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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
It is expected to gradually come back up to 1.08 in 2072, Statistics Korea said, but that is still far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population in the absence of immigration.
In comparison, the United States’ fertility rate was expected to be 1.66 births per woman this year, and rise to 1.75 by 2030, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but the US will still see population growth because of immigration.
Many European and other industrialized nations also face aging populations, but the speed and impact of that change is mitigated by immigration.
Countries like South Korea, Japan and China, however, have shied away from mass immigration to solve their working age population issues.
Similar demographic declines are being seen in several other Asian countries including Japan and China, raising concerns there will be too few people of working age to support the ballooning elderly population.
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