It has become the norm these days to hear that Korea's birthrate has fallen to a new record low, month after month.

Many Koreans are reluctant to tie the knot and even if they do get married, many choose not to have babies. Plain and simple!

According to Statistics Korea, the nation's fertility rate, the average number of expected births from a woman in her lifetime, came to 0.65 in the fourth quarter of 2023, hitting a new all-time low. For the whole year, the rate fell to 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022, the lowest among member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is said that the birthrate should be at least 2.1 to maintain the current population.

Everybody knows why Koreans don't want to have babies: soaring housing prices, a tight job market, high private education costs and an inadequate child care system, to name a few. Recognizing the plunging birthrate as the biggest demographic crisis facing Asia's fourth-largest economy, the Korean government spent nearly 400 trillion won ($290 billion) in taxpayer money from 2006 to 2023 to encourage people to get married and have children. But all to no avail.

Hoping to boost the birthrate, the government has implemented dozens of policy measures, including expanding financial aid to parents with young children, increasing the period of parental leave and making it easier for families with two or more children to buy new apartments. But sadly, none of these have worked, and the lesson is that no matter how much cash the government throws at people, they will not have children as long as they see raising kids as a losing game.

It is about the time for everyone to stop telling millennials and Gen Z to have babies. They know what's best for them and they won't change their minds no matter what.

Needless to say, it is not a good time for people in their 20s and 30s to start a family in Korea. They are struggling to find decent jobs and have debts to pay off amid high interest rates. The cost of living has been soaring over the past few years amid out-of-control food inflation and surging rental costs.

No one should be critical of young people for having fewer babies. Given these unfavorable living conditions, individual survival trumps reproduction. If conditions become optimal for having a family, they will do so even if they are told not to.

And while many say the Korean economy needs more workers to maintain sustainable growth, the economy has found and will continue to find ways to adapt to fewer workers and become less labor intensive.

Besides, there are already too many people on planet Earth, and we don't need to spend valuable resources to bring more people into the world.

According to the United Nations, the world's population surpassed 8 billion as of November 2022, and the number continues to grow. It is estimated that the figure will reach 10.8 billion by 2100, which will place substantially greater strains on natural resources.

More people means increased demand for food, water, energy and other vital resources, which will aggravate environmental degradation, cause more conflicts over scarce resources and ignite more global pandemics like COVID-19. We certainly don't have to try harder to have more people for the sake of the planet and people who already live on it.

While attending a forum a year ago, Oxford University Professor Emeritus David Coleman warned that if its low birthrate continues, Korea may become the first country to disappear due to population extinction in around 2305.

Coleman raised issues with Korea's patriarchal culture, competition-oriented education, low gender equality and rare out-of-wedlock births, among others.

Nobody knows whether or not his prediction will materialize. And even if it becomes reality 280 years in the future, there isn't much to do at the moment to persuade young Koreans to have more babies.

So let's leave Korea's falling birthrate alone. Nature always finds a way, though it may not be the way we wish it to be!

The writer is business editor at The Korea Times.