On Wednesday, data revealed that South Korea’s total births and fertility rate had reached unprecedented lows in 2022, a sign of a potential growth crisis for the fourth-largest economy in Asia.
Statistics Korea reported that the number of babies born in 2022 totaled 249,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous year. This figure is the lowest since the agency began collecting data in 1970.
The fertility rate, or the average amount of children a woman has in her lifetime, sank to a new low of 0.78, much lower than the replacement level of 2.1 needed to maintain South Korea’s population at 51 million. This rate is the first time it has gone below 1 since 2018.
South Korea is the only country among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with a fertility rate below 1. The average age of mothers giving birth was 33.5, the highest ever, while the average age of fathers was 36, also a record.
The proportion of mothers over 35 giving birth was 35.7 percent, a 0.6 percent increase from the previous year. This is a drastic rise from 18.7 percent in 2012.
The highest fertility rate was in Sejong, the city housing the major government organizations, at 1.12, followed by South Jeolla Province at 0.97. Seoul had the lowest rate at 0.59 and the port city of Busan at 0.72.
Of the newborns, 156,000 were the parents’ first children, making up 62.7 percent of the babies. The second year of marriage saw the most initial births at 46.8 percent. The gender ratio of boys to girls was 104.7 to 100, a decrease of 0.4 from the previous year.