Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Low birth rate stifles Korea’s trade growth
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Koreans think the consistent low birth rate is the biggest obstacle in achieving trade over $2 trillion.
The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) has surveyed Korean's awareness on $1 trillion trade and 24.5 percent of respondents said the low birth rate and an aging labor force might deter the trade size from reaching $2 trillion.
The survey was conducted among 1,000 adults in Korea in March, commemorating the 50th anniversary of KOTRA.
Korea surpassed $1 trillion in annual trade, including imports and exports, last year, becoming the ninth nation to accomplish the feat.
Maintaining the momentum is the challenge as the low birth rate continues to be a major social problem in Korea. The rate has been declining for years.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the number of newborn babies in Seoul was some 91,000 in 2011, which is about half the 183,000 births in 1992.
The total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, hit its lowest point at 0.92 in 2005 and picked up a little to 1.01 last year.
But the number of one-child households exceeded those with two children for the first time in 2011 and more than 65 percent of married women said they have no plan to have more children.
The statistics also showed that the number of women in the main childbearing age bracket, between 25 and 39, in Seoul was 1.3 million in 2010, but 632,000 of them remain unmarried. The decreasing number of fertile women is critical to the birth rate.
"More women have higher levels of education and participate in economic activity, resulting in the low birth rate. Traditional values considering marriage and childbirth as compulsory have changed to become more of an option," Lee Sam-sik, director of the low-fertility division at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, said.
Other obstacles included the rich-poor gap (23 percent), the high level of dependence on conglomerates (22.5 percent) and other developing countries chasing Korea (15 percent).
More than half, or 51.7 percent, of Koreans expect the nation to hit $2 trillion in trade within a decade and 40.3 percent think the IT industry such as semiconductors and mobile phones will lead the increase in trade.
Koreans thought that the balanced growth of large and small firms is essential to join the $2 trillion club, followed by ongoing job creation, resolving wealth polarization and improving quality of life.
KOTRA said it understands that just promoting trade alone is not enough to pass $2 trillion.
"The survey shows the expectations of Koreans on the $2 trillion club. We will expand the boundaries of trade from exchanging goods to technology, culture and human resources," KOTRA President Oh Young-ho said in a statement.