bbc once reported that a new word has emerged in South Korea in recent years: the three-throwing era, which refers to giving up three things - courtship, marriage and childbirth. As we all know, South Korea not only has the lowest fertility rate in the country, but also one of the countries with the fastest aging population. According to United Nations predictions, by the end of this century, South Korea's population of 51 million will be reduced by half, and it may even face a crisis of national subjugation.
More and more Korean women choose to be "DINKs" and "Sanbao tribes". Why don't Korean women have children?
01 "National Emergency"
It was raining lightly in Seoul on Tuesday afternoon, and Ye-jin was cooking for a friend in her apartment. Today, she lives alone in the suburbs of Seoul and enjoys her single life.
While eating, one of them came across an old dinosaur emoticon. The dinosaur in the emoji warned: "Be careful, don't become extinct like us."
They all laughed.
Ye-jin, a 30-year-old TV producer, said: "It's funny, although it's just a black joke, there is a real possibility that we will become extinct." Neither Ye-jin nor her friends plan to have children, and they are all growing up Member of the child-free family.
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, and it continues to decline, breaking its own record for the lowest fertility rate every year. According to data released on February 28, 2024, South Korea’s fertility index dropped from 0.8 to 0.72 in 2023. This is the number of children each woman is expected to have. And for the population to remain stable, that number would be 2.1. If things continue like this, it is expected that South Korea's population will decrease by half by 2100.
Although birth rates are declining in developed countries around the world, no country is as fierce as South Korea.
South Korea’s demographic future is not optimistic. If this continues, in 50 years, South Korea's working-age population will decrease by 50%, the number of people serving in the military will decrease by 58%, and nearly half of the population will be over 65 years old.
South Korea's economy, pensions and national security are all at risk, with politicians declaring a "national emergency." In the past 20 years, successive Korean governments have spent a lot of money (379.8 trillion won, about 2.07 trillion yuan, to be exact) to solve this problem.
For example, pregnant couples can receive a large amount of funds, including monthly childcare subsidies, housing subsidies and free taxi rides, hospital bills and even IVF expenses are subsidized, but only for married couples. These incentives did not work, and South Korean politicians came up with many "fantasy" plans, such as hiring nannies from Southeast Asia and paying them below the minimum wage, and men who have three children before the age of 30 are exempted from military service.
Unsurprisingly, these policymakers have been criticized for not understanding the real needs of young people, especially women. Over the past year, the BBC has traveled across South Korea to talk to Korean women and find out the real reasons why they don't have children. Five years ago, Yizhen, who was only 25 years old, decided not to get married and challenged the rules of society. In Korea, single life is just a transitional period to marriage. But Yizhen decided not to get married or have children.
She told reporters: "In South Korea, it is difficult to find a man worth dating, a man who can equally share housework and take care of children. Moreover, in South Korea, single mothers will be discriminated against."
In 2022, only 2% of South Koreans Newborns result from out-of-wedlock births.
02 "Never-ending work"
goes against the rules of society, Yizhen chose to focus on the television career. She believed that she would not have time to raise a child anyway. South Korea’s working hours are notoriously long.
Although Yizhen’s working hours are nominally 9 to 6 (equivalent to 9 to 5 in the UK), she usually doesn’t get off work until 8 pm and has to work overtime. Once home, she only has time to clean the house and do a little bedtime exercise.
She said: "Although I love my job very much, it gives me a lot of sense of accomplishment. But working in Korea is too hard, and I am stuck in endless work." Yejin said that in order to complete the work better , she also studies in her spare time. "Korean people feel that if you don't work hard to improve yourself, you will fall behind and end up failing. The fear of failure makes us work harder."
" Sometimes on the weekends, I would get an intravenous drip just because I have to work on Monday and I need to be energetic. " She added nonchalantly that it seemed normal to her.
Ye-jin shared the same anxieties as the other Korean women I interviewed - they all worried that they would not be able to return to work if they took time off to have a baby.
She Said: “There is an unspoken rule in the company that once we have children, we must leave. "Yezhen's sister and two of Yizhen's favorite news anchors were like this.
03 "I know too much"
A 28-year-old Korean female HR said that she witnessed someone being fired after taking maternity leave, Unable to be promoted, she chose never to have children.
Although in South Korea, parents have one year of leave during the first eight years of their child's life, only 7% of South Korean fathers of newborns applied for leave in 2022, compared with newborns. The proportion of mothers taking leave is 70%.
Among the OECD countries, South Korean women have the highest level of education, but the gender pay gap is the largest in South Korea, and the unemployment rate of women is higher than that of men.
Researchers say this proves that women are facing a problem. A career choice, either a career or a family. More and more Korean women are choosing a career.
The reporter met Stella Shin at an after-school club, where she taught 5-year-old children. English for children. She whispered: "Look at these children, they are so cute. "But 39-year-old Stella is still childless, which is not what she wants.
Stella has been married for six years. Although she and her husband both want children, the childbearing window has slipped away because they are busy with work and entertainment. Now , she had to accept that her lifestyle made it “infertile” for her to have children. She said: “Having a child requires quitting work, and in the first two years, the mother has to take care of the child full-time. I would get very frustrated because I loved my career and didn't love taking care of other people. "
In her spare time, Stella would attend K-pop dance classes with a group of older women.
Many Korean women have to take a break for two to three years after giving birth. But when I asked Stella She asked me with her eyes whether I wanted to take childcare leave alternately with her husband. She said: "When I ask him to wash the dishes, he always misses a little bit. I can't expect him to take care of the children." "
Even if she wanted to quit her job and try to balance her family and career, she couldn't afford it because the cost of housing in South Korea is too high.
