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As Birthrate Falls, South Korea’s Population Declines, Posing Threat to Economy
For the first time on record, the number of newborns in South Korea last year fell below the number of deaths, underscoring a long-term crisis in one of the world’s most important economies.
Think of major threats to South Korea, and its nuclear-armed neighbor North Korea may come to mind. But a subtler risk to South Korea’s future well-being lies within its borders: a shrinking and rapidly aging population.
The concern was underscored this weekend with the release of census data that showed South Korea’s population fell in 2020 for the first time on record. A declining number of newborns was exceeded by a growing number of deaths, according to census data released by the South Korean government.
For years, population experts have warned that demographic trends in South Korea, like those in Japan, show declining growth — a bad signal for replenishing the labor force and caring for retirees and other older people as they become a larger share of society. The new data from South Korea, while not a surprise, were nonetheless concerning for a country that in recent decades has become one of Asia’s economic and cultural dynamos.
The census data from the Ministry of Interior and Safety showed that South Korea’s population totaled 51,829,023 as of Dec. 31, down 20,838 from the end of 2019. There were 275,815 births, down 10.65 percent from 2019, and 307,764 deaths, up 3.1 percent from 2019. The ministry expressed alarm about the implications, saying that “amid the rapidly declining birthrate, the government needs to undertake fundamental changes to its relevant policies.”
It was unclear to what extent the coronavirus pandemic may be exacerbating the population problem. The roughly 1,000 deaths in South Korea attributable to Covid-19 did not affect the basic outcome. But the Bank of Korea, in a regular economic appraisal reported last week, said the pandemic would exert “a negative impact on the nation’s marriage and birthrate, leading to an acceleration of aging in the population.”
Successive South Korean governments have sought to counter the declining birthrate by offering financial incentives for couples to have more children.
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