Young South Koreans See Joy in Children but Face the Highest Financial Fears in Five Countries

High Hopes for Family Life Meet Heavy Costs

South Korean adults aged 20 to 49 were more likely than their peers in Germany, Japan, France and Sweden to say children bring joy, yet they also expressed the greatest concern about the financial burden of parenthood. A comparative survey by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs found that 74.3% of Korean respondents associated having children with greater joy and life satisfaction, while 92.7% said it increases economic burdens.

The study surveyed 2,500 adults in each of the five countries. Its findings place Korea's demographic difficulties alongside a striking tension: positive feelings about children coexist with anxiety about paying for family life.

Korea's 74.3% agreement on the joy children bring exceeded France's 67.9%, Sweden's 64.9%, Germany's 62.7% and Japan's 57.5%. On economic burdens, Korea's 92.7% compared with 77.6% in Germany, 75.5% in France, 73.2% in Japan and 65.2% in Sweden.

Korea therefore stood 9.1 percentage points above Sweden on the positive view of parenthood, but 27.5 percentage points above it on financial concerns. The larger gap on costs helps explain why enthusiasm for family life can coexist with hesitation about having children.

Young Koreans face a combination of expensive housing, uncertain employment and expectations about what parents should provide. Women also face difficult choices between raising children and maintaining their careers. Together, these pressures help explain why family aspirations can translate into smaller families, delayed childbirth or decisions to remain without children.

The research team at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs connected the survey findings to the country's low total fertility rate:

the findings suggest a link between economic burdens and Korea's low total fertility rate

The team said there could be room for improvement through easing negative perceptions of childbirth and strengthening tangible institutional support. Its findings suggest that practical help matters alongside attitudes toward parenthood.

Marriage Intentions Outpace Plans for Children

Among unmarried respondents, Korea had the highest intention to marry, at 52.9%. Sweden followed at 50.2%, Germany at 46.5%, France at 38.2% and Japan at 32%. Marriage remained an aspiration for more than half of the unmarried Koreans surveyed.

Plans to have children followed a different order. Among all respondents, Sweden ranked first at 43.2%, followed by France at 38.8%, Germany at 38.6%, Korea at 31.2% and Japan at 20.3%. The marriage question covered unmarried people, while the childbirth question covered everyone surveyed. Each percentage describes its own group of respondents.

Korea's position nevertheless shifted from first on marriage intentions to fourth on childbirth intentions. The pattern points to a society where interest in marriage remains strong while the prospect of raising children carries additional pressures. Couples may marry and then postpone parenthood or decide against it because of financial constraints.

Among respondents who intended to have children, Koreans also planned the smallest families, averaging 1.74 children. Germany and Sweden shared the highest average at 2.35, followed by France at 2.11 and Japan at 1.96.

The replacement benchmark is about 2.1 births per woman, the level needed to maintain a population over time without immigration. Korea's planned family size of 1.74 sits below that benchmark. Planned family size describes respondents' aspirations, while the total fertility rate measures births using the birth rates recorded across different ages.

The survey therefore captures several stages of family formation: wanting to marry, wanting children and deciding how many children to have. Financial pressures can affect each stage differently, leaving people interested in family life but uncertain about how much of it they can afford.

A Population Facing a Century of Decline

South Korea's total fertility rate fell to 0.72 in 2023, the lowest in the world. The country has held the lowest rate globally for several years and last reached the replacement level of 2.1 in the early 1980s.

The total fertility rate expresses how many children a woman would have if the birth rates recorded at each age continued throughout her reproductive years. A rate of 0.72 shows how far Korea's births have fallen below the level associated with population replacement.

The Korean Peninsula Population Institute for Future projected that, if current trends continue, South Korea's population could fall to about 15% of its present size by 2125. Under its worst scenario, the population would decline from 51.68 million to 7.53 million over a century, leaving the entire country with fewer people than Seoul has today.

The institute's most optimistic projection still puts the population at 15.73 million in 2125. Its middle projection is 11.15 million, a decline of nearly 80% from the current population. The projected pace of contraction accelerates: a reduction of 30% by 2075 is followed by a reduction of more than 50% over the next 50 years.

Korea's population structure would also change. A population once shaped like a broad pyramid, with many younger people supporting smaller older generations, would become increasingly inverted. Under the worst forecasts, there would be 140 seniors for every 100 people of working age by 2100, compared with the current ratio of 30 seniors per 100.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that every 1% decline in Korea's population reduces real consumption by 1.6%. Real consumption means spending adjusted for changes in prices. Fewer consumers can weaken economic activity and tax revenues just as an older population requires more care.

