In the past decade, South Korea has been experiencing a sharp decline in its fertility rate with the average falling to an all-time low of 0.78 in 2022. This is far below the replacement level of 2.1, which is necessary to sustain the country’s population of 51.5 million. In 2021, the country already marked the lowest rate of 0.81 among more than 260 nations tracked by the World Bank. Today, about half of the 228 cities in Korea are at risk of disappearing due to the rapid decline of the resident population. Daycare centers and kindergartens are being converted into nursing homes, Ob-Gyn clinics are closing while funeral parlors are opening. The shrinking population is dangerous for a country with an aging population, along with the shortage of workers to support its pension system. Furthermore, the current Yoon administration has only been implementing policies of “throwing money at the problem,” focusing on financial solutions while disregarding the deep-rooted concerns and fears of the citizens that discourage them from giving birth. In order to suitably address the fertility crisis, the government needs to look at the root causes of the low fertility rate and propose policies that meet the needs of the current generation rather than solely increasing budgets and providing financial aid.
The crisis is more social in nature than economic and is likely to persist regardless of how much money is invested. South Korea is known for its rapid economic development and state-building. However, its patriarchal culture remains conservative, and practices of Confucianism are the sources of structural gender inequality in Korean society due to the extended period of conservative party rule and authoritarian control. As a result, there are continuous unwritten norms for parenthood in South Korea that discourage women from giving birth. There is a lingering social expectation that the men (father) sacrifice for the company and the women (mother) support the family, even if she also works. Lee Jin-song, who has written books about the trend of young people choosing not to get married or have a baby, highlighted the pressures of having children on women and how society perceives those who refuse to give birth as “neglecting their duties for society only for the sake of their happiness.” Lee further added that “I know so many couples where the women are actually earning more money than the men, but when they come home, it’s the women who have to do the housework and look after the children and provide emotional support to the husband.” Living in Korea as a mother indicates that they are left to choose between their career and family rather than being able to balance their lives due to traditional expectations of gender roles. Married women are saddled with the bulk of chores and child care, pressurizing new mothers to give up on their professional ambitions. Even in dual-income households, wives spend more than three hours daily on these tasks versus their husbands. Discrimination also exists against working mothers by employers, one notorious case being a baby formula maker company stressing female employees to quit after getting pregnant.
Although parental leave has been increased, in practice, many feel uncomfortable taking it in full. Husbands who would like to be more involved in child-rearing find that the business culture in South Korea does not always allow for that. In an interview, a man with a newborn child who was willing to help with childcare said: “there is no special understanding or treatment from work for having a young child. I can use my time off, but I feel uncomfortable using it because I want good feedback at work.” As such, there is widespread anxiety that the workers who are promoted are rarely the ones who put family first, regardless of whether they are men or women. Additionally, working hours in South Korea are among the longest in the developed world. In 2018, South Korean employees worked an average of 39 hours per week, 16% above the OECD mean. Work at home is not shared equally either. A survey in 2018 by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, a think-tank, found that married women do about four times as much housework and three times as much child care as their husbands.
Despite some hints of gender roles shifting towards a more liberal approach in recent years, it is a slow evolution that may take decades. For instance, during Korean traditional holidays such as the lunar new year or the Chuseok harvest festival, married couples are encouraged, if not obliged by the norms, to visit each other’s parents and relatives together and celebrate. Contrary to the purpose of “celebrating” altogether, these holidays mostly consist of women of the families in the kitchen with daylong drudgework for food preparations and cleaning. Due to the factors that restrain women’s lives upon being married and having babies, a 2022 survey found that more women than men don’t want children. Greater gender equality and less arduous working hours need to be appropriately addressed to encourage more childbearing. Meanwhile, couples in non-traditional relationships face discrimination; South Korea does not recognize same-sex marriage, and regulations make it difficult for unwed couples to adopt. Lee believes that policies to increase birth rates need to embrace more than just the traditional idea of marriage as being between a man and a woman. “I’ve considered how heterocentric and normalcy-centric the traditional marriage discussion is… “It excludes people who have disabilities, diseases, or poor reproductive health,” Lee explained. The status of women in South Korea, which is a deeply patriarchal society, along with worsening job opportunities for young people, are major drivers of the trend. Women are getting married and having children later in life out of fear of being denied promotions and facing gender-based discrimination at work.
