Seoul, October 23 (IANS). Data released on Wednesday showed that the number of babies born in South Korea increased for the second consecutive month in August. This growth has come amid demographic challenges due to extremely low birth rates and rapidly increasing age.
A total of 20,098 babies were born in August, up 5.9 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Statistics Korea, Yonhap news agency reported.
The increase follows 20,601 births recorded in July, which is 7.9 percent more than the previous year.
This increase apparently comes from more couples getting married from the second half of 2022 to the first half of 2023, having delayed their nuptials during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the average number of children born per woman has fallen to a record low of 0.71. This data is well below the 2.1 birth rate per woman required to maintain a stable population without migration.
The total number of births in the January-August period was 158,000, down 0.4 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths in August increased by 5.6 percent compared to last year and reached 32,244. The number of deaths has exceeded the number of newborns since the fourth quarter of 2019.
The report also showed that the number of couples getting married in August increased by 20 percent to 17,527 compared to last year.
The data also said the number of couples getting divorced increased by 5.5 percent to 7,616 compared to last year.
South Korea is undergoing serious demographic changes, as many young people choose to delay or forego marriage and childbearing to conform to changing social norms and lifestyles.
–IANS
SCH/AS