The dates in the research show both the length of the decline and the scale of the projections:

• Early 1980s: Korea last reached the replacement fertility level of 2.1.
• 2023: The total fertility rate fell to 0.72.
• 2075: The population projections anticipate a reduction of 30%.
• 2100: The worst forecasts put the ratio at 140 seniors per 100 people of working age.
• 2125: Projected population totals range from 7.53 million to 15.73 million, with a middle estimate of 11.15 million.

Housing and Secure Jobs Shape Family Decisions

A study by Nam and Hwang published in 2023 used survey experiments to examine how economic factors influence marriage and childbirth decisions among Korean adults. Housing costs reduced intentions both to marry and to have children, while direct effects from education and medical expenses were not confirmed.

Seoul's high property prices help explain the importance of housing. Young adults without substantial family wealth face increasing difficulty buying a home in major cities. The cost of establishing a household can become a barrier before a couple even begins paying the expenses associated with children.

Employment stability also mattered. Employed respondents, regular employees, public sector workers and government officials showed higher intentions to marry. Secure work gives people a more predictable income and lowers the threshold for making a lasting family commitment.

Korea's competitive labor market includes increasingly common temporary and irregular employment. For young people in those positions, uncertainty about future earnings can make family formation feel financially precarious. Nam and Hwang described their findings on housing and employment:

The burden of housing costs significantly reduces one's intention to marry and have children, while the effects of education and medical expenses were not confirmed. For employed individuals, regular employees, public sector workers, and government officials, there was a higher intention to marry, indicating that employment stability reduces the threshold for marriage.

Employed women in the study had lower desired numbers of children. The finding reflects the difficulty of combining a career with family responsibilities in workplaces where motherhood can carry penalties for promotion and continued employment.

Housing and job security connect costs today with confidence about tomorrow. A prospective parent may be able to meet current expenses but still hesitate when housing payments, employment prospects and future caregiving responsibilities remain uncertain.

Why Birth Payments Have Limited Reach

South Korean governments have introduced numerous policies to address low fertility, primarily through direct financial incentives. Baby bonus programs transfer money to parents when a child is born. Research into one such program found that much of its spending supported births that would have happened without the payment.

A study published in the journal Demography estimated that more than 74% of the program's expenditure went to these births, described in the research as infra-marginal births. In everyday terms, the payment reached parents who were already going to have a child.

The researchers estimated that the benefit level would need to be about 15 times larger to bring fertility back to desired levels. Their analysis considered the minimum compensation needed to persuade a person to have a child, a concept they called the reservation price of fertility.

The researchers explained the scale of the payments and budget their model would require:

We show that using the same assumptions and the same binary-choice models used in this literature, and we can estimate the entire unconditional distribution of the reservation price of fertility, which is the minimal compensation an agent must receive to induce her to have a child. Our estimates show that the program's benefit level and budget would have to be orders of magnitude (about 15 times) larger for the program to bring South Korea back to desired levels of fertility.

Most parents receiving relatively small birth payments would have had children anyway, according to this research. The people whose decisions might change because of those payments represented a small share of the population. Much of the money therefore functioned as support for existing parents rather than an incentive that produced additional births.

A study from Brunel University London also examined how taxation policies may inadvertently have contributed to declining fertility. It highlighted how the design and implementation of policies intended to encourage childbirth can fail to address the complex social and economic factors behind family decisions.

These findings point toward limits in relying on standard financial incentives alone. Housing, employment and the organization of family life can create continuing costs and risks that a payment at birth leaves largely unchanged.

The UN Focuses on Families People Want

The United Nations Population Fund's 2025 State of the World Population report placed Korea's experience within a wider pattern. Its survey covered 14 countries representing one third of the world's population and found that roughly 40% of respondents cited economic barriers as the main reason for having fewer children than they would like.

In South Korea, three in five respondents identified financial limitations as an obstacle to having children. The comparable share in Sweden was 19%. The Korean figure was therefore 41 percentage points higher, using three in five as 60%.

The UNFPA report framed the problem as a crisis of reproductive agency. That means people's ability to make their own decisions about whether to have children and how many. Expensive housing, insecure jobs, the costs of raising children, inadequate access to quality healthcare and gender inequality can restrict those choices.

The report described its survey findings this way:

The survey findings indicated that the world is not facing a crisis of falling birth rates but a crisis of reproductive agency. Roughly 40 percent of respondents cited economic barriers such as the costs of raising children, job insecurity and expensive housing as the main reason for having fewer children than they would like.

Natalia Kanem, UNFPA's executive director, connected falling fertility to people's difficulty achieving their preferred family lives:

fertility rates are falling in large part because many feel unable to create the families they want.

This approach directs policy toward expanding genuine choices rather than coercive measures. It also challenges explanations that place declining births primarily on infertility, changing values or a rejection of parenthood.

