Curious if the martial law attempt will indirectly increase fertility, by potential mechanisms like sense of national crisis or political gender reconciliation.
Source will be https://www.index.go.kr/unify/idx-info.do?pop=1&idxCd=5061
Number to beat is 0.72 from 2023. If 2025 is higher than that, resolves Yes, otherwise No.
1,000
3.00I think the outcome here depends on two pieces of information that aren't available yet: the birth and marriage rates in 2024.
"Will the government implement policies to address fertility" is not a factor. AFAICT not a single policy anywhere, including "straight up cash payments" have increased birthrate in any developed country within the past four years.
It looks like maternal age at first birth historically tracks ahead of marriage by 1-2 years. Marriage has been dropping year-by-year since 2015, but rose in 2023 by... 1%. But it rose! And if people have been delaying marriage in the past few years due to COVID or whatever, another rise in 2024 could produce more babies in 2025.
Most American sources claim that the fertility in 2024 is an estimated 0.68, based on a projection from the start of 2024 by Statistics Korea. If this number proves accurate then SK is screwed in 2025, they're not crawling out of a -4% hole in a year. 15%.
OTOH more births than usual in the latter part of 2024 lead the chairman of the South Korea's Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy to suggest that they might rebound from 0.72 to 0.74. If that's the case than I think SK can stay above 0.72 in 2025 with probability... 50%?
It would have been prudent to wait for the actual number to come out but I already looked up all this stuff and had little interest in delaying my gratification in clicking "BUY". Which is why I bought the market up to 25%.
Even though we don't have TFR data for 2024 yet, we do know that 3% more babies were born in 2024 than 2023. Assuming that the female population and age-specific fertility rates remain the same as 2023, we can estimate the TFR to be around 0.74, matching the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy's estimate from late last year. In this case, all South Korea needs to do is not lose that 2% bump in 2025.
The official number of marriages in 2024 hasn't been released either, but this article suggest an >20% bump from 2023 during peak season. If 2024's birth rebound can be attributed to marriages delayed by the pandemic then we should have even higher hopes for 2025.