South Korea Posts 5.9 Percent Rise in July Births

(MENAFN) South Korea experienced a 13th consecutive month of rising births in July, driven by an increase in marriages, official data revealed Wednesday.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of newborns climbed 5.9 percent year-on-year to 21,803 in July, marking a steady upward trend since the same month last year.

The nation’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime — inched up by 0.04 to 0.80 in July. Despite the gain, this remains far below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman needed to sustain a stable population.

Marriage registrations also saw an 8.4 percent rise to 20,394 in July compared to last year, while divorces dropped slightly by 1.4 percent to 7,826.

However, significant concerns persist over the younger generation’s reluctance or delay in having children, largely due to economic hardships such as soaring housing costs and persistent unemployment.

This persistently low birth rate continues to raise alarms about a looming demographic cliff — a steep decline in household heads that could trigger a consumption collapse.

Deaths in July decreased marginally by 0.7 percent to 27,979 year-on-year.

Driven by the high death toll and relatively low birth numbers, South Korea’s natural population decline widened to 6,175 in July.

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