SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s birthrate continues to decline, but a growing number of unmarried adults now say they still intend to marry—offering a potential, if modest, glimmer of hope in the nation’s battle against population decline. According to a comprehensive 2024 survey released Sunday by the Korea Institute for Health and Social [...]
HAENAM, South Korea, Feb. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — Haenam County in South Jeolla Province has introduced an expanded financial support system for newborns, ensuring that a child born in 2025 will receive up to 91.56 million KRW ($63,100) in government assistance by the time they turn 18. According to Haenam County officials on February 7, the [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s birth rate is projected to have increased in 2024 for the first time in nine years but show significant regional differences, the statistics agency said Monday. The number of newborns between January and November reached 220,094, up 3 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 22 (Korea Bizwire) – Experts at a population strategy forum have called for a fundamental shift in workplace culture, arguing that employees balancing work, caregiving, and personal life should become the new standard in personnel management to address South Korea’s declining birth rate and achieve better work-life integration. The forum, held on November 20 [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – As South Korea grapples with its alarmingly low birth rate, the pharmaceutical and biotech industries are joining the effort to address this pressing social issue. Companies are expanding childbirth subsidies and implementing support measures for couples struggling with infertility, all in a bid to encourage employees to have children. According [...]
SEOUL, Jul. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — President Yoon Suk Yeol has tapped an economics professor at Hanyang University as the inaugural senior presidential secretary for low birth rate issues, sources said Thursday. The presidential office is expected to announce the nomination of You Hye-mi as early as later in the day, according to the sources. [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 12 (Korea Bizwire) – Despite spending 47 trillion won last year to tackle the country’s chronically low birth rate, about half of that budget was allocated to programs unrelated to the core issue, experts warned, calling for a restructuring of government spending to better address the demographic crisis. At a seminar on June 11 [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – In a revealing study on South Korea’s labor market dynamics and their impact on family planning, researchers have pointed to a stark disparity in birth rates between contract (irregular workers not covered by major insurance) and full-time corporate employees. The findings suggest that the fertility rate among women in [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — In a stark illustration of South Korea’s deepening low birth rate crisis, a growing number of schools are closing their doors. The birth rate has plummeted to an alarming 0.7, sparking fears of a national existential crisis. The situation has become so severe that even the sight of empty cribs [...]
INCHEON, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – On the first day of 2024, a joyous event took place at the Gachon University Gil Hospital: the birth of a healthy baby girl weighing 3.4 kg. The newborn, affectionately nicknamed ‘Horam’, combines the characters ‘Ho’ from her father Choi Ho-kyu (40) and ‘Ram’ from her mother Kim Bo-ram (36). [...]