Low fertility rates in South Korea and U.S. caused by cost of living, sexism, and workplace culture

Countries across the globe are facing population declines—as health journal Lancet predicted, 97% of them will eventually have fertility rates too low to sustain their size. Such concerns are especially pronounced in South Korea, where the fertility rate dwindled to the lowest in the world at 0.72 as of 2023. The rate is well below the 2.1 figure needed to maintain a stable population. 

And while babies might be sparse, dogs abound. Households with pets rose from 3.5 million to 6 million from 2012 to 2023, according to data from Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs as first reported by the Korea Times.

In 2023, dog stroller sales outpaced those for babies, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing data from Korean e-commerce platform Gmarket. It’s shaping up to do so this year as well. There’s been a turning of the tables since the website conducted the study in 2021, when baby strollers stood at 67% and puppy prams at 33%,per the Korea Times.

Some politicians have taken umbrage with these alternative bundles of joy. “What I worry about is young people not loving each other,”  said South Korea labor minister Kim Moon-soo in 2023, according to the WSJ. “Instead, they love their dogs and carry them around. They don’t get married, and they don’t have children.”  

Given the long-term economic ramifications of an aging and shrinking population, the also childless and dog-owning South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol declared the phenomenon a “demographic national emergency.” 

“The birth strike is women’s revenge on a society that puts impossible burdens on us and doesn’t respect us,” Jiny Kim, an office worker in her 30s, told the New York Times. Indeed, there are larger societal issues at play that politicians seemingly turn a blind eye toward.

Low birth rates have become a conservative talking point, not just in South Korea. The United States, too, faces a steadily declining birth rate, which Elon Musk has taken an interest in along with Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance. Vance belittled Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats, calling them “childless cat ladies.”

But politicians may as well be shaking their fists in the sky, as long as they continue to shirk the actual root of falling birth rates. Experts have diagnosed the issue as the fallout from the skyrocketing cost of children, bleak labor markets, and the sexism rooted in these environments that leads to the motherhood penalty. South Korean women cited financial and cultural barriers as reasons for not having children, explaining to the BBC that one major fear is career consequences for taking time off of work. 

Meanwhile, pets simply cost less than children, especially in countries like the U.S. and South Korea where the price tag for private or higher education is exorbitant. The pet industry, therefore, booms as young adults are barred from affording a family.

South Korea’s former gender equality minister, Chung Hyun-back, pointed to the country’s “patriarchal culture,” as one of the major obstacles to her goal of increasing the fertility rate. She explained to the New York Times that she too has no children to focus on her career. 

The workplace culture certainly isn’t helping matters, as economist Lyman Stone explained to NPR in 2023. 

“There’s a sense [in South Korea] that, particularly for men but increasingly for women as well, that your contribution in the office is really what makes you a person of status and standing in society, even more than in America,” said Stone. The intense work culture likely sharpens for women in the workplace, who hold fewer leadership positions and struggle to climb the corporate ladder.

And it’s not just sexism that pervades the workplace and depresses fertility rates, it’s also the dating world. Across the globe, studies have shown that Gen Z men and women have begun to lean across different spectrums, with Gen Z men becoming more conservative. It’s led to some offshoots calling off heterosexual dating entirely, taking form as the more radical 4B movement in South Korea.

“It’s hard to find a dateable man in Korea—one who will share the chores and the childcare equally,” Yejin, a woman in her 30s, told the BBC. “And women who have babies alone are not judged kindly.” 

Woof.