Topic – What impact will this increasingly plummeting birthrate have on Korean society in the future?
Just few decades ago, the world has been a concern about population growth caused by population explosion. Recently, however, the world is now facing severe plummeting birthrates, especially in Asian countries. Korea is no exception and the government is desperately seeking ways to get people to have more babies. Population plummeting phenomenon will cause a serious shortage of manpower and will increase aging of population that will break the age balance in the future.
There is no doubt that factories and farms etc. need a lot of labor. If families in Korea keep having fewer children, in the future, there will be not enough people to work in those places. Then the productivity of all kinds of product such as cars, cell-phones, foods etc. will significantly decrease. This will lead to a serious damage to Korea’s world trade industry. Further in the future, Korean economic will be severely scratched and will decline and corrupt eventually. Some might argue that machines nowadays can replace the lack of labors, but this point has limits. Machine costs far more than human force. According to one survey, a factory can save more than twenty thousand dollars if it employs manpower not machine. Thus, to have economic-efficient workforce and to have increase in Korean productivities, proficient human force is the key, and plummeting birthrate will be a harsh obstacle to this solution.
Aging of population has become one of the most critical social issues today. This phenomenon damages the age balance. People that age of 60 and higher are gradually increasing and age of 20’s and 30’s are decreasing. Decreasing economically active population will contribute to decline of social and economical status, including shortage of manpower mentioned above. The increase of aging population is caused by two primary reasons. First is obviously plummeting a birthrate. Korean birthrate has been relentlessly decreasing since 1962, which was 6.0 children, 4.2 children in 1970, and 1.7 in 1990, according to Korean government’s investigation. Second reason is decreasing of death rate. In 60’s 14.0 people died per 1000 and decreased to 5.9/1000. If aging of population continues, the situation will be unimaginable.
Taking all that in to consideration, families having fewer and fewer children provoke various kinds of sever problems and ultimately lead to destruction of Korea. Korea has the lowest birthrate among countries in OPEC. The government should definitely begin thinking about practical solution to encourage people to have more children before the situation gets worse.