Birth rate

1. Current situation

The number of child births kept sliding to a new record low last year due to a decrease in the number of women of childbearing age and the rise in the number of women seeking careers rather than family. However, the fertility rate rose for the first time in 10 years as the decrease in the number of women of child-bearing age was larger than that for the number of newborns.

2. Statistic of low birth rate

The National Statistical Office (NSO) said Wednesday there were 493,500 births in 2003, down 1,100 from 2002, to mark the lowest since 1970, when the NSO began tracking the data. The figure indicated 1,352 infants were born every day, down from 1,355 in 2002.By province, newborns in Seoul, Kyonggi Province and Inchon accounted for 49.9 percent of the total. The number of births totaled 1.01 million in 1970, but fell to 659,000 in 1990, 637,000 in 2000 and 557,000 in 2002.However, the average number of children born per woman, or the total fertility rate (TFR), rose 0.02 to 1.19 infants in the 2002-2003, posting the first gain in the past 10 years, the NSO said. South Korea’s TFR was at 1.17 infants in 2002, lower than Japan’s1.32, the U.S.’ 2.01, France’s 1.88, Britain’s 1.65, Spain’s 1.25 and Germany ‘s 1.4. The average age of pregnant women increased 2.2 years to 29.8 years in 2003 for the past decade. The number of male newborns per 100 female newborns stood at 108.7 in 2003, improving from 115.3 10 years ago to approach the range for the normal sex ratio at birth, 103-107. But the sex ratio at birth for the third child in a family was at 136.6 males per 100 females, indicating no change in preference for male children. Up to 72.6 percent of couples gave birth to their first child within two years after they got married, down from 82.8 percent from 10 years ago.