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South Korea’s fertility rate sinks to record low despite $270bn in incentives
(www.theguardian.com)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
South Korea’s demographic crisis has deepened with the release of data showing its birthrate – already the world’s lowest – fell to a new record low in 2023, despite billions of dollars in government schemes designed to persuade families to have more children.
If the low fertility rate persists, the population of Asia’s fifth-biggest economy is projected to almost halve to 26.8 million by 2100, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Lim Young-il, head of the population census division at Statistics Korea, told reporters: “The number of newborns in 2023 was 230,000, which was 19,200 fewer than the year before, representing a 7.7% decrease.”
The current administration, led by the conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol, has made reversing the falling birthrate a national priority, and in December promised to come up with “extraordinary measures” to tackle the situation.
But financial and other inducements are failing to convince couples who cite skyrocketing child-rearing costs and property prices, a lack of well-paid jobs and the country’s cut-throat education system as obstacles to having bigger families.
Many younger Japanese say they are reluctant to marry or have families due to poor job prospects and living costs that are rising faster than salaries, along with a corporate culture that makes it difficult for both parents to work.
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