South Korea, the country with the world’s lowest birth rate, expects it to fall even further in the next two years while its overall population is expected to plummet to levels not seen since the 1970s.
The new data underscores the demographic timebomb that South Korea and other East Asian nations like Japan and Singapore are facing as their societies rapidly age just a few decades after their dramatic industrialization.
South Korea’s total fertility rate, the number of births from a woman in her lifetime, is now expected to drop from 0.78 in 2022 to 0.65 in 2025, according to the government’s Statistics Korea.
The rest of the world is learning from their example. It’s pretty much just countries in Africa and a handful of places elsewhere where the fertility rate is high enough for population growth.
Mass immigration is the driving force for other countries that are still growing in population. Even India is only just barely growing.
And yes, fewer people is better for the planet, but it comes with its own problems.
It gets harder to provide for the elderly when they massively outnumber the younger “productive” parts of society. Do you want to be 70+ and destitute, with nobody to care for you, healthcare systems unable to properly attend to you?