ⓒ JoongAng Ilbo / JoongAng Ilbo Japanese version2023.01.25 13:37
Recently, countermeasures against the declining birthrate have become a hot topic. It all started when Na Kyung-won, vice chairman of the Low Birth and Aging Society Committee, talked about low-interest housing loans for newlyweds and a plan to reduce the principal in conjunction with childbirth. After mentioning Hungary’s countermeasures, Vice Chairman Luo was dismissed, and there was also controversy over the people’s candidacy for the leader of the Power Party. The issue of the declining birthrate, which is a factor that has a serious impact on the Korean economy, has failed to attract much attention so far.
South Korea’s total fertility rate in 2021 is 0.81, the lowest among OECD member countries. In Japan, the number has increased slightly from 1.26 in 2005, and has remained at the 1.3 level. What is the reason why Korea’s fertility rate has fallen more rapidly than Japan, which had the lowest fertility rate? Misae Sasano, Professor of Contemporary Sociology at Ibaraki University, graduated from Nihon University and received her master’s and doctoral degrees from Seoul National University. While living in South Korea for 15 years, she compared the situation in both countries. Last year, she presented her research results at the Institute of Japanese Studies, Seoul National University, on the theme of “How are the causes of the declining birth rate in Korea and Japan different?”
While Japan’s birth rate has gradually declined, South Korea’s has plummeted. In Korea and Japan, the number of births decreased by 25% from 1980 to 2000. Both countries were at similar levels. However, between 2000 and 2020, South Korea fell by 57.2%, while Japan fell by just 29.5%. According to Professor Sasano, South Korea spent much more money on countermeasures against the declining birthrate than Japan, but it was not effective.
Professor Sasano analyzes that it has something to do with young women’s “compressive increase in educational attainment.” In South Korea, there is a large gap between the generation of parents and children in the proportion of women who have received a college degree or higher. As of 2020, 18% of South Korean women aged 55-64 have received higher education, but 77% of women aged 25-34 have received higher education. For Korean men, the difference between the parents’ generation and the children’s generation is about 30 percentage points, while for women it is close to 60 percent. My daughter’s generation has become more highly educated than anywhere else in the world.
Professor Sasano emphasized, “Only by understanding the changes in the values of young Korean women can we understand things like the rapid decline in the birth rate.” Professor Sasano analyzed data from a five-year comparative survey conducted by the Japanese Cabinet Office on the values of young people aged 13 to 29 in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and Sweden.
◆ A survey of the values of young people in seven countries…
Korean young women were very unique. In a 2018 survey, more than 90% of young South Korean women opposed the question, “Should husbands work outside the home and wives stay at home?” It is much higher than Western European countries known for gender equality. About half of young women in the U.S. and the U.K. answered yes to the question, “Mothers should take care of their children when they are young,” while young women in South Korea disagreed. was the most common.
There was also a difference among Korean women when comparing the value of marriage. South Korean women had the lowest percentage of respondents who said they should get married, but what was unique was that a relatively large number of young Korean women answered that they should not get married. Professor Sasano said, “There was a bigger change in the value of children. While there was an increase in the number of young Korean women who said, ‘Children are not always necessary,’ there was a trend among young Japanese women who wanted children. I was told. When asked about what is important in their lives, the ratio of choosing family was high in other countries, but in South Korea, the ratio of choosing work, society, and themselves over family increased significantly compared to previous surveys.
Both men and women are worried about employment due to the economic crisis
Professor Sasano cited changes in the labor market after the economic crisis as the cause. In South Korea, both men and women felt uneasy at the same time, while in Japan women felt relatively uneasy about employment. This is because Japanese economic organizations have chosen to protect male full-time employees. According to the analysis, both men and women feel insecure in the Korean labor market, and the competition between genders has deepened.
In South Korea, women’s higher educational attainment has eliminated the gap between men and women’s college enrollment rates, while in Japan, men’s college enrollment rate is still much higher than that of women’s. Professor Sasano said, “South Korea has introduced a quota system for women in parliamentary elections. There have been changes,” he said.
However, these rapid changes are conspicuous in a specific generation of women, and the diagnosis is that the older generation, society, and the workplace system have not caught up, creating friction. As this gap continues to narrow, young Korean women are likely to put off getting married and having children. Even if the budget for the declining birthrate is invested, it will be difficult to increase the birth rate unless the division of childcare between men and women and the culture of gender equality in the workplace progress.