On top of social factors like systematic gender inequality, South Korea’s hastening inflation has been another key factor prompting Koreans not to have a baby. Increased living costs, combined with a stubbornly high youth unemployment rate, have led to a massive growth of adults living with parents. The problem does not end when a married couple is able to sustain stable living conditions due to the country’s obsession with education. The rising education costs lead to a growing reluctance among women to give birth as they face numerous challenges to maintain a career while raising a child. South Korea’s private schooling hits record high every year, highlighting the financial pressure and intense demand for education that has contributed to the world’s lowest fertility rate. Monthly spending on additional private schooling, also known as “hagwons,” climbed to 410,000 won ($315) on average for students in 2020, up 11.8% in 2021 according to the statistic office. In 2022, 78.3% of children attended private education in addition to their mandatory schooling, up from 75.5% in 2021, said Statistics Korea. Such a competitive atmosphere and capitalistic approaches to child education are a pressure and burden to the current generation of married couples. Governments, alarmed by the exponential decrease of the rate every year, poured 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the past 16 years into programs encouraging procreation, such as a monthly allowance for parents and newborns. Nonetheless, an increasing number of women still refuse to give birth as it is difficult to escape gender norms and sexism. So far, none of the measures implemented by governments have been able to reverse the trends in marriage and childbearing. Worsening the crisis, the current administration has been actively opposing and undermining efforts that gave women hope. President Yoon Suk-yeol was elected last year when gender conflict in South Korea was at its climax by leveraging the “resentment” of many young Korean men declaring themselves as victims of women’s activism. Upon rising to power mostly from men’s rights advocates, he declared that structural sexism no longer exists in South Korea and vowed tougher punishment for false reports of sexual assault. Moreover, Yoon publicly stated that the cause of the low fertility rate is related to feminism, and the speaker of the National Assembly, Kim Jin-pyo pointed to homosexuality, suggesting the jeopardizing practice of gay conversion therapy as a solution. The government is also promoting the removal of the term “gender equality” from school textbooks and has canceled funding for programs to fight the prevalent sexism. A lawmaker in his party added that “if you find gender equality and feminism so important, you can do it with your own money and time.” Not only do the regretful remarks made by the leaders of a country portray the historical regression in Korea, but it also reinforces women’s unwillingness to have children. Further, Yoon recently proposed a policy that exempts men who have three or more children by the age of 30 from compulsory military conscription. In addition to the exemption, another economic solution of providing significant “gift” tax breaks to parents based on the number of children they have has been introduced. These proposals have angered segments of South Korean society, drawing criticisms of the policies favoring men over women. “The government’s proposals show a lack of consideration for women’s needs and perspectives,” said Kim Yun-Jeong, a 31-year-old designer and art instructor from Gyeonggi province. She added that “the gender wage gap in Korea is still significant, and women face many more challenges in balancing work and family life.” Women’s rights activists condemned the conscription exemption idea as only benefitting men and claimed that the problem in nature stems not from the low birthrate but discrimination. Additionally, Lee Bong-joo of Seoul National University said: “Focusing only on childcare won’t be effective in the future; increasing gender equality in the home and the workplace is the best solution, but that will take time.” He suggested the government tackle the gender discrimination faced by new mothers and remove the stigma associated with single-parent households. As observed by the marriage and birth rate trend in South Korea, it is safe to assume that the low fertility rate is a genuine consequence of combined issues in society, including the misogynistic culture and gender inequality, not an isolated crisis. Society can’t end the birth strike without acknowledging women’s grievances. Myriads of Korean women avoiding marriage and childbirth are exhausted by pervasive sexism and furious about a culture of violent chauvinism. Thus, efforts to make life fairer and safer for women would alleviate the country’s existential threat. However, the feminist approach is yet far-fetched, with the current ruling party championing regressive policies that only magnify the problem. The lawmakers and leaders of the country must recognize that the fundamental cause of the falling fertility rate lies in social issues including punishing work hours, social stigma on non-traditional couples and families, and gender discrimination. Without these being counteracted, the number of funds and stretch of the government budget would only bring trivial, if not worthless, results to the impending catastrophe.
Edited by Alyana Satchu
Hailey Lee is in her second year at McGill University, currently pursuing a degree in Political Science with a minor in Economics and Communication Studies. As this year’s Staff Writer for Catalyst, Hailey desires to spread awareness and inform the audience on political and human rights issues particularly occurring in the Asia Pacific.