According to Yonhap News Agency, statistics released by the Korea Statistics Agency on August 23 show that in 2021, the number of people born in South Korea was only 260,500, which was a natural decline for two consecutive years. The natural population growth rate is -1.1 ‰, which means that 1 person per 1000 people is naturally reduced. Successive plummeting fertility rates are the main cause of natural population declines. With South Korea's population falling off a cliff, where will South Korea go in the future?
First, there is a shortage of students, and the school is difficult to sustain
According to CCTV Finance, due to the decline in the school-age population, schools in South Korea are generally facing the problem of enrollment difficulties. Recently, Seoul City Dobong High School announced that it will close within two years, which is also the first ordinary public high school in Seoul to decide to close because of enrollment problems.
In South Korea, the policy of nearby enrollment is implemented, and the location of Doho High School is OK, but only 45 new students have been admitted this year. After communicating with the parents of the students, the school finally decided to let the high school students transfer en masse, no more enrollment from next year, and will close in 2024 when all the students in the second and third years of high school have graduated. There are currently six other secondary schools in Seoul that are considering closing their doors or merging.
According to South Korea's education department, the school-age population has continued to decline due to the decline in the birth rate, and by 2020, there are more than 1,400 abandoned and vacant primary and secondary schools in South Korea. In the last two years, this trend has grown from remote areas to large cities.
- Having a baby in Korea is greater than anything
As early as 2006, David Coleman, a professor of demography at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, predicted: "South Korea will be the first country in the world to perish." The prophecy was in an uproar in South Korea, scolding Coleman for being a pseudo-expert.
In 2020, South Korea's newborn population was less than 300,000, lower than the death population in the same year, and in 2021, the South Korean birth population fell to 260,600, and the newborn population fell off a cliff. The combined fertility rate fell to 0.81, setting a new record for the lowest fertility rate in the world.
In order to save the birth rate, the South Korean government has introduced various remedial policies to try to break the prediction. Young people complain about housing pressure, that as long as you have children can be rent-free, as long as you have a child, families can reduce 50% of the monthly rent of the apartment, and having two children can be completely exempted from monthly rent, the longest rent-free period can reach 10 years.
If you lack money to have a child, you can also borrow money to have a baby, as long as the two are married, you can borrow 100 million won (about 510,000 yuan) from the bank. Give birth to a baby, free of all interest; Give birth to two babies, 30% of the principal is waived; Give birth to three babies, and all loans are written off.
If you don't want to take out a loan, you will issue a childcare subsidy, and this year South Korea will introduce a new policy, giving birth to a child can receive a lump sum of 2 million won (about 10,000 yuan), and extend paid parental leave. But it still had little effect.
Third, the decline in population has led to a decline in South Korea's productivity
The continued decline in population has led to a decline in productivity in both Manufacturing and Service industries in South Korea. Labor shortages in all walks of life in South Korea have begun, especially the problem of the epidemic, which has led to the influx of overseas workers, and there has been a large-scale labor shortage in South Korea. The labor gap of enterprises cannot be filled, and many production tasks cannot be completed on time, and orders can only be rejected.
Human resources continue to be in short supply, and the South Korean government has also thought of a desperate idea. Since there is a shortage of labor, let the children go to school at a lower age, so that they can graduate early and enter the happy workplace earlier.
As a result, South Korea's deputy prime minister and minister of education, Park Soon-ae, proposed to "raise the primary school enrollment age to five years old." The South Korean people can not do it at first glance, 5-year-old children go to the toilet do not understand, how to go to school, people hold up flags on the streets to march, scolding Park Soon-ae is not a person, is a typical seedling to promote. Under the shelling for several consecutive days, Park Soon-ae had to bow his head and apologize, ending his brilliant political career.
South Korea's low fertility rate is on the one hand too stressful, on the other hand, South Korea's social upward channel is closed, and young people can't see hope. There is a saying that what causes and what causes are planted will get what results, and South Korea has already produced this "evil result", and can only pinch its nose and eat it.
4. Korea's "Ultra-Elderly Society"
On August 16, Reuters published an article titled "The Foreign Labor Crisis of Korean Enterprises Brings Elderly Workers Back to Factories", which said that Korean companies were forced to hire people over the age of 60 to work in factories because young people were reluctant to work in blue-collar jobs and because overseas workers could not come to Korea due to the new crown epidemic.
