Korea’s birth rate fell below 250,000 a year for the first time

South Korea’s total fertility rate hit an all-time high last year as the number of births continued to fall, data showed on Wednesday (February 23), underscoring the country’s chronically low birth rate and plight.

The country’s total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime, was 0.78 in 2022, up from 0.81 a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.

The figure was slightly higher than the agency’s previous estimate of 0.77, but was the lowest and the first time it had fallen below 0.8 since the statistics agency began compiling data in 1970. Last year was also the fifth year in a row that the number was below 1.

The number of newborns was 249,000 last year, down 4.4% on the previous year (266,000 in 2021). The number fell below the 250,000 mark for the first time.

The trend of delaying childbirth in the country is also increasing, with the median age of women having their first child rising by 0.2 years from 2021 to 33.5 years, according to the data. This makes Korean mothers the oldest in the OECD, where the median age is 29.3 years.

At the same time, deaths are increasing due to the aging population and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, deaths exceeded births by 123,800, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time. The result is a natural population decline that has quadrupled in just a few years.

A fertility rate of 2.1 children is needed to keep the country’s population at current levels, but Korea fell below that level in 1983 and has not recovered. Worse, the country also suffered from a net exodus of people in 2021.

The country must therefore find a solution to deal with this population decline.