One of the causes of Korea’s low total fertility rate, which is expected to drop to around 0.7 this year, is the unique preference for boys in East Asian cultures. Analysis that the collapsed sex ratio led to the ultra-low fertility rate as the number of people who stopped giving birth following having only one son even while mobilizing expedient methods in the process of implementing a birth control policy in the 1970s and 1980s with the purpose of ‘letting only one child’ to be.
25-34 years old, 430,000 more male
According to Statistics Korea, only 1.7 million women out of 3.66 million people aged 25-29 as of last year. This is 250,000 fewer than the 1.95 million men. The gender ratio was 114.4, which was the highest among all age groups divided by age group. Among the 3.33 million people aged 30-34, 1.57 million were women. The gender ratio was 111.9.
The gender ratio of the 25-34 year-old population reached 113.2. This means that there are 113.2 males per 100 females in this age group. Considering that the total population is 6.99 million, the male population is 430,000 more.
The 25-34 year-old population last year was born between 1987 and 1996. This is a period when the fertility rate fell below the population maintenance level of 2.1 due to the government’s strong birth control policy.
In the 1980s, the government implemented a policy of ‘let’s have only one child’ without distinguishing between men and women. This policy was actually an attempt to alleviate the male preference ideology. In order to prevent the phenomenon of families giving birth to daughters continuing to give birth until the birth of a son, slogans such as ‘I feel sorry for one well-raised daughter and ten sons’ were distributed and contraception and family planning were encouraged.
Excessive birth control, called ultra-low fertility
However, this policy only increased the side effects without dispelling the deeply entrenched ideology of preference for boys. Parents wanted to have a son even if they had only one child. Various tricks were used. There have been cases of giving up childbirth if it is not a son through a fetal sex test. The fact that the notification of the gender of the fetus was banned through the revision of the Medical Act in 1987 is the effect of many such incidents.
In the end, the birth control policy at this time resulted in ‘only one child, only one son’. The government’s excessive birth control policy has increased the gender imbalance.
A bigger problem is that the government continued this trend following the late 1980s, when the fertility rate fell below 2.1. In the mid-1980s, the fertility rate fell below two. However, it was in 1996 that the government withdrew the birth control measures.
As a result, the sex ratio of children born in the early 1990s was at an all-time low. Those born in 1990 recorded the worst sex ratio of 116.5. Those born in 1993 (115.3) and 1994 (115.2) also had a serious gender imbalance. People born during this period are now of the appropriate age for marriage and childbirth. It is understood that the fertility rate has fallen at an unprecedented speed as the population is shrinking and the gender ratio has collapsed. In other words, the wrong policies of the 1980s and 1990s have led to extremely low fertility.
By Kang Jin-gyu, staff reporter [email protected]
