Why South Korea’s fertility rate dropped below Japan’s?

Abstract

In 2000, South Korea\u27s period total fertility rate (TFR) was 1.42, and this was higher than Japan\u27s 1.36. However, this fertility advantage over Japan has been lost by 2022, with South Korea\u27s TFR plunging to 0.87 (40% decrease), while Japan\u27s TFR being 1.3 (only 5% decrease). The goal of this article is to proffer a descriptive explanation for this divergence in fertility between these two East Asian countries. Building upon the existing theoretical framework on economic uncertainty and fertility, we argue that changing labor market conditions is an important factor in understanding the nature of South Korea\u27s extraordinary fertility decline. However, unlike previous research that focuses largely on employment precarity and/or stagnant real wages, I call for greater attention to economic inactivity. Using administrative records (e.g., birth and marriage registers from the Korean Vital Statistics) and nationally representative survey data, I show how the rise in economic inactivity rate among young Korean males is associated with the ongoing fertility decline