Seul, South Korea – South Korea’s fertility rate increased by 2024 for the first time in nine years, backed by an increase in marriages, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, in a sign that the country’s demographic crisis could have folded a corner.
The country’s fertility rate, the average number of babies that a woman has during her reproductive life, stood at 0.75 in 2024, according to Statistics Korea.
In 2023, the birth rate fell during the eighth year consecutive to 0.72, the lowest in the world, from 1.24 in 2015, raising concerns about economic shock for society from such a fast rhythm.
Since 2018, South Korea has been the only member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with a rate of less than 1.
South Korea has implemented several measures to encourage young people to marry and have children, after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a “national demographic crisis” and a plan to create a new ministry dedicated to addressing low birth rates .
“There was a change in social value, with more positive opinions about marriage and childbirth,” said Park Hyun-Jung, Statistics Korea official, information on information, also citing the impact of an increase in the number of people 30 years. and pandemic delays.
“It is difficult to measure how much each factor contributed to the increase in new births, but they also had an impact on each other,” Park said.
Marriages, a main indicator of new births, increased by 14.9% in 2024, the greatest increase since the data began in 1970. Marriages first increased by 11 years in 2023 with an increase of 1.0% driven by a Post-Pandemia increase.
In the Asian country, there is a high correlation between marriages and births, with a time or two time delay, since marriage is often seen as a previous requirement to have children.
Throughout the country, the birth rate last year was the lowest in the capital, Seoul, at 0.58.
The latest data showed that there were 120,000 more people who died last year than those who were born newborns, marking the fifth consecutive year of the population that was naturally reduced. The administrative city of Sejong was the only important center where the population grew.
The population of South Korea is expected to reach a peak of 51,83 million in 2020, will be reduced to 36.22 million by 2072, according to the last projection of the statistics agency.
