VOA新闻杂志2022 韩国有生育意向的女性越来越少

In South Korea, Fewer Women Seeking Pregnancy¹

In South Korea, fewer women are having children. The high costs of housing and education make financial security a necessity. Social customs also dictate² that a woman should be married before having a baby.

Lim Eun-young, a 34-year-old public servant, says she is not financially ready to start a family. She and her boyfriend are not married. They have been dating for just a few months. But Lim is worried about getting older and how that might affect her chances for pregnancy. So, in November, she had doctors remove some of her eggs and freeze them for possible use later.

Lim was one of about 1,200 unmarried women who underwent the operation last year at CHA Medical Center. In 2019, the number of patients for the same treatment was about 600. CHA is South Korea's largest fertility business, accounting³ for about 30 percent of the market.

"It's a big relief and it gives me peace of mind to know that I have healthy eggs frozen right here," she said.

Freezing eggs to gain reproductive time is an option increasingly explored by women worldwide. And, South Korea has one of the world's lowest fertility rates. The average number of children born to a woman over her reproductive life in South Korea was just 0.81 last year. That compares with an average rate of 1.59 among developed countries in 2020. The countries are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD.

The South Korean government provides special assistance to families with children. The government budgeted $37 billion last year for policies aimed at increasing the country's birth rate.

The low birth rate is blamed largely on South Korea's highly competitive and costly⁴ education system. Many children are pushed into high pressure schools and private lessons from a young age.

"We hear from married couples and watch reality TV shows about how expensive it is to raise kids in terms of education costs and everything, and all these worries translate to fewer marriages and babies," said Lim.

Housing costs have also shot up. An average apartment in Seoul, for example, costs an estimated 19 years of South Korea's median yearly household earnings⁵, up from 11 years in 2017.

Cho So-Young, a 32-year-old nurse at CHA who plans to freeze her eggs this coming July, is also hoping to get in a better financial position before having a child.

"If I get married now and give birth, I can't give my baby the kind of environment I had when I grew up...I want better housing, a better neighborhood and better food to eat," she said.

But even when finances are less of a consideration, being married is seen as required before having children in South Korea. Just two percent of births in South Korea are to unmarried parents, compared to an average of 41 percent for OECD countries.

In fact, only married women in South Korea are permitted to receive a medical fertilization process. Single women are barred under the law.

Sayuri Fujita, a Japanese celebrity⁶ based in South Korea, recently brought the issue to light. The unmarried star had to go back to Japan when she decided⁷ to get pregnant without a partner.

That needs to change, argues Jung Jae-hoon, a professor of social issues at Seoul Women's University. She said marriages in South Korea dropped to a record low of 192,500 last year. That is down around 40 percent from ten years ago. Even when looking at marriage levels in 2019 to discount the effect of the pandemic, the drop is still a huge 27 percent.

"The least the government can do is to not get in the way of those out there who are willing" to pay the costs of having a baby, he said.

Even more worrying is the sharp drop in South Koreans' willingness to have children at all.

A study in 2020 found that 52 percent of South Koreans in their 20s do not plan to have children when they get married. That is a massive jump from 29 percent in 2015. South Korea's gender⁸ and family ministry⁹ carried out the study.

Words in This Story

relief - n. removal or easing of something painful or troubling

option - n. a choice made or available

expensive - adj. costly; high in price

translate - v. to change from one form to another

median - n. a value in a series arranged from smallest to largest below and above which there are an equal number of values or which is the average of the two middle values if there is no one middle value

prerequisite¹⁰ - n. something that is needed before an action can progress

1 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

2 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？

3 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

4 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

5 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

6 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

9 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

10 prerequisite   

n.先决条件；adj.作为前提的，必备的

参考例句：

• Stability and unity are a prerequisite to the four modernizations.安定团结是实现四个现代化的前提。
• It is a prerequisite of entry to the profession that you pass the exams.做这一行的先决条件是要通过了有关的考试。