Born to Decline? East Asia’s Fertility Rate Crisis

Introduction

The fertility rate ‘crisis’ has arguably been most evident in East Asia, where life expectancy is very high, yet there are not enough babies being born to compensate for the ageing population. There are strong links to changing gender dynamics in this debate, where the decline of populations has been connected to the impacts of feminism in this part of the world, where low birthrates have been attributed to increased female independence and a growing desire among women to focus on career and personal goals rather than traditional family roles. This has remained and will continue to be a contentious issue.

In the year 2024, various policy proposals from East Asian think tanks garnered international media attention for their controversial and, at times, parochial nature. Some of these ideas incorporated government-backed dating apps and initiatives to start primary education for girls a year earlier than boys to increase perceived “attractiveness” between the genders. 

Particularly with the recent election of President Trump, this raises more questions about the future of first-world countries and their first-world problems. From here, there may be opportunities to examine how Western and Eastern perspectives on population growth and gender roles are shifting, with a potential resurgence of conservative approaches to address low birthrates. As for substantive solutions, given the current governance priorities in East Asia, significant changes in birthrate trends appear unlikely. 

What is the birth rate/fertility rate?

Birth rate is a well-known term used to reference the number of live births per thousand of a population per year. However, when it comes to demography and discussing reasons behind population change, fertility rate appears as a more suitable piece of terminology to use, more specifically discussing the “total number of children that would be born to each woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years” in a given year (OECD, n.d.). The fertility rate is more directly linked to population replacement, accounting for age structure and provides insight into the notion known as the ‘replacement rate’. According to the National Library of Medicine, the replacement rate is defined as being the “level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next”. Developed countries are seen as needing an average of 2.1 children per woman to ‘replace’ the population, given that there is zero net migration (Craig, 1994).

Although many developed countries have a fertility rate below this recommended statistic, migration and the normalisation of migration have been beneficial in ensuring a somewhat satisfactory level of population stability. However, in the case of East Asia, the countries' limited experience with migration policy has negatively impacted their efforts to ensure population sustainability: South Korea hosts a world record low fertility rate of 0.72 (2023), whilst neighbouring Japan and China sit at 1.26 and 1.09 births per women respectively (2022) (Lee & Kim, 2024).

Reasons

Economics and Labour

The ‘fertility opportunity hypothesis’ posits a proposal: it argues that “individuals and couples adjust family size in response to their perception that economic opportunity is increasing” (Abernethy & Penaloza, 2002). Given this perception, it would warrant a supposedly high family-size target; on the other hand, a negative perception towards the direction of economic opportunity would lead to lowering family-size targets. 

This is supported by the pre-1970s when women in the Big Three nations of East Asia (South Korea, Japan and China) often had more than five children on average, a very different landscape to the one in place today (Rajvanshi, 2024). 

However, according to analysts at the East-West Centre, “improved standards of living bring down infant and child mortality” (Rajvanshi, 2024), which consequently means that couples can assume that their children will live on to adulthood and can afford to have fewer children. Economic growth, hence, has an inflationary effect: women encounter new and unfamiliar situations regarding their family ‘roles’ and their newly earned freedoms outside of simply being stay-at-home mothers, and as countries become wealthier, so does the cost of raising children.

With the economic collapse of the “Asian tigers” (the likes of Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.), the fertility opportunity hypothesis argues that it is due to perceptions of economic prosperity that have led to the ongoing decline in family sizes and, thus, a drop in fertility. This theory assumes that the desire for reproduction and having descendants is an evolutionary and innate process. Yet, due to the conscious evaluation of the economic and social climate, this motive to reproduce is “balanced by restraint” (Abernethy & Penaloza, 2002). In other words, due to greater economic uncertainty and concern behind children in general and the fact that in South Korea, women feel that they are often forced to choose between having a career or a family”, the fertility opportunity hypothesis is actualised (Rajvanshi, 2024).

The correlation between female labour force participation and fertility rates offers an interesting analytical framework. It is important to note that lower fertility rates are not inherently a result of women entering the workforce but rather reflect a historical denial of opportunities to participate economically. The traditional image of the family was structured to exclude women from economic roles, and as societal norms evolve and expand, such structural changes inevitably bring about broader social and economic consequences. It is apparent that “women suffer a loss of earnings” when they take breaks from the labour force for childbearing/childrearing. Thus, as a way to counter this cost, childbearing by well-educated women and “high-earning potential” is postponed so they can prioritise the professionality of their careers (Ma, 2016).

As Korea is described as belonging to a group of East Asian developed societies in which the welfare systems rely on family principles, the solutions that Nordic countries have concerning their government-funded welfare programs are relatively inimitable. Having a functional public childcare system that permits both women’s labour market involvement and fertility (Ma, 2016) contrasts with Korea’s (and many other Asian countries) perceptions of the 50s and 60s vastly growing population. This was seen as a potential obstacle to future economic development, so family planning programs were implemented, restraining family size to two children or fewer. Combining the anti-natal policies (Ma, 2016) with the contextual background of the financial crisis may have been influential in establishing the norm of having few children and emphasising career and money-making before other procedures.

