The fertility rate — the average number of children born to a woman during her reproductive years — declined for the sixth straight year to 0.81 in 2021, according to Statistics Korea, the national statistics agency. Experts said it might drop below 0.8 this year, as rising housing prices further discourage people from having children.

By comparison, the fertility rate was 1.66 in the United States and 1.37 in Japan. A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a population to remain the same size without migration.

“How difficult must people find it to get married, give birth and raise children for this number to be so low?” said Lee Samsik, a professor of policy at Hanyang University in Seoul. “If we take this as a compressed measure of basic life, it’s a troublesome figure.”, and the dwindling number of working-age people imperils the pensions of retirees.conscripts have faced shortages of students, the military has expanded eligibility requirements for Schools in the past two years. shrunk The implications of the low fertility rate are already being felt across South Korean society.