South Korea: hyper-competitive and childless

By 2075, the number of South Koreans of working age will have halved, and almost half the population will be over 65 years old, and relying on that greatly shrunken workforce to support them. This is not a viable outcome.

The national anxiety about this is so great that South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol, pictured, has said the unsayable: South Koreans are 'excessively and unnecessarily competitive,' he admitted, and that is why the nation has the world’s lowest birth-rate, writes Gywnne Dyer.Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/JEON HAN

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

March 6, 2024

LONDON, U.K.—There are enough people to go around: eight billion now, compared to two billion less than 100 years ago. Fifty-one million in South Korea, compared to only 12 million 100 years ago. So why are South Koreans obsessed about their low birth rate?

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