The Korean government's recent "baby-giving operation" has reached the point where people laugh while rubbing their heads. In the first quarter of 2025, South Korea's total fertility rate was only 0.78. A woman could not have one child in her lifetime, and there were only just over 60,000 newborns in the country.
The data, placed in the UN demographic textbook, could be written directly with a note: “This is a country that is naturally disappearing.”
In order to reverse the situation, the South Korean government from sending money to sending houses, then to exempt from military service, finally just started "painting cakes hungry", from encouraging birth to forcing birth, policy out of spectrum.But the money spent, people were not born, young people instead more and more want to marry, have children, society is torn and more heavy.
The bombing of money and welfare.
It is not that the South Korean government has not tried hard. Since 2006, more than 300 trillion yuan, equivalent to 1,6 trillion yuan, have been spent to encourage childbirth.This is not a small money, almost 100 high-speed railways can be repaired. but the reality is that the money is wasted and the baby has not returned.
For example, in the city of Incheon, as long as you give birth to a child, the government gives you 100 million yuan, about 550,000 yuan, and in other areas there are two or three hundred thousand rewards. It sounds very attractive, but young people don’t buy accounts. Because you get the money may just be enough to pay a first payment, then you have to start chewing up a home loan, also education fees, ask a babysitter, buy milk powder. According to the data of the South Korean Bureau of Statistics, raising a child until the age of 18, parents have to prepare 135 to 1.9 million yuan, The “stipendium” is not enough.
The government has also introduced various benefits, such as extending maternity leave, providing childcare allowance, and paying housing allowance. The promotion of civil servants depends on whether you have two children. There is even a policy of "exemption from military service for three children", and I want to use the carrot of "exemption from military service" to whet young men's appetite for having babies.
But what young people lack is not money, but a sense of security.The average house price in Seoul has soared to 150,000 yuan per square meter, and education concerns, workplace anxiety, and childcare pressures are all on young families. When you have a baby, you voluntarily fall into an economic black hole. Young South Korean people did not say anything, but they all understood in their hearts that this was "not daring to give birth", not "not wanting to give birth."
Even worse, the fertility rate not only did not go up, but continued to fall. A report by the South Korean Bureau of Statistics in 2024 showed that despite the increased layer of policy, the fertility rate has reached a record low. South Korea may be the first country to “disappear naturally” because of the low fertility rate.
From gender conflicts to social faults, policies are becoming more and more embarrassing
When the “rewarding baby” trick failed, the South Korean government began to try “unconventional methods.” The most famous of these is the "three-child free military service" policy.The original idea is good: boys are afraid of military service, take this as an incentive, maybe a few more.
South Korean women's groups point out that this policy is too obviously biased towards men and is tantamount to using women as a reproductive tool. Street protests, online verbal battles, and public opinion backlash left the government in disgrace and finally had to withdraw the policy. Gender opposition has further intensified, and the already tense relationship between men and women has been pushed into deeper cracks.
Gender issues in South Korea have been a barrel of gunpowder over the years. From the “N-room incident” to sexual harassment at work, women’s distrust of the system has increased.
Young people simply opt out of the game. Don't get married, don't have children, keep cats and dogs to live a small lifeThe 2022 data showed that the number of Korean pets has already exceeded the number of primary and secondary school students, and the pet market is expected to reach 6 trillion yuan by 2027. e-commerce platforms even launched “single pet owners exclusive consumption festival”, while the market for baby and young children was shrinking year by year.
This "parenting substitution" phenomenon is not a joke, but a reality. Compared with having a baby, young people are more willing to raise a dog that cannot go to school, pay tuition, and cry in the middle of the night. In its report, Xinhua Agency described the relationship between men and women in South Korea as a "mutual scolding model" and the amount of information was full. No matter how many policies ignore gender equality and social structure, the outcome will only be counterproductive.
The crazy policy only brought the whole people to ruin it
Rewarding can not, the government has come up with more "creative" methods, such as "out of the light day". It means that one day the whole country leaves work early, everyone goes home early, enhances their feelings, and makes a baby by the way.As a result, people run to KTV and the cinema with the time to get out of work early, and the dollmaking plan turns into a collective nightlife.
There is also an extension of the school night self-study time, saying that it gives parents free time for childbirth.Parents do not buy accounts, teachers directly oppose, students are more painful.This operation is simply in making family contradictions.
More extreme is the single tax. If you don't get married or have children, you have to pay more taxes. This is great. Those who don't get married don't want to get married. Young people directly discuss immigration abroad.A fiscal data shows that the single tax policy has not only failed to increase the fertility rate, but has instead exacerbated social dissatisfaction and flight.
To ease the pressure of parenting, the government also introduced Philippine housekeepers in the hope of reducing local household spending.As a result, the local job market rebounded and the housekeeping industry began to protest.
These policies are like “headaches to the feet” and are completely out of reality.The University of Oxford demographics also predict that South Korea may face a demographic “scale-shaped” crisis by the middle of this century.
The fundamental problems are still there: housing prices are scary, the pressure on the education system is high, the workplace is unfriendly to women, the family structure is stiff, and young people have no room to breathe.
Parenting is not a task list.
South Korea's birth policy ranges from rewards to penalties, money to taxes, exemption from military service to "turning off lights to create babies." It has tried almost everything that can be tried. As a result, the fertility rate does not rise but falls, and social contradictions are in the news every day. In fact, this is the policy that has gone wrong.
The root cause is that the government regards fertility as a KPI and ignores the social structure behind it. Without safe housing, equal workplaces, and real social support, no amount of subsidies is just "prosperity on paper". Young people are not stupid, they know that this is not their sole responsibility.
In fact, low fertility is not the only problem in South Korea.Many developed countries around the world are experiencing the same transition pain.But the case in South Korea tells us that headaches are far from enough. If the policy is just "reckless" and does not return to people's livelihood and truly listen to the voices of young people, we can only move towards deeper difficulties in madness.
In the future, if South Korea does not start with improving the fundamentals of education, housing, gender equality, and work-life balance, the demographic crisis will not only impact the pension and military service systems, but will also become the last straw that will crush the country's long-term competitiveness.
Madness is not just the shell of funny policies, it is the manifestation of a country getting out of control in anxiety. Fertility is young people's vote for the future. And this vote, South Korea has lost completely at present.