South Korea’s president has declared the country’s low birth rate a “national emergency” and announced a new government ministry to address the problem.
In a televised press conference on May 9, President Yoon Suk Yeol said, “We will mobilize all of the nation’s capabilities to overcome the low birth rate, which can be considered a national emergency.”
He announced he would ask for the parliament’s support to establish a new “Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter Planning.”
South Korea has had the lowest fertility rate in the world for years, and the average number of babies per woman dropped to a new low of 0.72 in 2023, down from 0.78 the previous year.
Despite the government’s efforts to increase the birth rate by spending over $200 billion on initiatives meant to encourage larger families, including infertility treatment, cash subsidies, and childcare services, the country’s birth rate declined for the fourth year in a row in 2023.
A Korean Construction corporation made headlines this year for offering employees $75,000 for each baby they have. “If Korea’s birth rate remains low, the country will face extinction,” Lee Joong-keun, chairman of the Booyoung Group, warned.
Like most other countries in the world, South Korea is suffering from the fallout of the sexual revolution that has led to collapsing birth rates due to the normalization of abortion, contraception, divorce, and the general breakdown of the family. Economic incentives alone are likely insufficient to address the “national emergency” of plummeting fertility rates.