May 29, 2025
SEOUL – For the first time in years, South Korea is seeing signs of a turnaround in its record-low birth rate. According to new data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the number of babies born in the first quarter of 2025 rose by 7.3 percent compared to the same period last year.
That makes it the highest first-quarter increase recorded since the agency began tracking the figure in 1981.
From January to March, 65,022 babies were born, up from 60,571 a year earlier. March alone saw 21,041 births, a 6.8 percent increase year-on-year, reversing a decadelong trend of decline for that month. The current rebound marks nine consecutive months of rising birth numbers, beginning in July 2024.
The total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime, also saw a modest rise. It reached 0.82 in the first quarter of 2025, up from 0.77 the year before. Though still far below the population replacement level of 2.1, it is the highest quarterly figure recorded since early 2022.
Statistics Korea clarified that although the rate matched the 0.82 seen in the first quarter of 2023, this year’s figure was slightly higher when calculated to the third decimal point.
The uptick in births appears closely tied to a rise in marriages. In the first quarter, 58,704 couples tied the knot, up 8.4 percent from the same period last year. March alone saw 19,181 marriages, the highest for that month since 2020.
Park Hyun-jung, director of population trends at Statistics Korea, explained that about 95 percent of births in South Korea happen within marriage.
“An increase in marriages, combined with a larger population of women in their 30s and a more positive perception of having children, all appear to be contributing to the recent rebound,” she said.
Still, South Korea continues to have the lowest fertility rate in the world. In 2023, it dropped to just 0.721, prompting concern and coverage across global media including BBC and CNN.
In a televised documentary aired that year by Korea’s public educational broadcaster EBS, American legal scholar Joan C. Williams, a professor emerita at the University of California, called the numbers “unheard of,” adding, “South Korea is totally doomed.”
mjh@heraldcorp.com