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By Lee Hae-rin
Korea is the most expensive country in the world to raise a child, a recent study shows, a statistic that escalates concerns about the country's declining birth rate amid a demographic crisis.
The latest study by Beijing-based think-tank, YuWa Population Research Institute, revealed that Korea ranks highest in the world when it comes to the cost of raising a child from birth to the age of 18 years, at 7.79 times the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, according to the South China Morning Post, Monday.
The second highest in the world is China, where the cost is 6.9 times GDP per capita. In China, it costs more than $75,000 to raise a child until the age of 18 and another $22,000 to get them a university education, the study said. The figure is far more than double the cost in countries like Germany, Australia and France, where it is 3.64, 2.08 and 2.24 times GDP per capita, respectively.
The report pointed to the high cost of raising children as one of the most important factors affecting the willingness of people to have kids.
Korea's birth rate hit a new record low last year, with an average of only 0.78 baby expected per woman, falling even further from the previous record of 0.81 in 2021, while Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol called for "bold measures" to resolve the issue in March.
A domestic survey conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) in 2020 found that the high cost of childrearing is one of the reasons for the declining birth rate in Korea. The institute surveyed 2,000 Korean adults and found that both married and unmarried respondents chose "economic instability" and "high cost of childrearing" as the top reasons for not having children.
The YuWa report suggests several government policies to address the population crisis at the national level, including “cash and tax subsidies, house purchase subsidies, building more nurseries, providing gender-equal maternity leave, introducing foreign nannies, promoting flexible working styles, guaranteeing the reproductive rights of single women, allowing assisted reproductive technology and reforming the college entrance examination and school system.”