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.
The country's fertility rate, the average number of babies a woman is expected to have during her reproductive life, stood at 0.75 in 2024, according to Statistics Korea.
In 2023, the birthrate fell for the eighth consecutive year to 0.72, the lowest in the world, from 1.24 in 2015, raising concerns over the economic shock to society from such a rapid pace.
Since 2018, South Korea has been the only member of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) with a rate below 1.
South Korea has rolled out various measures to encourage young people to get married and have children, after now impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a "national demographic crisis" and a plan to create a new ministry devoted to tackling low birth rates.
"There was a change in social value, with more positive views about marriage and childbirth," Park Hyun-jung, an official at Statistics Korea, told a briefing, also citing the impact of a rise in the number of people in their early 30s and pandemic delays.
"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.
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.
In the Asian country, there is a high correlation between marriages and births, with a time lag of one or two years, as marriage is often seen as a prerequisite to having children.
Across the country, the birthrate last year was the lowest in the capital, Seoul, at 0.58.
The latest data showed there were 120,000 more people who died last year than those who were newly born, marking the fifth consecutive year of the population naturally shrinking. The administrative city of Sejong was the only major centre where population grew.
South Korea's population, which hit a peak of 51.83 million in 2020, is expected to shrink to 36.22 million by 2072, according to the latest projection by the statistics agency.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
23 Comments
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HopeSpringsEternal
It can't collapse forever, some good news for a change!
WoodyLee
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
WoodyLee
""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/
garymalmgren
"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?
Cephus
"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.
asdfghjkl
Yeah until it continues the drop next year…. On the positives…..it will increase at some point.
Geeter Mckluskie
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
Deo Gratias
Seems the same thing happens in Korea as happens in the West -- namely, that government is looked to in order to solve a problem that it can't solve.
There are severe limits to what government can do to solve the low-birthrate problem. Tax incentives, maybe. That's about it.
But this is a problem rooted in social values, not government policy.
Until social values change, until it becomes a social value again to cherish marriage and family life -- and specifically, to encourage the wholly noble, necessary, and uniquely special vocation of full-time motherhood -- the low-birthrate problem is going to persist. In Korea, in Japan, and elsewhere.
Again, there's no political solution to this. Not to this, or to any other social-values problem.
lostrune2
Kpop increasing friskiness, giggidy
albaleo
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.
ian
Oh wow there's hope
ian
That's quite a jump
Blackstar
@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.
Blackstar
@Cephus
Please keep it up.
I guess they've been doing that.
GuruMick
Birth rate of 0.75%
Must suck having three quarters of a baby
Speed
Why exactly did the people's perception of marriage and having kids go up?
ian
3quarters is 75%
Gaijinjland
A marriage with no children is worse than being single.
HopeSpringsEternal
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.
HopeSpringsEternal
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?
ian
Already released an estimate January, set to fall belown700k for the first time
HopeSpringsEternal
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
Albert
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.
ian
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