For a few years now, talking about demographics in South Korea has made it necessary to first take out a clinex package. Despite all its attempts (and there have been many) the country seemed condemned to suffer an uncontrollable ‘bleed’ of birth rates and see the seams of its economy tighten. It may sound exaggerated, but it is good to remember that she said goodbye to 2024 declaring herself “super-aged” and that there are academics who warn that the nation is emptying (literally).
With that backdrop, Seoul has started 2026 with a positive fact: it wins babies. And it also does so for the second consecutive year. The big question that arises now is… Are we facing a change in trend or just a mirage?
The figure: 254,457. It is provisional data (the definitio will not arrive until the summer), but even so it has arrived like manna in a country accustomed to every piece of news about demographics involving a national drama. Last year South Korea registered 254,457 births, a good balance no matter how you look at it. To begin with, because it represents 6.8% more than in 2024 and leaves the largest percentage increase since 2007; but those are only two of the possible readings.
More babies per woman. Another interesting reading is the one that tells us about the “fertility rate”, the average number of babies that (at a statistical level) a woman is expected to have throughout her reproductive life. A few years ago this indicator plummeted to 0.72, very far from the “replacement rate” (2.1 children per woman) that allows societies to remain stable. The data is still below that red line, but at least it has grown: in 2025 it went from 0.75 to 0.8.
Not only that. Reuters recalls that the South Korean Government had optimistic estimates that this rate would grow to 0.75 in 2025 and 0.8 in 2026, which appears to be recovering positions faster than expected. In Seoul the trend is even more pronounced. There the indicator rose 8.9%, going from 0.53 to 0.63. These are still very poor data and are far from solving the problem that Korea has, but they suggest a change in cycle.
Breaking the bad streak. That the birth rate is increasing in South Korea is news, but it is even more so if (as is the case) this growth is maintained for two years. In 2024, the country has already registered a positive figure (breaking eight consecutive years of falls) that now invites us to think about whether it has really found the right way to encourage its young people to have more offspring.
Of course, the country has invested time, efforts and, above all, economic resources in this objective, which ranges from social sustainability and the progress of its industry to issues as relevant as national defense.
More weddings, more babies. 2025 has not only been a good year in maternity hospitals. It has also been for the wedding planners. Marriages increased by 8.1% in 2025, reinforcing the 14.8% rebound already recorded in 2024. This is good news because, in a conservative society like South Korea (the percentage of births outside of marriage is surprisingly low), weddings are often considered a leading indicator of the rebound in birth rates.
Trend or mirage? That’s the million dollar question. That South Korea has been trying to activate its birth rate for years is undeniable, as is the fact that it has invested large resources in this effort and that public institutions and the business world have been involved in the effort. However, there are other factors at play that suggest that the recent growth in the South Korean birth rate could be more circumstantial than structural. That is to say, we would actually be facing a kind of demographic ‘mirage’.
The hangover of the pandemic. When explaining the phenomenon, there are those who point to the influence of the pandemic. Not so much in the birth rate itself as in marriages. It is true that more South Koreans are getting tired and that this indicator will probably influence the birth rate in the coming years, but it is also true that many couples had to postpone their plans during the pandemic.
“The number of marriages has increased for 21 consecutive months, from April 2024 to December last year, as couples who had delayed their marriages due to COVID-19 have gotten married,” acknowledges Park Hyun-jung, director of the government office that analyzes population trends. He himself admits that today it is very difficult to establish a clear “correlation” between government policies and improved birth rates.
A demographic with ‘echo’. There are those who point out, however, another factor that would be directly influencing South Korean demographics: history. The explanation was recently explained by Rapahel Rashid in The Guardian and provides an alternative theory. More babies have been born in the South Korea of 2024 or 2025 simply because the same thing already happened in the Korea of 30 years ago.
To be more precise, more or less during the first half of the 90s (1991-1995) there was a peak of around 3.6 million babies who today start in their thirties and begin to become parents themselves.
Reviewing history. We explain ourselves. Paradoxical as it may be, in the 1950s and 1960s Korea had a problem quite different from today: a very high fertility rate that led authorities to launch family planning programs. The objective: guarantee the country’s recovery after the war.
The message that was sent was very simple: have fewer children (two, one) and guarantee them a better life. It worked so well that by the early 1980s the fertility rate had already fallen below the replacement margin and Seoul decided to change course. By doing so, it favored the rebound that would now be heating up the birth rate. According to that theory, what we see today is actually a “demographic echo,” the legacy of what some call the “echo boomers”.
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