The New Koreans: An Introduction

By Sangita Annamalai

 

Changing Population – publicbroadcasting [dot] net

 

 South Korea (here onwards to be synonymous with “Korea”) is well known for its rapid economic changes and technological advancements made within the past four decades. Simultaneously, South Korea’s population demographics have been changing equally as rapidly. As the corporate workforce increases, the amount of dual income couples increase, leading to the natural outcome of fewer children. This is not an unusual phenomenon and a lower birthrate in and of itself is not the concern; the issue lies in the rate of change. In 1960 South Korea’s fertility rate was above both China’s and Japan’s at an astounding 6.16 (China’s was 5.47 and Japan’s was at a direct replacement rate of 2.0). Since then South Korea has dropped to become the lowest of the three countries to 1.24 (last recorded in 2011).