South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, at simply 0.78 births per lady as of 2022. It’s prone to get even worse, with Statistics Korea, the nation’s official statistics bureau, forecasting a price of simply 0.72 for 2023. That may be thrice decrease than the often-accepted substitute price of two.1, the variety of births wanted to maintain a inhabitants at a secure stage.
It’s even worse in Seoul, the nation’s capital, the place the fertility price is simply 0.59. Town’s mayor has an answer: He needs town’s authorities to play matchmaker to hyperlink folks collectively.
In a Bloomberg TV interview aired on Friday, Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon stated he first proposed the thought final yr, however the scheme was postponed on account of issues {that a} courting occasion wasn’t an applicable thought for public establishments. however Oh hasn’t given up. “I’m thinking about trying it again,” he stated, persevering with that some residents have been upset that the matchmaking plan was on maintain.
Different Korean metropolis governments have tried blind dating events, such because the native authorities in Seongnam Metropolis, simply south of Seoul, which organized an occasion at a resort for 100 South Korean women and men to fulfill.
South Korean officers are contemplating extra than simply matchmaking occasions to bolster the nation’s rapidly-declining beginning price.
The federal government is rising its incentives for households to have kids. Since 2022, the federal government has paid 2 million Korean won ($1500) to folks for his or her first little one, however beginning this yr, dad and mom will get 3 million received ($2250) for his or her second little one and thereafter. Mother and father may even obtain a month-to-month cost of 1 million received month-to-month ($750) for the primary 12 months and 500,000 received for the next 12 months. Mother and father with kids youthful than eight are additionally entitled to use for a most of 1 yr of parental depart.
Oh acknowledged that matchmaking can be a secondary position in comparison with different insurance policies meant to encourage childrearing, together with will increase to parental depart and monetary assist for {couples} in search of egg freezing providers or infertility remedies. “Seoul will mobilize all available policies,” Oh stated on Bloomberg.
The Financial institution of Korea, in a recent report, recommended that easing inhabitants density in Seoul may assist enhance the nation’s low beginning price. About half of Korea’s inhabitants lives within the Seoul metropolitan space.
South Korea’s authorities is the one one in Asia attempting to reverse a trend of declining beginning charges. Governments in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are all contemplating or have carried out new insurance policies to encourage households to have kids. Mainland China can be rolling again inhabitants management measures as new births within the nation sink to file lows.
