If South Korea doesn’t reverse its current low birth rate, the country’s population will drop dramatically in coming decades.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced on Thursday that he would create a new government ministry to tackle the country’s low birth rate, which he called “a national emergency.”
The ministry will serve as a specialized “control tower” that will “establish policies that span education, labor and welfare” — one better suited to tackle a problem that has so far been addressed largely with piecemeal measures.
“It will be more than just welfare policy, but a national agenda,” Yoon said at a news conference marking the end of his second year in office.
Last year’s fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime on average — was among the lowest in the world, at 0.