Confucianism/culture

Looking away from economic factors, changes to the demographic direction of the fertility rate can also be accredited to cultural ones, such as that of Confucianism and how this way of thinking has impacted the way values and morals are treated. Even in industrial Japan, Confucianism was highly referenced in the Meiji Restoration period. Within this moral template, Confucianism heavily emphasised “filial piety” and reverence towards one’s parents, a key tenet depicting the strong and binding relationships that exist within the typical East Asian family. Liberal feminist movements exist through the “Satori generation” and the “Sampo generation”, yet the gender gap remains stark (Arifahsasti & Iskandar, 2022)

Researchers have commented on the inherent patriarchalism of Confucius’s teachings, creating an efficient yet gender-biased social system (Arifahsasti & Iskandar, 2022). Naturally, the younger generations of South Korea and Japan worked to defy this notion, as mentioned previously through the respective “Sampo” and “Satori” generations, social phenomena that have been used to directly attack gender inequality in the countries, based on the principle of being free from or ‘giving up’ material desires like alcohol and social traditions such as marriage. As they were born after a period of economic prosperity instead of one of economic stagnation, this would only add to the unsettling climate of uncertainty.

It would be unfair to argue that no efforts have been made to equalise the playing field between genders; Matsui’s 1999 ‘Womenomics’ shined a positive-thinking light on lowering gender-based barriers to entry into the workforce, starring enough attention for it to be formally approved by the late Prime Minister Abe. In 2018, articles discussed how it was possible for “feminism [to] save Japan from demographic doom” (Arifahsasti & Iskandar, 2022). However, although the differential access to the workforce has definitely eased, a standard for women to continue to support their families as if they weren’t working, as well as work to the same standards as men despite their biological differences (ability to child-rear) persists as a problem. 

The ‘company-first’ or ‘collective-first’ attitude can, therefore, be an incentive for women to give up on work completely or persist in working at dissatisfactory wages and conditions, trapped in a scenario where they will never earn ‘enough’ to settle down and have children. Goldin’s concept of “greedy work” acutely summarises the subtle but disadvantageous recruitment process: greedy work pays disproportionally more on a per-hour basis when someone works a greater number of hours/has less control over those hours. This disadvantages the marginalised women due to their lesser ability to undertake inflexible jobs due to family priorities or pregnancy concerns (Gavett, 2021).

Births out of wedlock remain extremely rare in East Asian countries, and provided that the rate of marriages is declining whilst the rate of divorces is increasing, it is only logical for there to have been a reactionary response. Although more liberal countries have been open to the move towards cohabitation as a new relationship structure, the conservatism of Korea, Japan and co still hold a strong grasp on the legitimacy of marriage as a binding and secure institution (Ochiai, 2011).

Proposed Solutions

Taking into consideration the scale of this crisis, countries have attempted to formulate solutions: South Korea went very economically, considering offering a £59,000 incentive for each child born up until they reach the age of 7, with the government spending around £12.9 billion for this ‘project’. Through the money incentive, one can infer from the government’s scheme that their main focus and attention were directed at the declining quality of life and the rising cost of living for Korean couples. This ideology has been supported by firm heads, who have also offered employees wage bonuses to help raise the country’s fertility rate (Sharma, 2024).

Conversely, a government-run think tank in South Korea attempted a different and more ‘absurd’ approach, suggesting that girls start primary schooling a year earlier than boys to incentivise marriageability. The suggestion is entirely based on the claim that men are ‘naturally attracted to younger women because men mature more slowly’. Consequently, women would prefer to marry older men, and so by having females enter school earlier, once they collectively reach the appropriate age for marriage, attractiveness would increase between the genders. Once again, this approach is also based on the assumption that ‘if there is a willingness to marry’, then there would definitely be a ‘willingness to date’ (McCurry & Rashid, 2024).

Japan and the Kishida government shared the economic lensing of the problem, proposing to double government spending on child-related programs to work on better conditions for daycare, schooling, and parent support.

Although the country remains in high levels of debt, this plan to spend 3.5 trillion yen, or $25 billion a year on the aforementioned highlights the strong attention towards quality of life and money as being the main issue at hand (Al Jazeera, 2024)

Although not a direct representative of the Japanese governing body, Japan's Conservative Party leader, Naoki Hyakuta, issued a very concerning and controversial set of hypothetical solutions aimed at women. As a minister with three seats in the House of Representatives, his suggestion included banning women from marrying after the age of 25 and forcing hysterectomies at 30. This offensive method would supposedly ‘prod’ women to have children earlier and have more children, supported by a restriction of access to university from the age of 18. Defended as being ‘science-fiction’, such proposals and a lack of sincerity in the face of the criticism about it is concerning for the future of Japan, where conservative viewings of social problems could very much become reality (Singh, 2024).

Other proposals have included government-backed dating apps that use increasingly sophisticated security measures to ensure that users are authentic and verified and promise they are “serious about finding a marriage partner rather than seeking a casual relationship” (Butts, 2024).

China’s ‘one-child policy’ in the face of the declining fertility rate crisis has also been almost fully reversed, moving to a two-child policy from 2016 to 2021 and then to a third-child policy more recently (Al Jazeera, 2024).

Conclusion

Pregnancy and childbearing are deeply personal choices that should ideally occur in supportive, healthy environments, free and unaffected from government pressure. For this reason, a focus on gender equity in the workforce and as a familial norm should be highly prioritised; policy should instead be used to address these key areas of concern without imposing a female-leaning blame game. This could include addressing gender biases in paternity and maternity leave policies, as well as the underlying issues in dating culture that conservative societal norms can exacerbate. The two most logical yet socially considerate solutions appear to be ‘increased immigration’ or ‘increased working hours’, of which those in government will have the responsibility of deciding.

Despite the pessimistic rhetoric behind the declining birth rate and the consequent crisis, it leaves the world in if negative population growth occurs, perhaps a low birthrate is not so much of a ‘bad’ thing as it is portrayed to be. It will most definitely have significant and economic implications, but there are definite takeaways from these foreboding signs: the positive impact of female individualism, independence and a justified attack on the imminent but normalised patriarchal structure.

Bibliography

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