The National Reproductive Crisis: South Korea’s Fertility Shock

Abstract

This paper is to discuss what have caused South Korea’s reproductive crisis. We pointed out that the causes of lowest low fertility syndrome in South Korea are disconformity between postindustrialization and fertility practices, conflicts between modernization and fertility behaviors, the unstable housing and the burden on old-age security, a strong resistance to extra-marital births and “informal” cohabitation. To recover the fertility rate to the replacement level, the pronatal policies need to increase investment, to foster culture and societal environments favorable for reproductive behaviors, and to harmonize societal systems with fertility practices.