Sweden offers a useful comparison because its parental leave system provides 480 days of paid leave per child, available to both women and men. It is among the world's most generous systems, yet Sweden's fertility remains below replacement level. Extensive welfare provision can reduce pressures without fully removing the economic and social barriers associated with parenthood.

Women Carry More of the Work at Home

The International Monetary Fund identifies gender inequality as a central factor in the fertility difficulties facing Korea and Japan. Women in both countries face particularly difficult choices between their careers and family responsibilities.

IMF research found that women in Japan and Korea perform approximately five times as much unpaid housework and caregiving as men. That gender gap is more than double the average across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. Unequal responsibilities at home make motherhood costly in time as well as income.

The IMF described how these pressures affect young women's expectations of family life:

Women in Japan and Korea face especially tough challenges juggling career and family. Many young women witness their peers encountering promotion delays after marriage and childbirth, dealing with problems splitting housework responsibilities, and having difficulty finding adequate childcare. The financial burden associated with raising children is an additional factor affecting couples' decisions on whether to expand their families.

Korea's labor market also separates workers into positions with different levels of security and opportunity, a pattern described as labor market duality. Many women hold temporary jobs with low wages and limited prospects for advancement. Women who leave employment while raising children often return only to less favorable positions outside regular employment.

Long working hours, inflexible schedules and limited opportunities to work remotely add further pressure. Expanding flexible arrangements could allow both parents to take a greater part in childcare while continuing their careers.

The IMF estimates that reducing Korea's gap between women and men in hours worked to the OECD average by 2035 could increase gross domestic product per person by 18%. It argues that narrowing gender gaps could support economic growth and higher fertility by making careers and family formation more compatible.

Aging Brings Growing Budget Pressures

The IMF projects that spending on pensions, healthcare and long term care will rise by 30% to 35% of GDP by 2050 as Korea's population ages. GDP, or gross domestic product, measures the value of goods and services produced in an economy.

Without offsetting measures, the IMF projects government debt could reach 90% to 130% of GDP by 2050, compared with below 50% currently. A smaller population of workers and taxpayers would face growing demands to finance care and income support for older people.

Immigration could help address population pressures, but increasing it faces political and practical limitations. Financial incentives for births also have limits, as the baby bonus research shows. The IMF therefore recommends several approaches together, including adopting artificial intelligence, increasing participation in the workforce and allocating resources more efficiently to maintain potential growth.

Tax reforms that raise additional revenue, reductions in inefficient spending and improvements in government efficiency could create more room for spending associated with aging. Such changes could also free resources for family support.

The IMF calls for a clear and credible fiscal framework covering the longer term and accounting for aging pressures. A framework of this kind would make government budgeting more predictable and transparent while allowing responses to demographic change.

The Korean Peninsula Population Institute for Future proposes expanding support for childbirth and raising children, establishing a practical culture that balances work and family life, raising the retirement age, promoting continued employment and reforming immigration policy. Its central recommendation is to organize the economy around productivity rather than population growth.

Family Expectations Also Affect Decisions

Nam and Hwang's study found that acceptance of patriarchal values, including the perceived necessity of having a son, was associated with higher intentions to marry, higher intentions to have children and a larger desired number of children.

A sense of obligation to provide financial support for children was associated with lower intentions both to marry and to have children. Expectations about parental responsibility therefore matter alongside actual prices and household income.

Values had a stronger influence on women than on men in the study. Women's views about traditional gender roles and family obligations particularly shaped fertility outcomes. Rising education and career aspirations can sit uneasily alongside continuing expectations about motherhood.

Korean society is becoming more egalitarian in some respects while retaining traditional expectations about parenthood in others. These tensions can make forming a family more difficult, especially when women anticipate responsibility for both earning an income and doing most of the caregiving.

The research points toward responses that address economic conditions and social expectations together. Financial support may help parents meet expenses, while secure employment, affordable housing and a fairer division of care affect whether people feel able to begin or expand a family.

The Bottom Line

• Korean adults aged 20 to 49 led five surveyed countries in associating children with joy, at 74.3%, and with economic burdens, at 92.7%.
• Marriage intentions among unmarried Koreans stood at 52.9%; childbirth intentions among all Korean respondents were 31.2%.
• Koreans intending to have children planned an average of 1.74, the lowest among the five countries.
• Korea's fertility rate fell to 0.72 in 2023; the worst population projection puts its population at 7.53 million in 2125.
• Housing costs, employment insecurity, unequal caregiving and career penalties for mothers shape family decisions.
• Research found that more than 74% of baby bonus expenditure supported births that would have happened without the payment.
• UNFPA identified financial constraints and restricted reproductive choice as central problems; three in five Korean respondents cited financial obstacles.
• The IMF recommends reducing gender gaps, supporting economic growth and preparing public finances for an older population.