Seoul: The number of births in South Korea rose last year for the first time in more than a decade on the back of a rise in marriages, officials said on Wednesday, bucking a trend for a country battling a demographic crisis.
South Korea has one of the world’s longest life expectancies and lowest birth rates — a combination that presents a looming demographic challenge.
Seoul has poured billions of dollars into efforts to encourage women to have more children and maintain population stability.
The crude birth rate — the number of babies born per 1,000 people — was 4.7, interrupting a continuous downward trend since 2014, according to preliminary data from Statistics Korea.
And the fertility rate, or the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, was 0.75, “up 0.03 from 0.72 in 2023,” it said.
“The number of births in 2024 was 238,300, an increase of 8,300 (3.6 percent) from the previous year,” the report added.
Park Hyun-jeong, an official from Statistics Korea, attributed the rise to an increase in marriages as well as shifting demographics.
“The population has seen a significant increase in the number of people in their early 30s,” she told a press conference.
“This has had a major impact,” Park explained.
“Additionally, many marriages that were delayed due to Covid-19 have now taken place, and this upward trend continues.”
Park said the number of marriages last year had been the most since 1996 — “the highest on record.”
The average maternal age at childbirth in 2024 was 33.7 years, Seoul said, one of the highest in the world.
But the fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million.
At current rates, the population will nearly halve to 26.8 million by 2100, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Experts say there are multiple reasons for the low birth rate, from high child-rearing costs and property prices to a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs difficult to secure.
The double burden for working mothers of managing the brunt of household chores and childcare while also maintaining their careers is another key factor, they say.
The South Korean government offers cash subsidies, babysitting services and support for infertility treatment.
But the number of births has until now continued to decline.
Neighbouring Japan is grappling with the same issue — it has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco and the country’s relatively strict immigration rules mean it faces growing labor shortages.
South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage
https://arab.news/numjy
South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage
- The fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
