South Korea is finally having more babies. But can it last?

Story by Jessie Yeung, Yoonjung Seo, CNN. Graphics by Rosa de Acosta, CNN.

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — Excited young couples roam a bustling convention center trying on baby carriers, testing strollers and learning the latest safety features of car seats.

This scene in Seoul in January may seem totally contrary to the usual headlines from South Korea, of plummeting birth rates and a looming demographic crisis that also threatens to swallow neighboring Japan and China.

But against all odds, South Korea is finally having more babies. The numbers have been slowly ticking up for over a year – a rare bit of good news for a government that has spent billions of dollars for more than a decade encouraging people to do just that.

Whether it can last, however, is another matter.

Attendees at the baby fair in Seoul nodded to the government’s many initiatives, including subsidies and support programs for young parents. But all of them also described how hard it is to have kids in a country with rising costs of living, a grueling work culture, ingrained gender norms, and lingering conservative attitudes.

“After I became pregnant, I quit my job,” said 31-year-old Yun So-yeon, who’s expecting her first child in March. She felt she didn’t have a choice. “There wasn’t enough support at my work. When someone gets pregnant, they all end up quitting.”

Another attendee, 34-year-old Park Ha-yan, is a stay-at-home mom expecting her third child in June. “It all comes down to money,” she said.

“The more children you have, the more (government) support you receive. But the expenses become greater … And this isn’t for just one or two years, it’s all the way until they grow up so, it’s definitely a heavy burden.”

Experts also voiced caution about celebrating too soon. Some of the reasons for the rise could also suggest that it’s a temporary bump.

“Now we see some rebound … but our levels never recovered (to what they were) before Covid,” said Sojung Lim, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies at the SUNY University at Buffalo. “We still have the lowest fertility of advanced economies.”

South Korea’s fertility rate, defined as the average number of babies born in a woman’s lifetime, had been steadily dropping since 2015 – and is now the lowest among all countries worldwide.

Demographers say a society needs a fertility rate of at least 2.1 to maintain a stable population, without immigration. By 2023, South Korea’s fertility rate had slumped to 0.721 – deepening the sense of panic that permeated the country. At one point, former President Yoon Suk Yeol called the decline in births a “national emergency.”

So, it was a surprise when in 2024, the country’s fertility rate rose for the first time in nine years. It was a small increase, up to 0.748, but it was enough for people to ask: Is this the end of the tunnel? Has South Korea turned a corner on its population crisis?

For 17 consecutive months now, the country has seen a year-on-year increase in monthly births, according to the latest figures released in January. That means more babies were born each month than the same month the previous year – a sign that the overall fertility rate could see a second year of growth.

Various possible factors are at play, said Lim.

For starters, many people delayed getting married and having kids during the Covid years. In South Korea, single or unmarried mothers are still relatively uncommon, so “declining marriage means declining fertility,” said Lim. Those couples may now be going ahead with their delayed plans, so we could be seeing “a catch-up effect after the pandemic,” she added.

Another factor could be purely demographic. The generation of children born to Baby Boomers is “relatively large,” Lim said. That means there are simply more women now in their early or mid 30s, in their “prime ages of marriage and childbearing.”

Park, the stay-at-home mom, offered another possible reason: She’s noticed many pregnant women having their second or third child, rather than being first-time moms. “Once they’ve had a baby and raised one, they feel it would be better for their child to have a sibling,” she suggested.

Then there are the government’s own policies designed to encourage baby-making. Over much of the past decade, authorities nationwide have introduced housing and childcare subsidies; offered cash handouts to new parents; extended maternity and paternity leave; launched social campaigns encouraging men to contribute to housework; hosted dating and matchmaking events to boost marriage rates; and urged companies to promote better work-life balance.

To some extent, this appears to have worked.

“Compared to about 10 years ago, the mood has shifted and companies are giving benefits that employers are required to provide,” said Kim, a 30-year-old expecting mother who CNN is identifying only by her surname for privacy reasons.

“In the past, managers, mostly middle-aged men, had a low level of understanding about parental leave,” Kim added. “But now, the atmosphere has shifted to ‘Of course you should take it,’ so I think the burden has eased somewhat.”

In South Korea, parental leave is mostly taken by mothers. By law, mothers can take up to 90 days of leave for a single baby with no complications, and fathers are afforded 20 days.

Park Hae-in, another expecting mother at the fair, credited government initiatives for her decision to have another child.

“I could see the government was making efforts in various ways,” she said. “Things like government support for moving to a different house … made me think more positively about planning a second child.”

Despite these gains, deep structural and societal issues remain – and most of the parents-to-be CNN spoke to shared lingering concerns and anxieties.

“There are childbirth grants, child allowances and diaper support programs, but in many cases, they don’t really match my current economic situation,” said Park Hae-in. “When it comes to things like newborn loans, there are also a lot of restrictions.”

Kim Seon-kyeong, a 34-year-old expecting mom, said current incentives mostly target low-income couples – but higher-earning families also need financial help to cover the “insanely expensive” costs of childcare, she said.

In 2024, South Korea was ranked the world’s most expensive country to raise kids, according to the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute. And there’s one major factor contributing to this cost: private tuition and cram schools.

The country’s education system is wildly competitive, and many parents feel heavy pressure to set their kids up for success by the time they can walk – meaning years of costly after-school tutoring.

Then there are cultural norms to contend with.

Yun, the expecting mother who quit her job, often finds public attitudes unfriendly toward children. For instance, mothers may receive “a lot of negative looks” if their babies cry in public, she said.

“Taking care of a baby requires so much effort, but when you go outside, everyone seems uncomfortable, and you constantly have to be mindful of others and shrink back because of the baby,” she said. “Then when you come home, your husband is exhausted in his own way because he has to go to work, so inevitably you end up taking on the caregiving by yourself.”

In recent years, “no-kids zones” have become increasingly popular, stoking controversy among parents – with businesses like restaurants barring children in the name of peace and quiet for adult customers.

Lim, the professor, also questioned whether the government’s actions – which she praised as “very aggressive” – would be enough to address problems like the strict traditional mindset of family formation (for instance, single women cannot receive IVF treatment in South Korea).

“If these structural issues are the real causes of Korea’s ultra-low fertility, then do these government policies really help? I don’t think so,” she said.

And unless these deeper causes are addressed, the current upswing in births will be “short term,” she warned. In a few years, the bump of post-Covid marriages will pass; the larger cohort of women currently in their 30s will grow older; and the fertility rate, which now looks so promising, could decline once more.

Countries around the world experiencing their own population declines are now watching closely to see what South Korea does next. It’s not just Asian neighbors: several European nations, including Italy and Spain, and the United States have all seen their fertility rates drop in recent years. So whatever successes – or failures – South Korea experiences will inform how other countries battle their own crises.

“What they have to learn from Korea is not that we rebounded for (17) months in a row – but why it happened to South Korea” in the first place, said Lim, adding that many countries had “similar characteristics” that suggest they’re heading down a similar path.

“Once you see that fertility is declining a lot – it may be (too) late.”

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CNN’s Kim Boyoung contributed to this story.