South Korea’s birth rate hit a four-year low last year as more couples late marriage due t to economic downturn. Statistics average birth rate — the average number of babies born during a woman’s lifetime was 1.15 in 2009, the lowest since 1.08 in 2005 and some 445,000 babies were born last year, 4.4% down from in 2008. It is mainly due to a growing number of couples who delay or shun marriage amid an economic recession. And also the number of marriages decreased 5% from 2009 while the divorce rate also increased some %.The county opens a variety of incentives to motivate the people to have children. Officials fear a shrinking workforce will hit growth and will be unable to foot the bill for a rapidly ageing population.
The health ministry last month said it was turning off the lights in its offices once a month to encourage staff to go home early and make more babies.