South Korea’s experience with a declining birth rate offers a sobering lesson for the United Kingdom as it contemplates its own demographic future. The East Asian country, which recorded the lowest total fertility rate in the world at 0.72 children per woman in 2023, has become a laboratory of state intervention in family policy. Its failure to reverse population decline suggests that raising birth rates requires more than financial incentives, a point UK policymakers would do well to heed.
Seoul has spent the equivalent of £280 billion over the past 16 years on measures aimed at encouraging childbirth, including cash handouts, subsidised housing and extended parental leave. Yet the fertility rate has continued to plummet. The latest figures, released this week, show an 8% drop from the previous year. South Korean women cite the high cost of childcare, a competitive education system and the burden of unpaid domestic labour as primary disincentives. The country’s patriarchal culture, where women still shoulder most household duties even when employed full-time, compounds the issue.
The United Kingdom faces similar structural problems. Its total fertility rate stands at 1.49 children per woman, below the replacement level of 2.1. The Office for National Statistics projects that the UK population will shrink by 2070 if current trends persist. Successive governments have introduced policies such as tax-free childcare and shared parental leave, but these have had limited impact. The core challenge lies in affordability and social norms.
A report by the Resolution Foundation earlier this year found that the cost of raising a child in the UK now exceeds £200,000 from birth to age 18. Housing costs, in particular, consume a larger share of household income than in previous generations. Young couples are delaying parenthood or forgoing it altogether because they cannot afford a home with sufficient space. The lack of affordable childcare, especially for children under three, forces many mothers out of the workforce or into part-time roles.
Cultural factors also play a role. The decline in religious observance and the normalisation of cohabitation without marriage have weakened traditional family structures. More people are choosing to remain single, and the average age of first-time mothers continues to rise, reducing the window for multiple births. Migration, which has buoyed UK population numbers in recent years, is unlikely to compensate for falling birth rates in the long term because net migration tends to decline as sending countries develop economically.
The South Korean experiment teaches that fiscal measures alone cannot alter deep-rooted social obstacles. Spending money on birth bonuses and nursery vouchers fails to address the underlying anxieties women have about their careers and their children’s future. The UK’s approach must instead tackle the cost of housing, the rigidity of the labour market and the gender imbalance in care work. Without such structural reform, the demographic trajectory will remain a source of concern for economic growth and the sustainability of public services.
In conclusion, the UK should examine the outcomes of South Korea’s policies not as a warning against intervention but as a guide to what not to do. Piecemeal subsidies do not drive change. A comprehensive strategy that reshapes the economic and cultural environment might have a greater chance of stabilising the birth rate, but such a policy presents an enormous political and financial commitment.
