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''"Birth rate" redirects here. For other uses, see birth rate.''

= Low birth rate in South Korea = Low birth rate in South Korea demonstrates the cause and effects of low fertility rate that South Korea has experienced along with the future population and government policies. Birth rate has declined since 1960 in South Korea. The idea that this demographic transition would be over and eventually stabilise was pervasive until the 1980s. However, Korean society faced the future population decline because of the continuous decrease in birth rate. After baby boom in the 1950s, population increased drastically and therefore the Korean government implemented anti-natal policy, which is the government program that the Korea healthcare centre provides the family planning consultation by introducing traditional contraception methods, including intrauterine device, vasectomy and condoms to the public in the 1960s. Along with this policy and economic growth, the fertility rate declined because more married women pursued quality of life rather than having children. After the economic crisis in 1997, the fertility rate declined rapidly.

Before the economic crisis in Korea, the Korea used a lot of foreign capital in the course of economic development, but failed to implement foreign exchange management policies and therefore there was a noticeable decrease in the county's credit rate. These caused a number of business shut down and increasing number of people be unemployed, making society increasingly unstable. Therefore, after the economic crisis, there was less security for young people to form a career and get married. The poor economy and insecurity of career for the young man and women caused delayed marriage age and declined proportion of marriage after the mid-1990s.



Birth rate statistics
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) fertility rate in Korea declined steeply from 1970 to 2015.

It has been below OECD average fertility rate since 1984. The average OECD fertility rate was 2.0 while Korea's fertility rate was 1.8 in 1984. Korea's fertility rate has decreased drastically by 1.7 from 1979 to 2015. In 2018, the total fertility rate in South Korea declined to 0.98, which indicates the number of children that a woman gives birth to during their lifetime. This figure did not reach the replacement level of 2.1, which means that to maintain a population of 5 million the fertility rate should be over 2.1. The crude birth rate reached a low of 6.4 in 2018. Among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Korea was the only country whose fertility rate declined below 1. For example, in Australia, the fertility rate in 1983 was 1.90 which is also below the OECD average rate. However, Australia's fertility rate in 1993 reached 1.9 overtaking the OECD average fertility rate (1.8). Since 2000, fertility rate in Australia continued to be greater than the OECD average fertility rate by reaching over 1.8. The number of newborn babies declined 8.6% from 2017 to 2018, which is the lowest rate in South Korea.

Sex preference
In the twentieth century, selective abortion of female foetuses had an important impact on the low birth rate. In Korea there is a strong sex preference for a son because there is the conception that a daughter cannot accede to the family name, and thus are prevented from preserving and continuing a family line. Moreover, since they have a preference to have a son as a first child rather than having boys as second or third child, selective birth rate was high in South Korea. These preferences caused the high sex ratio which means that there are a greater number of men, which affects the low birth rate in the future. This imbalanced ratio will make more men cannot marry because there will be not enough woman and therefore this effect has high possibility of another low birth rate in the future. Before 1988, it was legal to check the sex of foetus at the hospital by taking a medical check. From 1981 to 1988 the sex ratio at birth continued to increase and it reached over 113 in 1988. Sex ratio over 100 indicates that there are a greater number of men than women. Because of this, the number of prospective parents aborted female foetus after checking the sex. However, the government made it illegal because the number of abortion rate caused by sex preference had increased.

Education Cost
Korean have a high educational fever to their children because they believe the Confucian value which emphasises the relation between higher education and social or economic status. Since Korean think the first step to achieve their goal is making their children enter a prestigious university, they send their children to private after-school educational institutes (known as ‘hagwon’ in Korea) from preschool to high school. In 2009, it is shown that more than 75% of children attend private academies.

Moreover, sending children to ‘hagwon’ costs a lot of money and they send their children to hagwon for every subject in formal school, especially English, math and writing because of the competitiveness of entering SKY( Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University), which are the top three universities in Korea. In Korean society, sending children to hagwon became a social norm and it is widely held a view that if parents could not send their children because of financial burden, the people regard them irresponsible and ignorant parent.

High cost of extra education and social pressure make married couple be reluctant to have many children. Parents prefer quality than quantity so that they want no more than one or two children by making their children be successful with less financial burden. In 2005, National survey revealed that 18.2% of women aged 20 to 29 stopped to have a second child because of financial burden of extra education. According to a survey by the Health Ministry in 2012, 90% of people who participated the survey stated that they are reluctant to have children because of high education cost including private education fees.

