SEOUL - South Korea is set to record the lowest number of first-graders entering elementary school in 2024, signalling the consequences of an apparent demographic crisis driven by the world’s lowest birth rate.
According to local reports quoting the statistics agency’s birth rate data, fewer than 400,000 children are expected to enter elementary school in 2024. This will be the first time the number has dropped below 400,000 since the agency started compiling data.
This comes amid a sharp decline in the number of infants born in 2017, who will be entering elementary school in March 2024.
According to Statistics Korea, the number of births fell from more than 406,000 in 2016 to 357,771 in 2017, a drop of nearly 50,000. The number of pupils who had become first-graders in 2023, meaning those born in 2016, barely passed the 400,000 mark, at 401,752.
Once the Ministry of Public Administration and Security compiles a list of school-age children based on the residential population, the local administrative authorities will send enrolment notices to parents of soon-to-be first-graders by Jan 20.
The number of first-graders does not completely correspond to the number of babies born in the year of enrolment, as deaths, early and late enrolments as well as foreigners living in the country are also taken into account. However, the impact of those variables is not significant, as the number of 2023’s first-graders was just 5,000 fewer than births in 2016.
With enrolment into education struggling to reach the 400,000 mark, experts say the “crisis” has already been happening.
“The decline in the number of first-graders is something that doesn’t happen in a day. It was an apparent problem that could be predicted in 2017 when the number of newborns plummeted,” said Professor Cho Young-tae, head of the Population Policy Research Centre at Seoul National University.
The problem is the lack of realisation on the part of people and government officials concerning the impact this simple number can have on society. “This is not just a single ‘birth rate’ issue. The system of education will implode with the current rate of decline in birth rate and the number of children being born every year,” he said.
“There will be a domino effect, everything is connected.”
Sociology professor Seol Dong-hoon of Jeonbuk National University predicted that teachers losing jobs and the breakdown of Korean education will be inevitable, with school-related businesses, such as stationery and other stores in front of schools, and the US$16 billion (S$21.4 billion) private education industry in South Korea being impacted.
The professor points out that the rapid decline in student enrolment will have socioeconomic side effects, such as the long-term stagnation of low growth due to a decline in the labour force and purchasing power.
With an ageing society, when the first-graders of 2024 grow and advance into young age groups, society will face an immense burden of taking care of social elders, putting national pensions in jeopardy, according to Prof Seol.
Both experts stressed that South Korea’s depopulation issue should not be approached only by encouraging births, but should be considered “a matter of life and death”.
If the country’s birth rate, which stands at 0.81 child on average born per woman in her lifetime, is not addressed with appropriate policy responses, the growth rate will plunge below 0 per cent by 2050 and the total population will fall below 40 million by 2070, according to the Bank of Korea’s Economic Research Institute. The typical replacement birth rate for a steady population is 2.1.
If the trend continues, South Korea will not only become a super-aged society with 20.3 per cent of the population aged 65 and over in 2025, but will also surpass Japan in 2046 to become the country with the largest proportion of aged people among member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said the central bank. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
