For the first time in almost a decade, the South Koreans have more babies.
An increase of 3.6 percent recorded in birth last year – the first of 2015 – offered hope to government officials who performed greater parental leave and other benefits to try to increase the lowest birth rate in the world.
The jump is followed by an increased number of marriages in the last few years, partly because many weddings have been postponed during the Pandemia of Covid-19. In South Korea, people almost always get married before they have a baby.
The birth rate indicates “a change in social value, with more positive attitudes towards marriage and children,” said Hyun-Jung Park, a government statistical agency officer, in Brifing.
Last year, about 238,300 babies were born, an increase of 8,300 compared to 2023, according to a preliminary report reported by the Agency on Wednesday. Whether the rise of a tent or the beginning of trends remains to be seen.
“This is a welcome news,” said Seulki Choi, a professor of demographics and sociology from the KDI of the School of Public Policy and Management in the City of Sejong. The birth rate slid so drastically that it was “difficult to imagine how much it would fall.”
The craft of the falling population in the country will be a far more severe feat to achieve, say experts in the population, since the elderly in South Korea surpasses young people. The number of deaths last year was 358,400, an increase of 5,800 (or 1.7 percent) compared to the previous year.
Population experts envisaged that the continuation of the road down in birth would halve the list of a nation from 51 million to 2100.
The nation has been painful for a decade for decades with its aging population. The fertility rate-a spatial number of children born to a woman during her reproductive years-diving from 1.24 in 2015 to 0.72 in 2023. Generally speaking, a Total fertility rate of 2.1 It is required to ensure a widely stable population.
The young people were concerned about their future, both in their careers and financially, Professor Choi said, adding that the struggle to find a stable job did the opportunity for the child to have scary, especially in major cities. The fertility rate in the capital in Seoul was 0.552 in 2023, according to state statistics.
The government has invested billions of dollars to implement measures to promote childbirth in attempts to counter the aging of the population. In June, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared the decreasing population “a demographic national emergency”. His administration has discovered policies that would implement to facilitate the burden of raising children, some of which have entered into force in recent months.
New policies include enabling future mothers to work reduced hours and increase the leave of child care for fathers. New fathers could take 20 days of day off, which is an increase compared to the existing 10. The plan also promised new parents increased monthly scholarship between 1.5 million won and 2.5 million won (about $ 1,000 and 1,700) for the first few months of parental leave.
Some previous proposals have faced criticism for poor thinking. 2023. The legislators believed that they excluded men to serve in the military if they had three children 30 years ago.
“It did not deal with the fundamental problem of breeding children too hard and expensive,” said Lee Yi-Eun, a 31-year-old office worker in Seoul.
The state fertility rate remained the lowest last year at 0.75, according to the report.
Although populations in many other developed countries also began to grow older and smaller, the case of South Korea was especially drastic, experts say. They cite the high cost of the child’s submission, the inaccessible apartment prices and the competitive education system as some of the causes.
Last year, South Korea began to increase the number of foreign nannies allowed to help work parents take care of their children. The 100 nanny pilot program arrived in the country from the Philippines in August.
