South Korea’s birth rate is so low, the president wants to create a ministry to tackle it
South Korea’s leader on Thursday said he plans to create a new government ministry to tackle the “national emergency” of the country’s infamously low birth rate as it grapples with a deepening demographic crisis.
In a televised address, President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would ask for parliament’s cooperation to establish the Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter-planning.
“We will mobilize all of the nation’s capabilities to overcome the low birth rate, which can be considered a national emergency,” he said.
Speaking later in his first news conference since August 2022, held to mark two years in office, Yoon admitted his administration had fallen short in its efforts to improve people’s lives. He pledged to use the next three years of his term to improve the economy and address low births.
South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. It recorded a rate of just 0.72 in 2023 – down from 0.78 the previous year, the latest drop in a long string of yearly declines.
