South Korea's total fertility rate rebounded for the first time in nine years from a year earlier in 2024, driven by an increase in marriages, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, suggesting the country's demographic crisis may be turning a corner. Data from the Statistics Korea show that South Korea's total fertility rate (that is, the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime) has rebounded to 0.75 in 2024.
In 2023, South Korea's total fertility rate was 0.72, the eighth consecutive year of decline, and also the lowest record in the world. This has triggered concerns among South Korean public opinion about the impact that a sharp decline in population may have on the economy and society.
Since 2018, South Korea has been the only member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with a fertility rate below 1.
However, in the past year, South Korea has launched a number of measures to encourage young people to get married and have children. Former President Yoon Seok-yue, who has been impeached, officially declared South Korea to be in a "population national emergency" when presiding over a meeting of the Committee on Low Fertility and Aging Society in June last year, and planned to set up a special department to deal with the problem of low fertility.
"Social values have changed, and people hold more positive views on marriage and childbirth," Statistics Korea official Park Hyun-jung said at a briefing on Wednesday. She also mentioned the increase in the number of people in their early 30s and the impact of the delayed effect of the epidemic.
Park added that it is difficult to quantify the specific contribution of each factor to the rebound in the birth rate, but the factors themselves also interact with each other.
As an important leading indicator of the number of newborns, the number of marriage registrations in South Korea surged by 14.9% in 2024, the largest increase since records began in 1970. The number of marriage registrations in 2023 also increased for the first time in 11 years - an increase of 1.0%, mainly due to the rebound in the post-epidemic period.
In South Korea, there is a high correlation between marriage and birth, but there is usually a gap of a year or two because marriage is often seen as a prerequisite for childbearing.
In terms of regional distribution, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, continued to be at the bottom of the country with a total fertility rate of 0.58 last year.
Overall, however, South Korea still had 120,000 more deaths than births last year, marking the fifth consecutive year of natural population decline. The administrative city of Sejong remains the only major region experiencing population growth.
According to the latest forecast from the Statistics Korea, South Korea's population is expected to plummet to 36.22 million by 2072 after reaching a peak of 51.83 million in 2020.