whose per capita gross domestic product is at least US$30,000.
The country has spent billions of dollars annually on childcare subsidies, but the government has not been able to stop the decline in birthrate. In an effort to halt the declining birth rate, the government has spent 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the past 16 years.
Fears that a declining population could severely harm the South Korean economy as a result of a workforce shortage have been stoked by the declining birth rate.
The high cost of housing, gender and social inequality, low levels of social mobility, and the enormous cost of raising children in a highly competitive and expensive education system are some of the reasons given for the low fertility rate. Additionally, Korean women have children later in life. Likewise, lodging costs have additionally flooded.
Economists say that South Korea needs to do more to make gender equality better so that women don't worry so much about losing their jobs because they have kids.
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