A. Population growth, economic growth and policy
The population growth rate in the Korean peninsular was not so high as 1.46 percent per annum during 1925~1944 under the Japanese colonial period, due mainly to both high fertility and high mortality. During 1949~1955, the population growth rate per annum decreased to 1.07 percent in South Korea, for which there were many deaths during the Korean war from 1950 to 1953 after the Korean liberation in 1945. The baby-boom phenomenon, as started from 1955, pushed up the population growth rate, which was 3.01 percent per annum during 1955~1960.
The Korean government integrated the ante-natal policy into the First Five Years' Planning of Economic Development (1962~1966), confronting with the fact that the high population growth rate eroded the low economic growth rate which caused the vicious cycle of poverty and being recommended by World Population Program of United Nations. The family planning was introduced as a main tool for the ante-natal policy in 1962. The target of the Ten Years' Plan for Family Planning was to decrease the population growth rate per annum from 2.9 percent in 1960 to 2.0 percent in 1971 when the Second Five Years' Planning of Economic Development
(1967~1971) was finished. In 1971 the Korean government adopted the 'two child policy' under
the slogan “breed well only two children regardless of boys or daughters" to reinforce the birth control. It was in 1973 that the Maternal and Child Health Law was enacted, allowing induced abortion for birth control with some conditions. The one child was strongly recommended by the slogan "the well-bred daughter is better than ten sons".
Figure 3. Population Growth Rate and Economic Growth Rate for Korea
Source: The Bank of Korea, Korea National Statistical Office..
The government set up a target to further decrease the fertility rate to the replacement rate until 1988 in the Fifth Five Years' Planning of Economic Development (1982~1986). However, TFR was 2.8 in 1980 and hence the ante-natal policy was strengthened according to the notice from the President. In the Sixth Five Years' Planning of Economic Development (1987~1991), the government again set up a goal to decrease TFR from 2.05 in 1984 to 1.75 in 1995 but such a goal had been accomplished in 1985.
The population growth rate had been maintained far below the population replacement level since the mid-1980s, which is why the Korean government adopted a new population policy (1996~2003) in 1996, abolishing the ante-natal policy. However, the new population policy aimed at maintaining the below replacement level of fertility as part of the process of achieving sustainable socio-economic development, putting an emphasis on the qualitative aspects of population such as enhancement of family health and welfare, prevention of the imbalance of sex ratio at birth, reducing the incidence of induced abortions, tackling of sex-related problems of youths and adolescents, empowerment of women by expanding their employment opportunities and welfare services.
-1.65 -1.10 -0.55 0.00 0.55 1.10 1.65 2.20
-10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0
1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
GDP Growth Rate Population Growth Rate
B. Conflicts of fertility behavior with rapid socio-economic change (1) era of chaos
The rapid fertility decline had been influenced by the strong anti-natal policy since the early 1960s. The government abolished the anti-natal policy in 1996. The pro-natal policy, the Basic Plan on Aging Society and Population, has been adopted since 2006, of which the legal basis is the Basic Law on Aging Society as enacted in 2005. However, the influence of the anti-natal policy has lasted even nowadays. As a matter of fact, the perception toward a small family size has been rooted for many generations and the antinatalism has remained in many social systems.
For example, many textbooks at elementary, middle and high schools included contents to emphasize one child or two children, implicitly and explicitly, the most of which were revised in 2007.
When the government started the pro-natal policy including publicity in the mid-2000s, the most of people were confused. Even now, some of people have distrust in abrupt change of the population policy. Due to such a chaos, the pro-natal policy seems to be less effective than expected.
(2) economic hardship
Korea experienced the financial crisis the late 1990s and the global financial crisis in the late 2000s, which have been intermingled with unemployment and job insecurity. Such a sluggish economy was contributing to delay in marriage and low fertility. Specifically, non-permanent employment status was introduced, for the first time with the financial crisis in the late 1990s, to which people have not still been accustomed. It is notable that trends in TFR seem to be inelastic in that it rather sharply decreases with hard economy but not increased as much with
improvement in economy. It is because the fertility behavior is more likely to be fragile to withstand strong winds and external shocks due mainly to the lack of social safety net for rearing children and cannot be easily recovered with increase in uncertainty even after shocks. For Sweden, the decrease in TFR was small even with the economic crisis in the early 1990s but rebounded rapidly, after an economic recovery, from 1.54 in 2000 to 1.91 in 2008.
