By Andrei Lankov
Recently Statistics Korea published preliminary estimates for the birthrate in 2017. These estimates were worrisome: the estimated Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the number of births per woman of reproductive age, is expected to fall to the unprecedented level of 1.03. This is the lowest level in Korea's history.
So, a demographical disaster is looming, and many experts worry about the future. Their worries are well-founded, but one should remember that within the living memories of roughly half of the Koreans alive, the same words "demographical disaster" were employed to describe a completely different situation. When we now talk about ‘disaster,' we mean that Koreans have too few babies. Half a century ago, the same words implied that they were having too many babies.
Until the industrial revolution began to change our world in the 1800s, nearly all women had as many children as they physically could have. Contraception was often illegal, and widely seen as immoral and, frankly, irrational. Indeed, in a world where normally one third of all newborns died before their first birthday could be celebrated, high birthrates were necessary for the survival of families, clans and communities.
In Europe, things began to change in the early 1800s, when couples began to quietly use contraception to avoid what they came to see as "excessive births." In Korea, the old high birthrate remained the norm until industrialization began in earnest in the early 1960s. Until then Koreans overwhelmingly lived in traditional villages and followed the old mores which stated that every woman's major duty was to give birth to as many children as possible. Little wonder that the rate in 1960 stood at 6.1 births per woman, which was pretty close to the "biological norm": the average human female, if she does not use contraception, gives birth some seven times in her life.
In the 1960s, however, the world's expert community was in an alarmist mood. The spread of modern medicine, especially antibiotics, and modern hygiene across poorer parts of the world resulted in the dramatic reduction of mortality, but birthrates still remained high. The population began to grow explosively, and it was widely believed that such growth, if left unchecked, would undermine any hope for economic recovery of the so-called "Third World." Thus, pundits and politicians alike decided that "family planning" (a nice euphemism for a birth reduction policy) was a must.
Korea, whose ruling elite tend to take all current trends and ideological fashions a bit too seriously, immediately began to act in accordance with the then dominant vision: a massive "family planning campaign" was started in the 1960s by the ROK government. It helped that at the time such a high birthrate was seen as a major impediment to economic growth, and growth was the overriding goal of the military government of South Korea presided over by General Park Chung-hee, a ruthless, iron-willed and remarkably efficient dictator.
In 1962 this family planning began in earnest. The activists, usually young urbanites, were sent to the countryside to lecture patriarchs and their women about the evils of excessive birth (a rather demanding job). Contraception was much propagated and heavily subsidized by the government.
The state propaganda/persuasion machine worked at full speed too. Ubiquitous posters contrasted the destitution of the families with numerous children with the success and happiness of a model two-child family. The major slogan of the era was 3 ― 3 ― 35 which meant: "Have only three children, give birth only once every three years, and do not get pregnant after the age of 35." Fertility was presented as a thing of the past, somewhat akin to wooden ploughs and oxcarts.
The program was not cheap: throughout 1962-1979 its total cost reached $40 million dollars in 1970 (roughly $250 million in 2017 dollars). And it worked: by 1970 the TFR went down to 4.5 births, and by 1982 it reached the replacement level of 2.0 ― enough to keep population stable.
It is not clear, though, to which extent it was a result of the family planning campaign, and to which extent the dramatic reduction of the birthrate was, so to say, a "natural byproduct" of the spectacular economic growth Korea enjoyed in the days of the military dictatorship. Across the world, people have fewer children when they get rich, and soon Koreans learned that demographic problems were not what they used to think. By the late 1980s the era of family planning was over, and Korea's headache was, increasingly a falling birthrate ― a trend which has been getting more serious every year since.
Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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So, a demographical disaster is looming, and many experts worry about the future. Their worries are well-founded, but one should remember that within the living memories of roughly half of the Koreans alive, the same words "demographical disaster" were employed to describe a completely different situation. When we now talk about ‘disaster,' we mean that Koreans have too few babies. Half a century ago, the same words implied that they were having too many babies.
Until the industrial revolution began to change our world in the 1800s, nearly all women had as many children as they physically could have. Contraception was often illegal, and widely seen as immoral and, frankly, irrational. Indeed, in a world where normally one third of all newborns died before their first birthday could be celebrated, high birthrates were necessary for the survival of families, clans and communities.
In Europe, things began to change in the early 1800s, when couples began to quietly use contraception to avoid what they came to see as "excessive births." In Korea, the old high birthrate remained the norm until industrialization began in earnest in the early 1960s. Until then Koreans overwhelmingly lived in traditional villages and followed the old mores which stated that every woman's major duty was to give birth to as many children as possible. Little wonder that the rate in 1960 stood at 6.1 births per woman, which was pretty close to the "biological norm": the average human female, if she does not use contraception, gives birth some seven times in her life.
In the 1960s, however, the world's expert community was in an alarmist mood. The spread of modern medicine, especially antibiotics, and modern hygiene across poorer parts of the world resulted in the dramatic reduction of mortality, but birthrates still remained high. The population began to grow explosively, and it was widely believed that such growth, if left unchecked, would undermine any hope for economic recovery of the so-called "Third World." Thus, pundits and politicians alike decided that "family planning" (a nice euphemism for a birth reduction policy) was a must.
Korea, whose ruling elite tend to take all current trends and ideological fashions a bit too seriously, immediately began to act in accordance with the then dominant vision: a massive "family planning campaign" was started in the 1960s by the ROK government. It helped that at the time such a high birthrate was seen as a major impediment to economic growth, and growth was the overriding goal of the military government of South Korea presided over by General Park Chung-hee, a ruthless, iron-willed and remarkably efficient dictator.
In 1962 this family planning began in earnest. The activists, usually young urbanites, were sent to the countryside to lecture patriarchs and their women about the evils of excessive birth (a rather demanding job). Contraception was much propagated and heavily subsidized by the government.
The state propaganda/persuasion machine worked at full speed too. Ubiquitous posters contrasted the destitution of the families with numerous children with the success and happiness of a model two-child family. The major slogan of the era was 3 ― 3 ― 35 which meant: "Have only three children, give birth only once every three years, and do not get pregnant after the age of 35." Fertility was presented as a thing of the past, somewhat akin to wooden ploughs and oxcarts.
The program was not cheap: throughout 1962-1979 its total cost reached $40 million dollars in 1970 (roughly $250 million in 2017 dollars). And it worked: by 1970 the TFR went down to 4.5 births, and by 1982 it reached the replacement level of 2.0 ― enough to keep population stable.
It is not clear, though, to which extent it was a result of the family planning campaign, and to which extent the dramatic reduction of the birthrate was, so to say, a "natural byproduct" of the spectacular economic growth Korea enjoyed in the days of the military dictatorship. Across the world, people have fewer children when they get rich, and soon Koreans learned that demographic problems were not what they used to think. By the late 1980s the era of family planning was over, and Korea's headache was, increasingly a falling birthrate ― a trend which has been getting more serious every year since.
Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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