South Korean President Moon Jae in called a meeting of the three departments on August 3rd1,stressing that all policy means must be mobilized to solve the problem of low fertility rate, otherwise the country may face a population cliff. Moon Jae in said that in the first half of this year, the number of Korean newborns was only 654.38+88 million, the lowest since 2008. It is estimated that the fertility rate in South Korea will further decrease from last year's 1. 17, reaching a record low of 1.03.
If South Korea's fertility rate is really only 1.03 this year, it means that it is only half of the population replacement level. No wonder Moon Jae in is worried that South Korea will face a demographic cliff. So, why does Korea fall into a very low fertility rate?
South Korea is a country with a small population. Its population density is more than three times that of China, and it is poor in natural resources. In the early 1960s, the fertility rate in Korea was as high as 6.0. Under the pressure of this population, South Korea began to fully implement the policy of encouraging fewer children from 65438 to 0962. Coupled with the economic take-off of South Korea in the 1960s and 1980s, the fertility rate in South Korea dropped sharply. By 1995, the total fertility rate dropped to 1.63.
In this case, the Korean government approved the change of population policy in the mid-1990s, and cancelled the policy of encouraging fewer children, so as to prevent the fertility level from further declining. However, after the policy adjustment, South Korea's fertility rate did not rebound, and in 2004, the fertility rate further decreased to 1.2. The extremely low fertility rate has aroused great concern in the Korean ruling and opposition circles. In 2005, the Basic Law on Low Fertility and Population Aging was passed and implemented, and the "Committee on Low Fertility and Population Aging" chaired by the President himself was established to implement the policy of encouraging fertility.
Measures to encourage childbearing include: after the birth of a child, women can have a year to raise the child at home, receive a basic salary of 400,000 to 500,000 won (about 400 to 500 US dollars) every month, and keep their jobs. Families with many children have subsidies or concessions in housing, car purchase and electricity charges. Many local governments in Korea also reward more children. For example, the Central District of Seoul implemented a progressive award system in 2007. The more children there are, the higher the reward for each child. If you have 10 children, you can get a reward as high as 910.2 million won, equivalent to about 90,000 US dollars.
The Korea Family Health and Welfare Association has also collected many slogans to encourage fertility. The winning slogans include: "Dad, I am lonely, I want my brother and sister", "Two children are happier than one child, and three children are happier than two children", "Many candles are certainly brighter than the light of one candle" and "The biggest legacy left to children is my brother and sister".
However, the policy of encouraging fertility failed to effectively improve the fertility rate, even reaching the lowest record of 1.08 in 2005. In recent ten years, the fertility rate in Korea has basically hovered between 1. 1 and 1.3.
Due to the extremely low fertility rate, the aging trend of South Korea's population is fiercer than that of Japan. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics of Korea, as of last June 1 1, there were 5 1.27 million people in China, including 6.78 million elderly people over the age of 65, accounting for 13.6% of the total population, exceeding the number of children aged 0- 14 for the first time.
Moon Jae in warned that the damage to the country will be "irreversible" if we do not increase efforts to encourage women to give birth and take measures such as child care, housing and employment reform. However, the experience of countries all over the world shows that it is easy to reduce the fertility rate, but difficult to increase it. So far, South Korea has not found a prescription that can effectively increase the fertility rate.