Education backgrounds, specifically of prestigious universities, have been considered to be crucial as a means to escape from unemployment, job insecurity and future uncertainty, for which around 80 percent of high school graduates go on to college nowadays, compared with about 50 percent three decades ago. It has caused prolonging of education duration, increase in cost for private education, delay in timing of economic independence, etc. which in turn have negative impacts on marriage and fertility.
(3) maladjustment to changing social environments
Social environments have rapidly and considerably changed along with rapid economic growth.
There has been an increase in higher education for women; the percentage of women who are admitted to university exceeds 80 percent, above the percentage for men (Ministry of Education).
The economic participation rate for women has increased with high proportion of women engaged in clerical and professional jobs. Most women seek full-time jobs and promotions at
work and take care of housework and childrearing at the same time. Generally, however working women quit jobs when they got married and became pregnant or started raising children. The working mothers’ career interruption ratio when they have a first child is 47.7 percent in 2009 (National Survey on Marriage and Fertility, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs).
Career interruptions due to marriage and childcare are widespread. There are some reasons for this; (1) the family system has shifted from a single earner family to a dual earner family, but a traditional gender roles still prevail in Korea, (2) most of the Korean workplaces are not family friendly, and (3) the support by family members has been weaken along with increase in nuclear family and there has been a shortage of child related infrastructure.
In reality, men’s roles in housework remain more or less the same. Working long hours has been taken for granted. According to the OECD, in 2011 the average annual working hours is 2,090 hours for Korea, which is the longest among OECD countries of which an average is 1,776 hours. For this reason, Korea men were least likely to participate in household chores or
childcare. The Korea NSO’s ‘Time Use Survey’ reveals that while men spent about 30 minute on doing household chores, women spent 3 hours more a day (in details, 3.3 hours for working women and 6.3 hours for non-working women).
Figure 4. Average annual working hours for OECD countries, 2011i
Source: OECD(2010). Family Database.
The shortage of daycare center (especially, infant care) is a biggest problem in maintaining the family-work balance. Many women in their 30s have no choice but to drop out of the labor market, resulting in a typical "M-curve" of the female economically participation rates. As a result, both TFR and female employment rate in Korea are at low levels.
2090
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Korea Chile Greece Russian Federation Hungary Poland Estonia Israel Turkey Slovak Republic United States Czech Republic Italy New Zealand Iceland Japan Portugal Canada Australia Spain Finland Slovenia Sweden United Kingdom Luxembourg Austria Belgium Ireland Denmark France Norway Germany Netherlands
Figure 5. Female employment rates and total fertility rates of OECD countries
Source: OECD(2010). Family Database.
As balancing housework and economic activities emerges as a greater challenge to women, they tend to have children as late, and fewer, as possible and some even do not want any at all.
Once they quit their jobs, they could hardly have a job of the same level as their previous job when they seek reemployment after their children are grown. This means a decrease in the household income, and often leads to avoidance of marriage and childbearing as recognized as opportunity cost. The higher educational background women have, the higher echelon of a job they have, such as administration, management, and professional work, and the less the wage difference they have relative to men—all pointing to more opportunity costs incurred from childbearing and childrearing.
Property bubbles in the early 2000s increased excessively the price of a house; the young people in marriageable ages cannot afford to prepare a house for marriage. Prolonging in life expectancy is raising concerns about the longer life in old ages, which cause increasingly the conflicts between child-rearing and preparing for the old age. Thus, unstable housing and burden on old-age security often deter the young couples from achieving both marriage in an appropriate ages and the desired number of children.
(4) change in values on marriage and child
Family values (including views on marriage and children) is changing due to changing social phenomena (economic crisis, job insecurity, increasing childcare costs, imbalance of work-family, etc.), emphasis on self-realization and quality of life, conflict between tradition and modern culture. For example, according to the National Survey on Fertility and Family Health (Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs), 23.4 percent of single men (20~44 years) and only 16.9 percent of single women (20~44 years) agreed with the statement that marriage is a must. To the questionnaire “having child is a must”, the percentage of currently married women saying “yea” decreased dramatically, 24.8 percent in 1997 to 10.2 percent in 2006.
This is because imbalance between work and life is led to increasing opportunity cost of having a child, in particular for women with the higher socio-economic status and levels of education. Although there has been an increase in income incurred from the economic growth, the opportunity cost of child, together with the burden of childcare costs, also has increased, put more values on ‘quality of child’ than ‘quantity of child’. It may be said that the lowest low fertility of Korea is a product of trade-off between quality and quantity of child, as pointed out in the Becker’s theory.