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By Lee Hyo-sik
It's no longer surprising to hear that Korea's birthrate has plunged to the world's lowest and continues falling as more and more young people choose not to have babies. Over the past two decades or so, the government has spent nearly 400 trillion won ($308 billion) to encourage Koreans to get married and have children, but to no avail.
According to Statistics Korea, the country's birthrate was 0.78 in 2022, down sharply from 1.17 in 2016. The figure, meaning that far less than one baby is born on average per woman, was the lowest since 1970 when the agency began collecting the data. It is said that the birthrate should be at least 2.1 to maintain the current population.
This bleak demographic reality hit home when I heard about what will happen at the daycare center that my daughter attends. Due to a sharp drop in enrollment of children aged 1 to 4, three out of six teachers will be let go on March 2, including the one who has been caring for my daughter for the past six months. It is heartbreaking to see her go since she has been such a wonderful teacher. Given the series of closures of daycare centers in recent years, it will be difficult for her to find work in the same profession.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of daycare centers nationwide decreased 21.1 percent to 30,923 in 2022 from 39,171 in 2018 in line with the falling number of newborns. Korea had a total of 249,000 newborns last year, down 4.4 percent from 260,600 in 2021.
It is hard to imagine that a daycare center inside an apartment complex, located at the heart of southern Seoul, would face the same fate as its counterparts in rural areas, which have long been struggling to stay afloat as more and more people move to Seoul and its surrounding areas for jobs and better living conditions. After all, Seoul is no safe zone from the aftereffects of the ongoing trend of population decline.
There is no doubt that it is in everyone's interest to boost the nation's birthrate but it is easier said than done. Some say Korea needs to extend more financial aid to parents with young children and increase the period of parental leave, while others are even floating the idea that the government provides apartments for free to families with three children or more. But we already know these policy suggestions will not work.
No matter how much cash the government throws at young people, it will not encourage them to get married and have babies once they decide not to do so. Now may be the time for all of us to accept that the falling birthrate and Korea's population aging are inevitable and that it is better to spend taxpayers' money on policies that actually work and improve people's livelihoods. Let's stop telling millennials and Gen Z what to do. It's their lives. Let nature find its own way.
Nevertheless, it is such a relief to know that the daycare center that my daughter attends will stay open for this year. But who knows what will happen next year.
The writer is business editor at The Korea Times.
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