PRB

How can South Korea address the causes and consequences of its record-low fertility rates? Its leaders must first untangle some deep-rooted cultural issues around gender, argues PRB President and CEO Jennifer D. Sciubba.

“Korea should acknowledge that its population issues are primarily gender issues,” Sciubba said. “Leaders in the public and private sectors seem to fully accept this idea, but they say the broader public isn’t on board. So, what to do?”

Sciubba addressed Korea’s low fertility on June 19 during her remarks at the 15th EDAILY Strategy Forum in Seoul, which brought together policymakers, business leaders, and researchers to discuss the country’s demographic future. She spoke alongside former Prime Minister of Finland Esko Aho and Ha-nam Bang, South Korea’s former Minister of Employment and Labor.

In June, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a “national emergency” over the country’s plummeting birth rates and a shrinking population. The country has had the world’s lowest fertility rate for years; the average woman has 0.72 children, and South Korea sees more deaths than births each year, leading to population declines.

Over the years, the government has used various incentives to try to encourage young people to have children. While Yoon is creating a new government ministry, tentatively called the Ministry of Population Strategy and Planning, to address its demographic challenges, some new policies continue to paint low fertility as an economic issue and thus are unlikely to move the needle, Sciubba said.

The government has cited high housing prices, education costs, and long working hours as factors contributing to the low fertility rate. But a growing number of Korean women are eschewing dating, marriage and childbirth, citing pervasive sexism and chauvinism in Korean culture.

But cultures do change, Sciubba noted. “South Korea’s leaders successfully corrected the country’s egregious gender imbalance at birth in less than a generation by reforming patriarchal laws, trumping cultural practices,” she said. Some of Yoon’s new measures address inequalities between men and women—for example, aiming to increase uptake of paternity leave, now at 6.8%, to 50%, and implementing flexible working hours. But Sciubba worries the government won’t be able to enforce such policies without putting undue pressure on businesses.

Describing low fertility as a national emergency is a way to mobilize resources but risks putting undue pressure on couples, particularly women, to have more babies as the primary solution to the country’s shifting demographics instead of focusing on broader issues with work, caregiving, and gender equity, Sciubba added.

South Korea is not alone in experiencing low fertility and depopulation—the UN reports that 63 countries and areas have already passed peak population, and fertility in the United States is at a historic low. ​​The question many world leaders should now be asking is how to plan for the strain that an aging and shrinking society puts on the care economy and the workforce, Sciubba says. PRB recently explored how the United States could develop policies to address its care worker shortage and promote gender equity in care work. Meanwhile, countries on the other side of the demographic divide must take steps to capitalize on a booming working-age population, Sciubba said; PRB and partner CREG will dive into this issue with leaders from Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Senegal, and Togo in a public event on August 6.