Female labour force
As economy has developed, more women entered university and this causes an increase in female labour participation. This has resulted in the event that more women are postponing their marriage and pursue improvement of quality of life rather than having children. Female’s age at first marriage and married women’s fertility rate are the two determinants of fertility. From 1985 to 2007, female’s age at first marriage risen from 24.1 years to 28.1 years. Moreover, female college enrolment rate also soared from 31.3% to 83.8% between 1990 and 2008, along with an increase in female labour force. As female labour force rate increased from 42.8% in 1980 to 50.2% in 2005, childbirth rate also decreased from 6.0 per fertile in 1960 to 1.13 per fertile in 2006. This low fertility rate indicates that more married women seek labour participation and spend less time on caring their child. Since more than 90% of Korean married couples give birth to children, increased female’s age at first marriage shortens the childbirth span and it increases infertility rate. This leads to the decline in birth rate in South Korea.

Increased divorce rate
Divorce increased steadily by 0.7 from 1970 to 2000 in South Korea. Divorce is the most significant event that affects family dissolution, which results in a low fertility rate. Even though divorce affects childbirth rate slightly overall from 1970 to 2000, after the economic crisis in 1997 the rapid increase in divorce rate affected the decrease in birth rate.

In the economic crisis, many families were dissolved as they could not afford to support their family member because of less financial ability. Crude divorce rate increased to 2.0 in 1997 and it soared rapidly to 2.5 in the following year. In 2003, the crude divorce rate jumped remarkably again to 3.5. Since economic crisis affected the form of the family, ending up in divorce, divorce rate unavoidably affected a decrease in fertility rate in the economic crisis.

Future population
Ministry of Gender Equality and Family showed that Korean youth population was 14 million in 1980, however, it decreased significantly to 10.2 million in 2012, taking up 20.4 % of the total population. This population decline of youth population is caused by low childbirth rate and it will affect the number of future populations. In 2013, the Korean government revealed that if the low fertility rate continues to decrease, the number of people aged 9 to 24 will decline by 50% from 2013 in 2060.

This trend will affect the Republic of Korea socially and economically in the long term. Since the number of children continues to decrease more schools are closing and it is expected that more schools will be closed. If this situation is continued both schools and rural city admirations will need to be merged because there is no need for them to use more people and capital.

Social issue of decreased population caused by low fertility is that South Korea is also faced with aging society, which means that there are greater number of the senior citizen than the young. This results that a smaller number of young people have to support the elderly. A survey from the Health ministry in 2012 reported that “more than 83 percent said that this will lead more taxes and labour manpower shortage”.

Economically, declined population resulted from low fertility rate would decline the Republic of Korea's potential economic growth under 2 %as the labour forces is declining. This would affect lower economic growth, South Korea's sovereign credit and fiscal strength after 2030. Furthermore, declining number of children would also affect the Korean Army's military budgets. As the number of young men is decreasing the Korean Army will be pressured by the government to maintain the current military structure and their budget will be decreased as nation’s budget shifts to the problem of aging and low fertility.

Government policy
The Korean government implemented the new policy which improves reproductive health care services to resolve the problem of low fertility rate in 2006. However, this policy had no effect to decrease the fertility rate. Therefore, the Committee on Ageing and Future Society (CAFS) was founded in 2003 to reduce the fertility rate and to prepare for the problem of an upcoming aging society. The Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, which is reinforced by CAFS, announced the First Basic Planning for Low Fertility and Aged Society in 2006. This planning includes support for day-care and preschool education, and economic benefit for the multi-child family, such as social insurance.

The Korean government announced the pro-natal policies to reduce the fertility rate in South Korea December 2 in 2018. The purpose of this policy is that they would make the environment for parents to have more than 2 children by decreasing medical expense and child rearing expense. They will also make the better environment for mothers who are doing both work and childrearing.

Moon Jae-in, the president in South Korea elected in 2017, announced that the government will expand subsidy for parents who have young children more than three times of the proportion of infants to be cared for in public. The government expects that before 2022 the number of newborn babies could decrease under 300,00 per year and therefore their aim is to maintain more than 300,000 newborn babies every year because of the continuous decrease in fertility rate.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that this government's improved plan would increase the quality of life for the whole generation and resolve the problem of low fertility rate in the long term. The government promised to provide financial support of medical expenses for under 1-year old infant from 2019. Additionally, the government plans to offer this financial support for pre-school children by 2025.

Moreover, the government increased the financial support for married couples who have difficulty in conceiving a child. Those married couple could be subsidized more than 70% of medical cost for artificial insemination until they get maximum of four sessions. Those married couple could be subsidized more than 70% of medical cost for artificial insemination until they get maximum of four sessions.

From the second half of 2019, according to the ministry of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, parents who have children younger than 8-year-old can get off work an hour earlier and paid paternity leave will be increased to 10 days.