An increasing number of South Korean women are choosing not to marry, not to have children, and not even to have relationships with men. With the lowest fertility rate in the world, the country’s population will start shrinking unless something changes.
“I have no plans to have children, ever,” says 24-year-old Jang Yun-hwa, as we chat in a hipsterish cafe in the middle of Seoul.
“I don’t want the physical pain of childbirth. And it would be detrimental to my career.”
Like many young adults in South Korea’s hyper-competitive job market, Yun-hwa, a web comic artist, has worked hard to get where she is and isn’t ready to let all that hard graft go to waste.
“Rather than be part of a family, I’d like to be independent and live alone and achieve my dreams,” she says.
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When I put it to her that if she and her contemporaries don’t have children her country’s culture will die, she tells me that it’s time for the male-dominated culture to go.
“Must die,” she says, breaking into English. “Must die!”
Must die.
Must die!
Off topic but I’ve always found it weird how people freak out when they hear that birth rates are dropping. Our population can’t increase exponentially so why are you acting like this is a bad thing? It’s not like there’s a shortage of humans. If we found out the cat population was shrinking I’d be pissed but we could do with less humans
South Korea has a population of 51 million plus and a population density of 507 people per square kilometer. I think South Korea and the rest of the world will be just fine with a decreasing birth rate.
House of Brat 