Korea on the Highway of Demographic Disasters … Is White Medicine Invalid?

50 million people will be reduced to 25 million or less. Production manpower, students, and resources to enlist in the military are also reduced by less than half. This is the emergence of Korea in 2060, 40 years later predicted by the Korea Economic Research Institute. This is the reality that the current generation of young people under 40 will face.

Demographic data from the resident registry released by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security on the 3rd show that this catastrophe is not far off. As of the end of December last year, the total number of registered residents in Korea was 58,299.23, 2,838 less than a year ago. This is the first time in our modern history that the registered resident population has decreased. It feels like one of the basic local governments in the countryside has disappeared.

■ Emergence of demographic disasters … The fertility rate fell sharply due to the crown crisis

Last year, the number of births decreased by 10.7% (32,882 people) to 275,000,815, but the number of deaths increased by 3.1% (9,269 people) to 307,764 people. A ‘dead cross’ occurred. The decline in births is appalling. In 2017, the 400,000 line fell below the 300,000 line just three years after its collapse. The 400,000 birth line stood for 15 years, but the 300,000 line collapsed in an instant.

This was already predicted by a sharp drop in the fertility rate. The total fertility rate, the number of children expected to give birth to a woman of childbearing age for life, was 0.90 in the first quarter of last year and 0.84 in the second and third trimesters. from last year. It is the lowest and the lowest in the world. It is too far from the world average (2.4 people) or the average of the European Union (EU) countries with many welfare states (1.59).

The situation is expected to get worse. It’s getting harder and harder to hear babies cry as young people postpone marriage or delivery plans due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Bank of Korea recently announced in a report on post-crown demographic changing conditions, where the total fertility rate in 2022 will fall more than 0.72, which is a pessimistic scenario in the special population estimate. future of the National Statistical Office. Expected.

The BOK researchers pointed out that the fact that the relative concentration of crown-driven income and employment shocks between the ages of 20 and 30 would have had an effect on declining marriage and pregnancy.

■ Who produces, pays taxes, and performs military service? The national foundation reels

In a July report last year, Gyeong-Yeon Han predicted that by 2060, 40 years later, the population will decline to less than half, the working-age population will decline to 48.1%, active duty soldiers to 38. 7% and the population of school age (from 6 to 21 years old) 42.8%. .

The number of older people who need to support a working-age population is also expected to increase from 0.22 to 0.98. Currently, about five working-age populations support an older person, but after age 40, a working-age population must support an older person. The BOK predicted that the economic growth rate in 2026-2035 would slow to 0.4% due to the low birth rate and an aging population.

The government also seriously recognized this reality and proposed various incentives to give birth in cash in the IV Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Aging (2021-2025) launched in December last year.

Specifically, it was decided to pay ‘breastfeeding allowances’ of 300,000 won per month from 2022 to babies aged 0-1 and 500,000 won per month from 2025. In addition, when giving birth, the global payment and the National Card of Happiness combine to receive 3 million won, and up to 15 million won when the couple take parental leave for three months at the same time.

The government has decided to invest a total of 196 trillion won by 2025, including 36 trillion won this year as a budget to respond to low birth rates. Vice Premier Hong Nam-ki and the Minister of Strategy and Finance said: “We prepared the Fourth Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Aging with the desperate feeling that we have to stop the population decline and open the door to change.” .

However, there are many opinions that there is a limit to reverse the birth rate that has been broken by money. The government invested about 200 trillion won in the budget to solve the low birth rate problem from 2006 to last year, but what effect it had is questionable.

The Low Fertility and Elderly Social Studies Committee also recognizes that low birth rates are the general result of complex causes, and measures to look at only one side of the problem cannot be a solution, and to ‘improve the quality of life ‘for all generations, including children, youth and retired generations. It has been said that it was taken as the direction of the 4th basic plan.

Professor Yeong-Tae Cho from Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health, an expert on demography, said: “The welfare budget related to low birth rates is important, but it cannot be a panacea”. “If the problem does not improve, it will not be easy to reverse the trend.”

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