Name: South Korea’s Radical Solution to Asia’s Birth Rate Crisis
Uploaded: 2024-11-09T21:01:30.000Z
Duration: 12 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

These young South Koreans are on a mass blind date.

One hundred men and women are here hoping to find love.

For the next five hours, they'll play games, dance and dine until they find the one.

South Korea is facing a demographic time bomb grappling with the world's lowest fertility rate that threatens its very future.

And the government is scrambling for solutions from cash for having babies to unconventional initiatives like this matchmaking event.

The country even declared a national emergency over the plunging birth rate.

In countries that have low fertility rates, younger people don't find it worth it to have kids.

There's a lot of negativity about parenthood.

Experts warn of a demographic trap that could overwhelm economic growth.

By 2044, South Korea's workforce could shrink by nearly 10 million.

But for many young South Koreans, it's personal.

Usually we think that getting married means sacrificing myself.

What's unfolding here mirrors a wider global trend that's hitting East Asia the hardest.

So what can the world learn from South Korea's crisis, and what does it mean for their future?

This matchmaking event has been running since 2023.

And 28-year-old Eun Hye-bae hopes to find her future husband here.

The first step in overcoming the birth problem is to get married.

We created this matchmaking event for young people who have a lot of work to do.

South Korean women are now having fewer children than ever before.

Far below the 2.1 rate needed for a generation to replace itself.

The fact that there are numbers like this in South Korea, which is not even at war, means that there is no such thing in the world.

For this 26-year-old aspiring actress, individuality and career ambitions take precedence.

I don't think marriage or childbirth is a necessary element.

As an actress, I have a lot of things I want to do in the future, and it's clear that I want to move forward.

She believes her generation is dealing with larger issues beyond finding happiness through traditional family values.

Economic power, time, state of mind, physical strength.

The latest government report in June says economic conditions such as work-life balance, housing, cost of living and job opportunities are key to marriage and childbirth decisions.

In early May, I thought, how can I pay off my credit card bill this month?

I don't think I'll be able to support myself in this low birth rate era.

It's hard for me to make a living right now.

Now we have these highly educated generations, but there are so many financial and economic pressures on housing and all of those things that there's not a surety that people will be able to hit those markers of adulthood that we really relied on in the past.

South Korea's birth rate decline has been unfolding for decades.

A record 1 million people were born in 1971.

Over 50 years later, 230,000 people were born last year and 250,000 people were born the year before.

In 1997, there was the IMF economic crisis, and in 2020, there was the second moment when the number of newborns in South Korea collapsed.

Economic activity became very difficult and many people chose not to give birth.

It is expected that half of South Korea's population will disappear in just 50 years.

Since the early 2000s, the country has rolled out a bunch of initiatives to tackle the declining birth rate, pouring in more than $280 billion so far.

And yet, they have fallen far short, with one survey showing 90% of respondents find the birth rate campaigns ineffective.

Some initiatives border on the absurd, like this politician promoting Kegel exercises, or this one suggesting girls start primary school a year earlier than boys to make them more appealing.

And let's face it, raising kids is downright expensive.

We're not just talking about diapers and milk anymore.

A recent study revealed that South Korea is the most expensive country in the world to raise a kid, at 7.79 times the GDP per capita.

And its education expenses, like cram schools or private tutoring that are taking up the single largest cost.

In South Korea, we focus on pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing.

But we also have to think about how to change the paradigm of a society where it's better to have kids and raise them.

That's certainly the case for Ji Hae-myung, who leads a busy life working for a foreign real estate company.

Despite getting married five years ago, the 37-year-old remains deeply skeptical about having children.

My mom always said that don't get married.

That generation woman, their life is not that happy because our society, there is a really strong Confucianism, so the structure is not fair, especially husband and wife.

Many companies, they still think that taking care of a child should be for a woman, not a man.

Why we should choose family or my career, I think it's really unfair.

The gender gap is one of the biggest in Korea.

When a woman gives birth and comes back, the gap is wider.

The fear of career setbacks for women is a major reason behind the falling fertility rate in South Korea, contributing to almost half of the drop.

We see that women are increasingly sandwiched between caring for aging parents and young children and then also being asked to work more, and it's a nearly impossible task, right?

In fact, there are many women around me who gave birth at a similar time as I did, or are thinking about giving birth now, and they have concerns about whether they can return to work after giving birth, and sometimes they are actually fired.

I think to have a baby is really a blessing for our life if I'm ready.

But if I'm not ready, it could be a disaster.

Their stories reflect what's happening across the region.

For the first time in modern history, the number of women in their prime childbearing years across East Asia is projected to fall below 100 million next year, according to the UN.

This problem is not limited to just one country, but it's a global problem, and it's a global problem.

It's a disadvantageous environment for low-income groups, the rural areas, and the younger generation.

We need to see what the young people are thinking and how they are doing.

We also need to see how the neighboring countries are doing.

Experts say the steep fertility decline won't be reversed, at least in the next few decades.

So the question remains, what can be done?

For some, it's helping women balance work and family life.

And for the youth, it's creating a sense of stability and security.

I think real estate prices and housing prices need to be stabilized.

And I think we need to get rid of this useless system that forces people to study.

Our society needs to be more efficient and fair.

Other efforts look at core familial values, as Korea's work-life balance ranks near the bottom among OECD nations.

After work, we should be able to have dinner with our families and children and talk about what we did today.

Experts say South Korea is in need of a bold vision.

I think one of the most important things that we can all do is just accept that fertility rates are low and start moving on.

There is so much noise around low fertility rates right now that I fear is really preventing us from putting in place solutions for an aging population where we can be resilient and have this resilient world.

We have to take some time to prepare for that and adapt.

This journey towards a resilient future requires bridging the generational gap.

Rather than telling young people how to live, I think we should think about what to give to the next generation, the older generation, and the future generation.

I think it's very important to walk in line with the changing times.

 If you really want to solve the low fertility problem, you have to do it.