South Korea's Fertility Rate to Reach Highest Level in 2025

Seoul (ANTARA) - South Korea’s total fertility rate is expected to reach its highest level in the past four years in 2025, following a sustained increase in births, according to data from the statistics ministry, on Wednesday.

The total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, rose by 0.05 to 0.80 in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Data and Statistics.

This figure is the highest in four years, since 2021, when the fertility rate was recorded at 0.81.

The rate, which needs to be at 2.1 births per woman to maintain a population replacement level, decreased from 1.24 in 2015 to 0.72 in 2023 before increasing again to 0.75 in 2024.

The number of babies born increased by 6.8 percent from the previous year to 254,500 in 2025, after growing by 3.6 percent in 2024.

The figure had been steadily declining for eight consecutive years until 2023. The number of deaths increased by 1.3 percent year-on-year to 363,400 in 2025.

Influenced by a higher number of deaths than births, the natural population decrease reached 108,900 in 2025. The country’s total population has recorded a natural decrease for six consecutive years since 2020.