South Korea Births Climb for 20th Consecutive Month

(MENAFN) South Korea's birth numbers climbed for a twentieth consecutive month in February, offering a tentative glimmer of hope in a nation long gripped by one of the world's most severe demographic crises, official figures released Wednesday showed.

Data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics revealed that newborn births surged 13.6 percent year-on-year to 22,898 in February, sustaining an unbroken upward streak that began in July 2024 — the longest such run in years for a country that has struggled chronically with population decline.

The total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is projected to have over her lifetime — edged up by 0.10 to reach 0.93 for the month. While the improvement is statistically meaningful, the figure remains alarmingly distant from the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman required to sustain a stable population, underscoring the scale of the challenge still ahead.

On the marriage front, the picture was more sobering. Unions fell 4.2 percent year-on-year to 18,557 in February — a potential drag on future birth trends — though divorces also declined sharply, dropping 15.6 percent to 6,197 over the same period.

Deaths, meanwhile, contracted 3.5 percent compared to the same month last year, coming in at 29,172. Despite that marginal improvement, the persistently high mortality count relative to births kept South Korea's natural population decline in firmly negative territory, with the gap standing at 6,275 for the month — a stark reminder that the country's demographic recovery, while encouraging, remains fragile and far from complete.

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