South Korea’s birth rate
South Korea’s Birthrate Remains the World’s Lowest as Women Reject Marriage and Motherhood
By Ximena Rodríguez-López
Seoul, South Korea - South Korea continues to hold the lowest birthrate in the world, with a fertility rate of 0.75 in 2024. While this marks a minor increase from the previous year, it is far from a recovery and underscores the nation’s deepening demographic crisis. The country also saw a 14.9% rise in marriages, the largest jump since 1970, but even this has not been enough to counteract the rapidly shrinking population. For the fifth consecutive year, South Korea saw more deaths than births, with 120,000 more people passing away than being born. The only exception was Sejong, the nation’s administrative capital, which was the only city to record population growth.
Despite government efforts to boost the birthrate, South Korean women remain resistant to marriage and child-rearing, largely due to the pervasive gender inequality and mistreatment of women. The rise of the 4B Movement—a radical feminist movement where women reject four pillars of traditional womanhood: dating, marriage, childbirth, and relationships with men—has gained significant traction, as many women choose personal freedom over societal expectations.
For South Korean women, rejecting marriage is not just about individual choice but a response to the deeply entrenched misogyny that makes traditional family life unappealing and, for many, unbearable. South Korea has one of the largest sex-wage gaps among developed nations, and women are expected to take on the majority of unpaid domestic labor, even when working full-time jobs. Workplace discrimination is rampant, with employers often reluctant to hire or promote women due to the assumption that they will eventually leave to have children.
Adding to the hostility, South Korea has long been plagued by digital sex crimes, including the widespread issue of spy cam pornography, where women are secretly filmed in public restrooms, hotels, and even their own homes. The justice system has repeatedly failed to take these crimes seriously, with lenient sentences for perpetrators and little protection for victims. The fear of being secretly recorded and exploited is yet another factor that discourages women from engaging in relationships with men.
Despite the government pouring billions into financial incentives for couples to have children, South Korean women remain unconvinced. Many view these policies as superficial solutions that fail to address the root causes of the problem—namely, the societal expectation that women must sacrifice their careers, freedoms, and personal safety to become wives and mothers. Meanwhile, South Korean men have reacted with increasing hostility toward women who refuse to conform, resorting to online harassment, public backlash, and in some cases, physical violence against feminists and women’s rights activists.
The slight rise in marriages and births in 2024 is unlikely to signal any real demographic turnaround. Without genuine societal changes—including sex-equality in the workplace, legal protections against sex-based violence, and cultural shifts that value women as equals rather than as caretakers—South Korea’s birthrate is unlikely to recover. As the country’s women continue to resist the pressures of a patriarchal society, South Korea will remain the nation with the lowest birthrate in the world—and it’s a crisis that no amount of government incentives can fix.
