South Korea birthrate rises for first time in 9 years, marriages surge

It can't collapse forever, some good news for a change!

Happiness is the key to solve this syndrome, just checked google AI review search for the Happiest nation / people in the world and Not a single nation from Asia is in the top 24 Singapore is #25 followed by Taiwan at #27, S. Korea and japan are not even in the Top 40

""The World Happiness Report is a survey that ranks countries based on how happy their citizens feel. The report considers six factors that affect happiness, including: 

GDP per capita

Social support

Healthy life expectancy

Freedom of choice

Generosity

Perception of corruption""

Source : https://rankingroyals.com/infographics/happiest-countries-in-the-world-top-137-countries/

"It is difficult to measure how much each factor contributed to the rise in new births, but they themselves had an impact on each other too," Park said.

Huh? Why is is it difficult?

You simply ask the newly weds one question.

Why did you marry, now?

"South Korea's fertility rate rose in 2024 for the first time in nine years, supported by an increase in marriages, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, in a sign that the country's demographic crisis might have turned a corner."

That's good news from South Korea!! Please keep it up.

Yeah until it continues the drop next year…. On the positives…..it will increase at some point.

Happiness is the key to solve this syndrome, just checked google AI review search for the Happiest nation / people in the world and Not a single nation from Asia is in the top 24 Singapore is #25 followed by Taiwan at #27, S. Korea and japan are not even in the Top 40

I wonder whether that has anything to do with how Asian people answer random surveys.

I have noticed that Westerners tend to make an effort to show themselves leading ideal lives on their social media posts while Japanese tend not to put themselves in their uploads and are less likely to post “look at me” gorgeous vacation photos.

perhaps Asians are just more humble when answering questions about their lives…perhaps

Kpop increasing friskiness, giggidy

Don't we need some more data to see the significance of this small rise? Has the average age of new parents changed? (Or the average age of marriage ?)

If there was a significant increase in marriage age, wouldn't the number of births drop initially, but creep back up later?

Sorry, head hurting.

Oh wow there's hope

Marriages, a leading indicator of new births, jumped 14.9% in 2024, the biggest spike since the data started being released in 1970. Marriages turned up for the first time in 11 years in 2023 with a 1.0% increase powered by a post-pandemic boost.

That's quite a jump

@Woody Lee

Happiness is the key to solve this syndrome

What on Earth are you talking about? Birth rates go up in South Korea. You say happiness leads to higher birth rates, but Asians aren't happy. You make no sense at all.

@Cephus

Please keep it up.

I guess they've been doing that.

Birth rate of 0.75%

Must suck having three quarters of a baby

Why exactly did the people's perception of marriage and having kids go up?

GuruMick

Today 05:36 pm JST

Birth rate of 0.75%

> Must suck having three quarters of a baby

3quarters is 75%

A marriage with no children is worse than being single.

Anyone noticed that Japan has not released a final 2024 birth count? Always historically announced in early Jan...

Japan's birth count also includes babies born OUTSIDE Japan to couples with 1 or 2 Japanese nationals, most of whom won't be ever living in Japan e.g. Naomi Osaka's girl, and number's somewhere b/w 75k and 100k = huge.

One must assume that unlike SK, Japan's birth situation continues to deteriorate steadily, probably accelerating.

Finally, Japan's median age about 10 years higher than SK, so the idea of a baby boom in Japan anytime soon seems unlikely...while still possible in SK.

SpeedToday  06:14 pm JST

Why exactly did the people's perception of marriage and having kids go up?

Better question is why's it still so low?

Japan if adjusted for JN foreign births/see above and remove gaijin babies, isn't much better than SK

Marriage without kids = tragic, why the hell get married?

HopeSpringsEternal

Today 06:43 pm JST

Anyone noticed that Japan has not released a final 2024 birth count? Always historically announced in early Jan...

Already released an estimate January, set to fall belown700k for the first time

Right Ian, an estimate, but exact birth count ALWAYS released in VERY early Jan on JT and elsewhere, except this year. Bad sign indeed, more Govt. control of the media to manipulate the citizens, suppress the truth etc.

Seems SK was 'eager' to release their less bad baby news

Always fun to read comments from people who think they are know how to solve the situation but meanwhile they have not taken any actions.

HopeSpringsEternal

The estimate was a projection based on the count for the past 11 months. And they already said it would be the worst.

But yeah it was just still an estimate

Skew the numbers and the more the government say people are having kids and getting married the more people will marry. FOMO people think everyone else is marrying and having kids so it becomes the norm and the negativity goes away and people mind sets change.

I don't like to discuss such issues, because under a minimum rate of about 2.05 , 2 for self reproduction and a value added for baby and children mortality, any of such discussions is completely useless.

This was expected, because top 1/3rd in income account for 2/3rd of all births in Korea.

In other word, the wealthy are still reproducing at a rate greater than 2+ while the bottom 1/3rd are going extinct, this is why Koreans didn't really worry for the birth rate as it was guaranteed to bounce back.

Korea has learned to cope with labour shortage through guest worker importations who are given a work permit, not residency green card, to work in Korea for a fixed time period and then return home.