A lady holding her daughter seems 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 Pictures

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A lady holding her daughter seems 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 Pictures

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. However when the lease on her condo in Seoul, South Korea, turned an excessive amount of to afford, she discovered herself someplace she’d by no means imagined: 31 years outdated and dwelling again at residence together with her youthful brother and their dad and mom.

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

“I can not imagine that [not having children] is the present state of affairs in Korea,” she stated. “However that is the truth.”

It is a actuality that has left the nation with the bottom fertility fee on this planet since 2013. Throughout 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 dwelling that has hit younger individuals disproportionately onerous. On the identical time, marriage charges are down greater than 35%, in response to the final 10 years of accessible knowledge, as extra South Koreans are more and more prioritizing work over beginning a household.

In South Korea, the fertility fee — the common variety of kids born to a girl in her reproductive years — is now 0.78, in response to figures launched by the Korean authorities in February. It may very well be years earlier than the nation can attain the 2.1 fee that consultants say is required for a rustic to keep up a steady inhabitants with out migration.

South Korea is way from alone. In 2020, america noticed 43 states register their lowest fertility charges in not less than three many years. And the U.S. Census Bureau initiatives that by 2034, individuals 65 and older will outnumber these below 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 getting old populations and shrinking workforces. Fewer younger adults working means slower financial progress, which is able to make it more durable for governments to take care of older individuals 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 difficulty. However its ongoing struggles additionally illustrate the complexity of a problem that’s solely changing into extra salient world wide.

The boundaries of massive 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 stated in September that the federal government has poured greater than $200 billion into applications to help new moms previously 16 years alone, solely to observe the fertility fee drop greater than 25% in that point span.

On the heart of the federal government response is a pledge to improve the stipend given to oldsters with a baby below the age of 1 from 300,000 gained per 30 days (about $230) to 1 million gained ($765) by 2024.

The nation’s little one care insurance policies are additionally among the many finest on this planet, in response to UNICEF, and proceed to develop. The federal government introduced 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 employees are employed at corporations that supply 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-Assist answer,” stated Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow on the Brookings Establishment’s Middle for East Asia Coverage Research.

“The kid care subsidies, the leaves — these are all issues you’ll be able to visibly see and argue ‘Sure, we’re making these makes an attempt,'” he stated. “However coping with the structural issues that are not straight associated to fertility, that is an enormous ship to show round.”

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

Folks of their 20s and 30s typically say, “I am going to have youngsters as soon as I’ve my very own place,” in response to Jessica Ryu, a 27-year-old Korean citizen who’s pursuing a postdoctoral diploma in communications within the U.S.

However with a lot competitors for an condo in Seoul — the place 18% of South Korea’s inhabitants 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 boost two kids, 5 and seven years outdated, in Seoul. Her cousin stated she would slightly the federal government arrange extra day care facilities than give her a few hundred {dollars} a month, which she stated is just not sufficient to cowl necessities like diapers and meals.

Success could hinge on altering attitudes about household and work

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

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

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP through Getty Pictures

South Korea has one of many longest workweeks of any of the 38 member nations that make up the Organisation for Financial Cooperation and Improvement (OECD). If the nation desires 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 located that nations the place individuals place a excessive significance on work and derive extra private worth from their job are related to decrease fertility charges.

“There is a sense [in South Korea] that, notably for males however more and more for ladies as effectively, that your contribution within the workplace is absolutely what makes you an individual of standing and standing in society, much more than in America,” stated Stone, a analysis fellow on the Institute for Household Research.

However in Korea, the place ladies maintain solely about 21% of managerial positions and 5% of govt posts, consultants say it’s not solely more durable for ladies to ascend in management, however to additionally survive within the workforce once they have a baby.

Yeo stated 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.

“In the event you’ve been gone a year-and-a-half, individuals could not deal with you an identical means,” he stated. “Girls who take break day could not essentially return to work, or in the event that they do, they could really feel a stigma.”

For Ryu, she stated having kids is just not price sacrificing her profession.

“The truth is that one of many dad and mom has to resign from work or take a protracted break, however the issue is, it is nearly all the time the feminine or the mother who has to take a depart,” she stated.

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

Whereas Ryu hopes to get married in the future, Kim stated she has dominated out each marriage and kids. She blames deeply rooted gender roles in Korea that depart many ladies sacrificing extra of their private life in marriage than males.

“My mom had three kids in her early to mid-20s and I hated seeing her wrestle simply to handle us,” Kim stated. “The household tradition in Korea remains to be very patriarchal, and primarily based on the truth I noticed, the whole lot incurs a loss [for the woman] and I do not wish to do this.”

Anti-feminist sentiments in South Korea are additional complicating the fertility challenge, in response to the journalist Hawon Jung, writer of the #MeToo motion ebook Flowers of Fireplace. 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 unravel the fertility challenge.

“Though no earlier governments in South Korea managed to reverse the downward pattern in fertility charges for the previous decade, the present authorities’s insurance policies may make it much more troublesome to sort out the difficulty than it already is,” she stated.

The declining marriage fee could be seen as one results of the acute workism tradition, coupled with ongoing gender points in Korea, consultants say.

“[The Korean government] efficiently discouraged nonmarital fertility, however they’ve additionally very efficiently discouraged marriage,” Stone stated.

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

Discovering the appropriate steadiness

Whereas falling fertility charges have turn into the norm in most developed nations, consultants say there are nonetheless necessary 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, consultants say, is a vital 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. Each nations have been among the many prime 10 nations for working ladies in 2022, whereas Korea ranked final, in response to The Economist journal’s glass ceiling index. The U.S. was 19, beneath the OECD common.

Work hours and general attitudes towards work in Denmark and France are additionally way more lax than in South Korea, in response to Stone. OECD knowledge reveals that solely 6% of the Denmark workforce and 10% of the French workforce work greater than 50 hours per 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 reveals how typically enhancing the fertility challenge requires some luck. The Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia has attributed the rise to a technology born throughout a child growth within the Eighties that has now reached the standard age of marriage and childbearing.

However 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 few of the largest proportion drops in fertility charges since 2010, in response to an evaluation of OECD knowledge. Stone stated the drop is related to attitudes additionally changing into extra work-centric.

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

“[The Korean government] efficiently achieved a few of the quickest financial progress in human historical past and the worth has been that there is not a subsequent technology to inherit it,” Stone stated.