South Korea saw its largest-ever gain in birth rate over the first five months of 2025, its statistics agency said Wednesday. File Photo by Yonhap/EPA-EFE
South Korea recorded its largest-ever gain in birth rate over the first five months of the year, its statistics agency said Wednesday, in a slight respite from a looming demographic crisis.
The cumulative number of births from January through May reached 106,048, up by 6.9% over the same period last year, according to data from Statistics Korea. It represents the highest rate of increase since data collection began in 1981.
Some 20,309 babies were born in May, up 3.8% from the 19,567 babies born one year ago. The on-year increase was the largest since May 2011, when the figure grew by 5.3%.
The number of births has risen for 11 consecutive months, the agency said. May’s fertility rate was 0.75, up 0.02 from a year earlier.
The news follows on the heels of South Korea registering an annual growth in birth rate for 2024, driven in part by a boom in postponed marriages following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials have also cited the impact of government incentives and demographic trends as contributing to the birth rate boost. In particular, the number of people in their early 30s — a key childbearing age — has grown.
Despite the modest increase, South Korea’s birth rate remains the lowest in the world. Its 2024 fertility rate of 0.75 means that for every 100 women, just 75 babies are expected to be born over their lifetimes.
That mark is half the average rate of the 38 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A fertility rate of 2.1 is considered the level needed to keep a population from declining.
In an effort to reverse the trend, the South Korean government has introduced various policies to encourage marriage and support child-rearing, including financial incentives for new parents and expanded parental leave and childcare assistance.
