- Pixabay.
South Korea – South Korea's population is predicted to decline by 27%, from 52 million today to 38 million by 2070 as the younger generation refrains from getting married, according to South Korea's Statistics Korea (BPS) on Tuesday.
There were only 192,000 marriages recorded in 2022. This is down sharply from 295,000 in 1970.
Citizens increasingly don't want to marry and have children for various reasons. These include the high cost of housing and raising children, as well as high youth unemployment.
Ilustrasi populasi penduduk Bumi.
- U-Report
Nearly half of men aged 25 to 49 in South Korea have never married, and one in three women in the same age group are also unmarried.
While the world population is expected to grow by 28 percent from this year to 2070, South Korea's population is expected to shrink by 27 percent.
According to Business Korea, Statistics South Korea released data on the declining birthrate and changing society to mark Population Day on July 11.
By 2022 there will be 192,000 marriages in South Korea, 103,000 fewer than the 295,000 in 1970. The early marriage rate, which refers to the number of marriages per 1,000 people, dropped from 5.5 in 1970 to 3.7 in 2022.
The average age of the first child from marriage for men and women is 33.7 and 31.3 years, respectively. Among married women aged 15-54, those who experienced career interruption accounted for 17.2 percent.
The main reason for career interruption was childcare (42.7 percent). This was followed by marriage (26.3 percent) and pregnancy and childbirth (22.8 percent).
Meanwhile, the total fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to during her lifetime, reached a record low of 0.78 in 2022, down from 1.30 in 2012, much lower than the replacement rate of 2.10 required to maintain the current birth rate.
Currently, South Korea's population is reported to reach 51.7 people in 2021. This is down from the previous record of 51.8 people in 2020.
