Policy Response to Low Fertility in Korea: A Look through OECD Indicators

Abstract

Korea’s total fertility rate has never risen above 1.30 since 2001, even after the Basic Plan on Low Fertility and Aging Society was implemented in 2006. Although, in the meantime, a rapidly increasing share of GDP has gone into family policies (from 0.24 percent in 2013 to 1.32 percent in 2013), no sign has emerged of fertility picking up in any significant way. As a result, the impact of the policy has been widely called into question. In many of the OECD countries, fertility rates declined until before the 1990s. Throughout 1990s and 2000s, however, some of these countries, including France, where social support for families is strong, and Sweden, where gender equality has been upheld more strongly than elsewhere, saw their fertility rates approach the replacement level. This study looks at some of the policy steps Korea has taken in response to low fertility and discusses them in a comparative context of OECD Family Database.