In report titled "[South] Korea's Unborn Future" released on Wednesday, the Paris-based organization said the country "where fertility has imploded to unprecedented lows" is expected to see its population "halve over the next six decades."
It attributed the gloomy prospect to the country’s gender inequality, particularly in parental responsibilities, along with rigid labor market structures.
The report said that workplace culture and family expectations force women to choose between career and motherhood, rather than encouraging couples to share the burden of parenting, leading to the country's super-low birth rate.
"When gender-unequal norms and a large gender wage gap meet long hours and inflexible working practices, many [South] Korean mothers are constrained to choose family over career for an extended period of time, while men have little choice but to become the family breadwinner," it explained.
The report wrote, "When choosing parenthood, [South] Korean fathers therefore typically become fully committed breadwinners and mothers typically become fully committed carers for an extended period of time."
It analyzed that many women, once they leave the labor market, often face "low-paid, non-regular jobs" or are unable to find work at all when trying to re-enter. "As a result, mothers are three times more likely to be in non-regular employment than fathers. Conscient of this, women tend to delay family formation and have fewer children."
The OECD warned that South Korea's birth rate is unlikely to rebound without structural reforms that allow more women to balance work and family life, despite government efforts to boost birth rates though cash incentives, expanded parental leaves, and childcare support.
"Any fertility revival will at best be slow and gradual until policies, gender norms and working practices taken together enable a large majority of women to pursue career and family in tandem," it pointed out.
The country's total fertility rate, the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime, slightly rebounded to 0.75 per woman last year from 0.72 the previous year. However, the rate remains the lowest among OECD countries.
As part of a joint effort with the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), the report was published to provide insights for policymakers to address South Korea's demographic crisis.
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