SEOUL, Aug 27 – Birth rate in South Korea continued to fall amid the trend of delaying marriage and postponing having children, a government report showed Tuesday.
Xinhua news agency reports Statistics Korea as saying the number of babies born in June 2013 was 33,400, down 12.6 percent from a year earlier.
The latest data marks the sixth straight month that the country’s childbirth rate has declined.
For the first six months of the year, childbirth dropped 8.1 percent from the same period last year.
Young people of marriageable age are increasingly seeking to delay marriages and putting off having children amid growing costs for rearing children and daily livelihood.
The chronically low birthrate boosted concerns over a fall in working age population and rising welfare expenses and its consequent damage to the country’s growth potential.
– BERNAMA
