Seoul:

The number of babies born in South Korea increased by the largest margin in almost 14 years in September, data showed on Wednesday, as the country is struggling to address the grim demographic changes of ultra-low birth rate and rapid ageing.

According to data compiled by Statistics Korea, a total of 20,590 babies were born in September, up 10.1 per cent, or 1,884 newborns, from a year earlier, Yonhap news agency said.

It marked the largest on-year increase since January 2011, when the number of childbirths grew by 10.8 per cent.

“The increase is attributed to more couples holding weddings from the second half of 2022 through the first half of 2023 after delaying their marriages during the earlier stages of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Im Young-il, an agency official, told a press briefing.

For the third quarter of this year, a total of 61,288 babies were born, up 8 per cent from the same period last year, the agency said. The reading also marks the largest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2012.

The total fertility rate, which refers to the average number of expected births per woman in her lifetime, came to 0.76 in the third quarter. For the January-September period, the rate came to 0.74.

The nine-month figure is higher than the 0.72 recorded for the whole year of 2023, which marked the lowest level since 1970.

“There is a high possibility that the total fertility rate for the whole of 2024 may hover above 0.72 and even reach around 0.74 if the current trend continues throughout the fourth quarter,” Young-il said.

“However, it is too early to say that the figure is a rebound as it is still too low compared to other countries.”

The figure is also far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population without immigration.

South Korea has been grappling with a persistent decline in its birth rate, as an increasing number of young people are choosing to delay or avoid marriage and parenthood.

To encourage marriage and improve the fertility rate, the government has rolled out various marriage benefits and support for child care.

The number of deaths, meanwhile, increased 3.8 per cent on-year to 29,362 in September.

Accordingly, South Korea reported a natural population decrease of 8,772 in the month.

The number of deaths has continued to exceed the number of newborns since the fourth quarter of 2019.

The report also showed that the number of couples getting married soared 18.8 per cent on-year to 15,368 in September, marking the highest on-year increase in history.

The number of couples getting divorced inched up 0.4 per cent on-year to 7,531, the data added.

–IANS

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Moscow:

The Kremlin said Friday that it was “working hard” to reverse declining birth rates in Russia, warning that “disastrous” demographic trends were putting the country’s future at risk.

Russia has faced a myriad of demographic challenges since the collapse of the USSR, including an ageing population, an outflow of men due to the conflict in Ukraine and the lowest fertility rate in 17 years.

“It is now at a terribly low level — 1.4 (births per woman). This is comparable to European countries, Japan and so on. But this is disastrous for the future of the nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a media festival.

“Anyone with many children is a hero. We live in the largest country in the world. And there are fewer of us every year. And the only way to cope with this is to increase the average birth rate,” Peskov said.

Russia had a population of about 148 million people at the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, a figure that now stands at around 144 million after a protracted period of high deaths and low births in the 1990s.

The country’s birth rate has not recovered since Soviet times despite President Vladimir Putin’s government offering generous payouts and mortgage subsidies to large families.

Recent problems include large numbers of Covid deaths, hundreds of thousands of men fleeing the country to avoid being mobilised to fight in Ukraine, and migration into Russia hitting a ten-year low in 2023.

Russia’s population could drop to 130 million by the 2040s, demographers have forecasted.

When asked whether young families could still have faith in the future, the Kremlin pointed to similar demographics in other countries.

“This is unfortunately a trend,” Peskov said.

“The situation will remain difficult for some period of time, but the government is working hard on this issue, and it is one of the top priorities of the President of Russia,” he added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)