In South Korea, more than half of the population lives in Seoul and Gyeonggi, where most job opportunities are concentrated There, apartments and land are in short supply. Stella and her husband live in increasingly remote areas, but they still cannot afford housing even in neighboring provinces.
Seoul’s birth rate index has dropped to 0.55, the lowest in South Korea. . Then there is the cost of private education . Although housing is a common problem in the world, the problem of private education is unique to Korea. From the age of four, Korean children will be sent to a variety of expensive extracurricular classes - ranging from mathematics and English. To music and taekwondo. This is very common in South Korea. If you choose to quit, the subtext is to give up your child's life. In the extremely involved South Korea, quitting is almost impossible, which also leads to South Korea having the highest childcare costs in the world.
A 2022 study found that only 2% of Korean parents do not send their children to private tutors, and 94% of parents feel that the financial burden is heavy.
As a cram school teacher, Stella also feels this deeply. It was found that Korean parents spend up to 700 pounds (6361 yuan) per month on a child, and many families are overwhelmed. "But if they don't sign up for these courses, their children will fall behind." "When I'm playing with my kids, I'm thinking about having a kid, but I know too much," she said. "
For some people, the problems caused by excessive personal training are not limited to financial aspects.
"Minji", who now lives in Busan with her husband, wants to share her experience anonymously. She is not ready to tell her parents yet. There will be no children. "They will be very shocked and disappointed," she said. " Min Ji admitted that she was unhappy from childhood to her twenties.
She said: "I have been studying all my life.First it was to get admitted to a good university, then to get admitted to the civil service, and finally to get my first job at the age of 28. She remembers spending her childhood in classrooms late into the night, cramming maths, which she hated and was not good at. But her dream was to become an artist. "I was forced to compete endlessly, and it wasn't about achieving," she said. My dream, but just to live a mediocre life. I'm so tired. "
It was only now that 32-year-old Minji began to feel free and enjoy life. She likes traveling and is currently learning to dive.
Because she did not want her children to experience the suffering she suffered, Minji decided not to have children.
"Korea is not A place where children can live happily. " She concluded. Her husband wanted children and they used to fight about it, but now, her husband has compromised. She admitted that occasionally she would waver, but she would soon wake up.
04 The frustrating social situation
In Daejeon City, Quan Junyan is in a "widowed marriage". After picking up her 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son from school, Quan Junyan will take the children to a nearby playground to kill time while her husband gets off work. Her husband rarely comes home before going to bed.
She said: "I didn't think it would be a big deal to have a baby at first. I thought I would be able to return to work soon.
But soon, social and economic pressures hit, and she was surprised to find that she was forced to "widow parenting." Her husband, a union member, did not help with the children and housework.
She said: "I feel Very angry. I am well educated and know that men and women are equal, so I cannot accept it even more. "
This is the crux of the problem.
In the past 50 years, South Korea's economy has developed rapidly. Many Korean women have received higher education and participated in the work, and the possibility of being a woman has greatly increased. But the possibility of being a wife and mother has remained where they are. Frustration Jeon began observing other mothers: "I was like, 'Oh, my friends are also depressed when they're raising children, my neighbor friends are also depressed,' and I was like, 'Oh, this is a social Phenomenon'. "
She drew comics about her experiences and posted them online. She said: "These stories spurted out of me. "Her comics have been a huge success because women across Korea have resonated with her comics, and Jeon has now published three comic books.
She said she has passed the stage of anger and regret. She said : “I just wish I had a better understanding of the realities of raising children and how much goes into being a mother. Women today are not having children because they finally have the courage to talk about it.
Jun Junyan felt sad. She said that many women were deprived of the right to be mothers because "becoming a mother in South Korea requires you to face all kinds of bleakness."
Minji said that she was glad that she had the right to choose. She Said: “We are the first generation to have choices. Before, we had to have children. But now, because we have the choice, we choose not to have children. "
05 "If possible, I would like to have 10 children"
After lunch, the reporter returned to Yejin's apartment, where her friends were competing for her "family property".
Yejin was tired of Korea and decided to go to New Zealand to live. One day In the morning, it dawned on her that she didn't have to live in South Korea. She did some research to see which countries ranked high on gender equality, and New Zealand was the clear winner: "In New Zealand, men and women get equal pay for equal work," she said. , so I chose to go to New Zealand.
I asked Ye-jin and her friends what could convince them to change their minds.
Min-sung’s answer surprised the reporter. “I really want to have children.” If I could, I would like to have 10 children. The reporter asked: "So, what's stopping you?" The 27-year-old girl told the reporter that she was bisexual and wanted to find a same-sex partner.
But same-sex marriage is illegal in South Korea, and unmarried women are generally not allowed to use sperm from donors to conceive. She said: “Hopefully one day this will change and I will be able to marry the person I love and have children."
Yejin's friends said that South Korea's demographic situation is precarious, but the irony is that women who want to be mothers are not allowed to become mothers.
It seems that politicians still need time to slowly understand the diversity of South Korea's demographic crisis and complexity.
In March 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol admitted that giving money to have children "is not working" because South Korea is trapped in "involution." He said he now believes that the low birth rate is a " "Structural problems", but corresponding measures have yet to be introduced.
Later in March 2024, the reporter interviewed Yizhen, who is now living in New Zealand. She has been living there for three months.
She chattered endlessly about her new Life and friends, nothing but praise for working in the bar kitchen She said: “I have a better work-life balance now. "She has time to meet up with friends every week.
She added: "I feel like I'm more respected at work and people are less critical. "
" I don't even want to go back to China. "