In South Korea, 58 percent of the new jobs added are 60 years of age and older due to labor shortages. But even so, it will not be able to meet the labor shortages in industry and agriculture in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
Some people say that if there are more elderly people, the medical industry will be developed, and taking care of the elderly can make up for the employment problem. But the reality is that aging also spreads to medical practitioners. According to the Global Network, data from south Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare shows that the average age of Korean doctors has increased from 43.8 years in 2010 to 47.9 years in 2020. The average age of doctors in Seoul is 45.7 years old, but in the North Gyeongsang-do area it is 50.9 years old. Over the past 10 years, the average age of doctors in Seoul has increased by 2.4 years. In about two years, more than 20 percent of South Korea's population will also be over 65 years old. The problem of social aging in the coming years will extend to the entire medical industry. The doctor who will operate on the Koreans will probably be a 60-year-old man, hoping that the doctor will not have Parkinson's by then.
- South Korea under the monopoly of the chaebols
South Korea's chaebol I will not introduce much, I think you have heard, with the economic development of South Korea, capital has begun to monopolize the market, and the South Korean government is slowly controlled by the chaebol, South Korea's seventeenth president Lee Myung-bak worked in the South Korean Hyundai Group for 27 years, just came to power to pardon the then convicted president of Samsung Electronics, the relationship between the government and the chaebol is self-evident. In South Korea, Samsung Group accounts for 20% of South Korea's GDP, and the sum of several major chaebols has exceeded 70%, and South Korean chaebols control almost the entire Korean economy. Ordinary people can be said to have no opportunities, and the economic downturn, companies will reduce the number of employees in order to control costs, and South Korea's inner-volume culture was born.
Sixth, the bumpy road of ordinary people in South Korea
South Korea's inner volume can be said to be beyond your imagination, ordinary people want to climb up only two ways, the first is the entertainment industry, South Korean stars are glamorous on the surface, the experience behind it can be said to be hell level, on August 29, only 27-year-old Korean actress Liu Joun committed suicide to end her supposedly brilliant life. This is not uncommon in South Korea, if you want to know the details behind it, we will talk about it alone.
The second way is the college entrance examination, which can be said to be a major turning point in Life in South Korea. Every parent in South Korea wants their children to be admitted to SKY, namely Seoul National University, the private Yonsei University, and the private Korea University. Only by entering these three universities can you win quality job opportunities, and the promotion rate of these three universities is only a pitiful 1.6%.
If you are worried about what to do if you can't pass the exam, there is only one way, that is, the road of the chicken baby. South Korean children from a young age to participate in a variety of cram classes, South Korea from primary school to high school, there is no non-participation in after-school cram classes, the average after-school tutoring fee is nearly 250,000 won per month, equivalent to about 1300 yuan, as for how many courses you make up, it depends on your income.
After-school tuition is in short supply, family education expenditure is also rising, going to high school is even more exaggerated, the average monthly expenditure reached 3 million won (about 16,000 yuan), and the monthly income of blue-collar workers in South Korea is about 3.7 million won.
In addition to studying at school, Korean children also have to face more than three hours of cram school every day, and the learning time is more than 12 hours. On the surface, it is learning, but in fact it has become a tool for the family to change its destiny, which has also become a nightmare for Koreans since childhood. This kind of life from an early age has made Koreans extremely indifferent to society, and the huge gap between rich and poor has plunged Young Koreans into a state of low desire.
7. Remedies in the Republic of Korea
In order to improve the educational environment, in 1980, the South Korean government introduced the earliest "ban on remedial orders" in human history, cracking down on cram schools everywhere. Cram schools cannot stand on the surface, but in fact, they promote the wind of tuition and increase the cost of tuition. The cram school has also responded, starting to make up classes after 12 o'clock in the middle of the night. Even pretending to be relatives for the convenience of making up classes, they eat and live in students' homes. If the conditions are not good, take the students to the car to make up for the lesson.
South Korea has also been suppressing house prices, successively introducing "purchase restriction orders" and "real estate taxes" to control house prices, and former President Moon Jae-in has carried out 25 rounds of property market regulation policies in 5 years. However, house prices did not fall, but rose, and Seoul house prices rose to 9.22 million won per square meter (about 53,300 yuan), an increase of about 50% compared with 2018.
The continued decline in the number of births has cast a shadow over South Korea's future. What do you think of South Korea's continued population decline? Let's talk in the comments section.