In May, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced plans to establish a government ministry that would address a growing " national emergency "—the notoriously low number of births.
Responding to the exorbitant cost of housing, schooling, and long working hours, Yoon pledged to boost parental leave allowances, lengthen time off for fathers, institute flexible employment schedules, and lighten the educational hardship on parents.
The decision followed the release of data, in February, that South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate—the average number of children a woman will have during her reproductive life. For 2022, Statistics Korea reported a rate of 0.78—or 78 babies for every 100 women. This figure dropped to 0.72 in 2023, and earlier projections estimated a steeper drop—down to 0.68—for 2024.
Not accounting for immigration, countries depend on a fertility rate of 2.1 to sustain a stable number of inhabitants—a pace three times higher than the fertility projection for this year in South Korea.