Data released on Wednesday revealed that South Korea’s fertility rate hit a record low last year, marking yet another depressing milestone for the nation with the lowest projected birthrate per woman in the world.
According to the official yearly reading from Statistics Korea, the average number of expected babies per South Korean woman throughout the course of her reproductive life decreased to 0.78 in 2022 from 0.81 a year earlier.
That rate is the lowest among OECD member nations, which had an average rate of 1.59 in 2020. It is also significantly lower than the rates of 1.64 in the US and 1.33 in Japan for the same year.
Despite spending tens of billions of dollars annually on childcare subsidies, the government has been unable to stop the birth rate from declining.
South Korea had a rate below 1, making it the only OECD member with a declining population as of 2020.
In South Korea, getting married is considered a need for having kids, but the country is also seeing a decline in weddings due to exorbitant housing and education costs.
Seoul, the capital of the country, has the lowest birth rate at 0.59.
