South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said this Thursday he wanted a ministry to fight the Asian country’s low birth rate, threatened by a demographic crisis. “I request the cooperation of Parliament to review the organization of the government to create a Ministry of Planning against the low birth rate,” Yoon Suk Yeol said in a speech.
The number of newborns in South Korea, a country of 51 million inhabitants, reached its lowest level in 2023 (230,000) since the first statistics on the subject in 1970, Seoul announced in February, despite billions euros spent by the government to encourage births.
A population halved in 2100 at this rate
The crude birth rate, that is to say the number of newborns per 1,000 inhabitants, thus fell to 4.5, compared to 4.9 in 2022, according to preliminary data from the public statistics body. The fertility rate has fallen to 0.72 children per woman, far from the 2.1 needed to maintain the population at its current level. This rate has not been reached in the country since the end of the 1980s.
At this rate, and without recourse to immigration, the South Korean population should be reduced almost by half by 2100, according to experts. The country’s fertility rate is the lowest among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the average age at which a woman gives birth to her first child is 33.6 years, the lowest high in the OECD.
Seoul has unsuccessfully spent large sums trying to encourage births, through allowances, childcare and help with infertility treatments.