Round the world, nations are trying on the prospect of shrinking, getting older populations – however none extra so than South Korea.
During the last 60 years, South Korea has undergone probably the most speedy fertility decline in recorded human historical past. In 1960, the nation’s complete fertility price – the variety of youngsters, on common, {that a} girl has throughout her reproductive years – stood at just below six youngsters per girl. In 2022, that determine was 0.78. South Korea is the one nation on this planet to register a fertility price of lower than one little one per girl, though others – Ukraine, China and Spain – are shut.
As a demographer who over the previous 4 many years has carried out intensive analysis on Asian populations, I do know that this extended and steep decline can have big impacts on South Korea. It might decelerate financial progress, contributing to a shift that can see the nation find yourself much less wealthy and with a smaller inhabitants.
Older, poorer, extra dependent
International locations want a complete fertility price of two.1 youngsters per girl to switch their inhabitants, when the consequences of immigration and emigration aren’t thought of. And South Korea’s fertility price has been persistently under that quantity since 1984, when it dropped to 1.93, from 2.17 the 12 months earlier than.
What makes the South Korean fertility price decline extra astonishing is the comparatively brief interval by which it has occurred.
Again in 1800, the U.S. complete fertility price was effectively over 6.0. But it surely took the U.S. round 170 years to persistently drop under the substitute degree. Furthermore, within the little over 60 years by which South Korea’s fertility price fell from 6.0 to 0.8, the U.S. noticed a extra gradual decline from 3.0 to 1.7.
Fertility decline can have a constructive impact in sure circumstances, by way of one thing demographers confer with as “the demographic dividend.” This dividend refers to accelerated will increase in a rustic’s economic system that comply with a decline in delivery charges and subsequent modifications in its age composition that end in extra working-age individuals and fewer dependent younger youngsters and aged individuals.
And that’s what occurred in South Korea – a decline in fertility helped convert South Korea from a really poor nation to a really wealthy one.
Behind the financial miracle
South Korea’s fertility decline started within the early Sixties when the federal government adopted an financial planning program and a inhabitants and household planning program.
By that point, South Korea was languishing, having seen its economic system and society destroyed by the Korean Conflict of 1950 to 1953. Certainly by the late-Fifties, South Korea was one of many poorest nations on this planet. In 1961, its annual per capita revenue was solely about US$82.
However dramatic will increase in financial progress started in 1962, when the South Korean authorities launched a five-year financial improvement plan.
Crucially, the federal government additionally launched a inhabitants planning program in a bid to deliver down the nation’s fertility price. This included a objective of getting 45% of married {couples} to make use of contraception – till then, only a few Koreans used contraception.
This additional contributed to the fertility discount, as many {couples} realized that having fewer youngsters would usually result in enhancements in household residing requirements.
Each the financial and household planning applications had been instrumental in transferring South Korea from one with a excessive fertility price to at least one with a low fertility price.
Consequently, the nation’s dependent inhabitants – the younger and the aged – grew smaller in relation to its working-age inhabitants.
The demographic change kick-started financial progress that continued effectively into the mid-Nineteen Nineties. Will increase in productiveness, mixed with an rising labor power and a gradual discount of unemployment, produced common annual progress charges in gross home product of between 6% and 10% for a few years.
South Korea at the moment is one of many richest nations
on this planet with a per capita revenue of $35,000.
Dropping individuals yearly
A lot of this transformation of South Korea from a poor nation to a wealthy nation has been because of the demographic dividend realized in the course of the nation’s fertility decline. However the demographic dividend solely works within the brief time period. Lengthy-term fertility declines are sometimes disastrous for a nation’s economic system.
With a particularly low fertility price of 0.78, South Korea is shedding inhabitants every year and experiencing extra deaths than births. The once-vibrant nation is on the best way to changing into a rustic with plenty of aged individuals and fewer staff.
The Korean Statistical Workplace reported not too long ago that the nation misplaced inhabitants up to now three years: It was down by 32,611 individuals in 2020, 57,118 in 2021 and 123,800 in 2022.
If this development continues, and if the nation doesn’t welcome tens of millions of immigrants, South Korea’s current inhabitants of 51 million will drop to underneath 38 million within the subsequent 4 or 5 many years.
And a rising proportion of the society will likely be over the age of 65.
South Korea’s inhabitants aged 65 and over comprised underneath 7% of the inhabitants in 2000. Right this moment, practically 17% of South Koreans are older individuals.
The older individuals inhabitants is projected to be 20% of the nation by 2025 and will attain an unprecedented and astoundingly excessive 46% in 2067. South Korea’s working-age inhabitants will then be smaller in dimension than its inhabitants of individuals over the age of 65.
In a bid to avert a demographic nightmare, the South Korean authorities is offering monetary incentives for {couples} to have youngsters and is boosting the month-to-month allowance already in place for folks. President Yoon Suk Yeol has additionally established a brand new authorities workforce to determine insurance policies to extend the delivery price.
However thus far, applications to extend the low fertility price have had little impact. Since 2006, the South Korean authorities has already spent over $200 billion in applications to extend the delivery price, with nearly no affect.
Opening the trapdoor
The South Korean fertility price has not elevated up to now 16 years. Reasonably, it has continued to lower. This is because of what demographers confer with because the “low-fertility lure.” The precept, set forth by demographers within the early 2000s, states that after a rustic’s fertility price drops under 1.5 or 1.4, it’s tough – if not not possible – to extend it considerably.
South Korea, together with many different nations – together with France, Australia and Russia – have developed insurance policies to encourage fertility price will increase, however with little to no success.
The one possible way for South Korea to show this round could be to rely closely on immigration.
Migrants are sometimes younger and productive and often have extra youngsters than the native-born inhabitants. However South Korea has a very restrictive immigration coverage with no path for immigrants to develop into residents or everlasting residents except they marry South Koreans.
Certainly, the foreign-born inhabitants in 2022 was simply over 1.6 million, which is round 3.1% of the inhabitants. In distinction, the U.S. has all the time relied on immigration to bolster its working inhabitants, with foreign-born residents now comprising over 14% of the inhabitants.
For immigration to offset South Korea’s declining fertility price, the variety of overseas staff would possible have to rise virtually tenfold.
With out that, South Korea’s demographic future can have the nation persevering with to lose inhabitants yearly and changing into one of many oldest – if not the oldest – nation on this planet.
