South Korea is a remarkable country. From the devastation of the Korean War in the 1950s, it grew and grew to become one of the world’s richest nations – a high tech, exporting powerhouse and a model of industrial development.
Furthermore, it pulled-off this success story in the toughest of neighbourhoods. As well as sharing a peninsula with North Korea it has China to its west and Japan to its east. To the south, the sea is roiling with geopolitical tensions.
And yet the greatest danger facing South Korea comes from within. Quite simply, the country’s birth rate is catastrophically low.
It’s the subject of an article by Crystal Tai in the South China Morning Post:
“South Korea’s birth rate is also the lowest in the world, dropping to 0.95 at the end of last year – meaning that for every 100 women, just 95 children were born. To maintain a stable population, the birth rate needs to be 2.1. In the boom times of the early 70s, nearly 1 million South Korean babies were being born each year, but by 2017 that number had more than halved to 357,700.”
Birth rates of well below replacement level are now commonplace in the developed world. For instance, Italy’s is about 1.4. If such a rate is maintained over three generations then that means the second generation will be 70% of the size of the first, and the third generation half the size of the first. That’s quite the demographic slide, but consider what happens if the birth rate drops even lower to approximately 1. If that is maintained over three generations, then the second generation will be half the size of the first, and the third a mere quarter. In other words a fall in the fertility rate from 1.4 to 1, which South Korea shows is possible, doubles the rate at which new generations halve in size.
Think through the implications. Cast your mind forward 50 or 60 years and imagine what it would mean for schools, universities and the workforce. Yes, in some places, domestic and international migration could be a temporary compensating factor – but only at the expense of accelerating demographic decline in the regions and countries of origin.
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