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). [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s shrinking pool of conscripts is causing concerns amid the growing threat from North Korea, prompting the military to mull options to effectively maintain combat readiness with limited resources. In South Korea, all able-bodied men must serve mandatory military service for at least 18 months, while women can [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for measures to prevent a decrease in the country’s birth rate in the first national meeting of mothers in 11 years, state media reported Monday. Kim said he has thought about North Korean mothers whenever he faced difficulties in steering state and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea is set to report negative economic growth in 2050 if the country fails to reverse its accelerating birth-rate decline, the central bank said Sunday. The country’s total fertility rate — the number of children, on average, that a woman aged 15-49 has during her lifetime — plunged [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of babies born in South Korea fell by the most in more than 2 1/2 years in August, data showed Wednesday. A total of 18,984 babies were born in August, down 2,798, or 12.8 percent, from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea. It [...]