(Part 5)
In the 1980s, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the Philippines was six babies for every fertile woman. Today it has plummeted to 1.9 babies for reasons explained in the previous articles of this series. The question is: will the Philippines face the same fate as countries like Spain, Taiwan, and South Korea in which the TFR has fallen below one baby per fertile woman?
The extreme case is South Korea. Recently, in a report from Firstpost, it was indicated that South Korea could become the first country to disappear from the Earth. Once known for its economic growth and modernization over the last 20 to 30 years, this East Asian country is facing a major fertility crisis such that its population could decline to a third of its current size by the end of the current century.
It would be enlightening for our country’s leaders and policy makers to learn some lessons from this industrial behemoth so that we can avoid facing the same sad fate of disappearing from this planet, for the good of the future generations of Filipinos.
The TFR of South Korea hit a record low of 0.72 children per fertile woman in 2023 and was expected to fall further to 0.6 in 2024. In response to this demographic crisis, the South Korean government is considering offering parents 100 million won in cash for each child born, in a desperate effort to reverse the declining birth rate. This is reminiscent of what the Government of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew tried to do when it realized it made a terrible mistake in implementing a birth control program in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the Singapore government — still very much under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew — realized that it made a mistake and decided to reverse the population decline through all types of economic incentives, however to no avail. Today, Singapore is highly dependent on imported manpower to sustain its economic growth which has slowed down significantly.
Of course, the beginning of the fertility decline in South Korea was due to a State-sponsored campaign in the 1960s when there was an undue concern that rapid population growth was outpacing economic development, leading to the implementation of family planning programs to curb birth rates. In the 1960s — very much like the Philippines — South Korea’s TFR was six babies per fertile woman. By 1982, with economic growth, the TFR had dropped to 2.4, still above the replacement level of 2.1. A year later, the nation reached the replacement level and the fertility rate continued to fall sharply in the following decades. What began as a controlled decline became a demographic crisis, with projections suggesting that South Korea’s population could shrink from 52 million today to just 17 million by the end of the century. Some experts estimate a 70% loss of population, bottoming at 14 million people, a dire situation that could destabilize the economy and lead to unprecedented societal challenges.
Because of the very low fertility rate, the population of South Korea is rapidly ageing. The proportion of those aged 65 or over is set to rise to 25.5% of the population in 2030 and 46.4% in 2070. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 40.4% of South Koreans over 65 years already live in relative poverty, the highest in the developed world, while the country’s national pension fund is forecast to run out of money in just over 30 years’ time. An economist at Societe Generale in Seoul warns that South Korea will soon start to experience a negative growth rate as its population falls, leading to social problems relating to social insurance, public pensions, education, and military manpower.
We can learn some lessons by studying the root cause of this demographic crisis. What could be the root cause of this demographic suicide of the South Koreans? According to the Firstpost report, in many urban areas, a good number of women place a higher priority on their careers over having children. According to a survey in 2023, more than half of the respondents identified the “burden of parenting” as the main problem of female participation in the workforce. The increase in dual-income households and better access to education have enabled women to delay or even skip marriage and childbirth altogether.
Further, marriage is no longer viewed as a necessity for having children. Over the last decade, the proportion of people who accept having children without having to get married has grown from 22% to 35%. However, only 2.5% of children in South Korea are born out of wedlock, the Economic Times reported. Among those who marry, women are increasingly demanding a more equal distribution of household responsibilities.
As the Singaporean Government attempted to do in the 1980s and 1990s, without much success, the Korean government is turning to matchmaking to boost low birth rates. As recently reported by Reuters, against the backdrop of Christmas songs, 100 South Korean men and women gathered at a hotel near Seoul dressed in their best, with name tags hanging on their clothes, hoping to find potential marriage partners. These were participants at a mass blind-dating affair hosted by Seongnam City whose government hopes to reverse a falling birth rate in a country where popularity of marriage and enthusiasm for parenthood have nosedived.
The City of Seoul had considered a similar matchmaking initiative but put the plan on hold after facing criticism that it would be a waste of taxpayer money unless the Government first addresses the reasons behind people opting not to marry and have babies — most notably the sky-high costs of housing and education. Jung Jae-boon, a university professor, remarked that it was nonsense to expect these events to lead to higher birthrates. He advocated instead to spend more money directly on supporting pregnancy, child delivery, and parenting in order to boost birth rates.
Our leaders today should do everything possible to avoid the social and economic problems that South Korea is facing today because of the precipitous decline in the fertility rate. At this early stage of our own fertility decline, we have to closely observe what this recently developed East Asian country is doing to prevent its population from disappearing from the earth.
In a recent article that appeared in the Financial Times (April 2, 2024), it was reported that Korean construction group Booyoung is offering its workers a $75,000 bonus for each baby they produce. Political leaders had increased promises of financial incentives for prospective parents ahead of elections in May 2024. Parties from across the political spectrum announced proposals ranging from generous housing allowances and tax breaks, to compulsory paternity leave for fathers, and extended subsidies for egg-freezing programs.
Some companies appear to have found success with financial incentives. Retail giant Lotte has boosted the fertility rate among its employees since it introduced mandatory maternity and paternity leave programs in 2012. Female Lotte employees are entitled to two years of maternity leave in addition to the three months’ leave guaranteed by the State.
Experts, learning from experiences of other countries like Singapore that tried financial incentives to boost birth rates in the past, warn that these incentives have generally not worked. Between 2006 and 2023, South Korea spent $270 billion in policies ranging from cash payments to subsidized babysitting and infertility treatments, but fertility rates continued to decline.
There are entrenched social attitudes that made it hard for women to build careers and raise a family. This early in our own demographic transition, we have to be convinced that decisions related to marriage, having children and raising a family go much beyond economic and other earthly motivations but necessarily involve moral, spiritual, and religious dimensions. A widespread materialist or consumerist approach to life is fertile ground for human infertility.
(To be continued.)
Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.