South Korea population falls as birth rate shrinks

South Korea’s population has shrunk for the first time as the world’s lowest fertility rates and the coronavirus pandemic defeat government efforts to encourage child-bearing.

Visitors pose for photographs with divers at an event to celebrate New Year at an aquarium in Seoul, South Korea. Picture: Getty Images

South Korea’s population has shrunk for the first time as the world’s lowest fertility rates and the coronavirus pandemic defeat government efforts to encourage child-bearing.

There were 20,383 fewer South Koreans at the end of last year than a year earlier, according to latest statistics. In a population of 51.83 million, annual deaths have risen to 308,000, an increase of 3 per cent, while births have fallen by 11 per cent to 276,000. Immigration softened the full effect.

The new figures illustrate the crisis facing a country in which births are declining, the elderly population is growing and public finances are becoming strained.

The roots of the demographic crisis are historic. In the 1960s, the South ­Korean government used the slogan “Give Birth Without Thought and Keep Living Like a Beggar” to promote family planning and reduce what was regarded as a dangerously high birth rate. One-child families were praised, and men were offered free vasectomies in return for an exemption from national service. Now the demographic gears have gone into reverse for reasons that have much to do with the affluence of today’s child-bearing South Koreans.

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