Decline in fertility in many countries, an increasingly elderly humanity, a world population which is about to fall. The demographic transition raises numerous economic and societal questions and concerns many governments.
South Korea is facing a dizzying drop in its birth rate: according to figures published by the public statistics agency Kostat, the country had the lowest fertility rate on the planet in 2023, i.e. 0.72 children per woman. . An index that has been falling steadily for around ten years while the fertility rate to avoid demographic decline is 2.1 in the absence of immigration.
Despite government investments of nearly $300 billion since 2006, the trend has not yet been reversed. The cause: overwhelming social and family pressures but also professional and financial uncertainty. Fewer and fewer Korean women are choosing to marry and have children.
Korean Ministry of Birth
For the government, the demographic crisis has become a priority theme. President Yoon Suk-Yeol, describing the situation as a national emergency, announced that he wanted to create a dedicated ministry.
“The concern depends on the pace”, reacts Laura Bernardi, demographer and sociologist at the University of Lausanne, in the show Geopolitis. “If the decline in fertility is rapid and sudden, leads to imbalances in terms of the proportion of older people and younger people of working age, and this imbalance increases, the emergency is there. In itself, the decline of the population is not a problem, but the way in which we get there And therefore the times that are left – or not – for society, for economic and social functioning to adapt, are sometimes quite dramatic. is the case of South Korea,” she adds.
Global fertility decline
Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea… in many Asian countries, the birth rate is falling rapidly. But the phenomenon is global: if in 1950 a woman gave birth to five children on average, in 2021 the global rate was 2.3. “We have situations where the decline has already been there for decades. We have countries where there is what we now call the moment of maximum growth – because even if fertility has fallen, it is very recent and therefore the young population is still those who were born a few years ago. years back. And then there are countries where the fertility rate remains high, but is becoming less and less so,” specifies the demographer.
According to a recent study from the University of Washington published in The Lancet, by 2100, only six countries – Samoa, Somalia, Tonga, Niger, Chad and Tajikistan – are expected to have a fertility rate above 2.1 children per woman.
In Italy, demographic decline is also a major concern. The country has one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe: 1.22 children per woman according to the Italian agency Istat compared to 1.39 in Switzerland and 1.68 in France. “The southern European countries were actually the first to have what we call the record fertility decline in Western countries in the 1990s. Then there was a slight recovery before now falling back to the same level, therefore below 1.3 children per woman”, recalls Laura Bernardi.
Aging populations
The Italian population is also increasingly older: almost a quarter of the population was over 65 in 2023. Life expectancy, now 83 years, has increased by more than three years since 2000. The country could lose 20% of its population by 2070. “We have really very high youth unemployment rates, which leads to insecurity from an individual point of view, but also economic insecurity. This is reflected in long-term choices, such as starting a family”, analyzes Laura Bernardi.
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Another phenomenon is added to this: the emigration of young academics. “We have seen an interesting fact in Italy recently, which is that the population is aging, but its workforce is aging even more,” explains Laura Bernardi. “Emigration is very important: it is calculated that 10% of people with a university degree have left.”
Immigration, a solution?
For Laura Bernardi, encouraging fertility is not the only solution, but is complementary to migration which “is also an opportunity”.
A Switzerland with ten million inhabitants, what does that change for you?
In this area, “Switzerland is in a very good position, because it remains an attractive economy, but above all it has sectors that need qualified labor – IT, technology, health – and can count on a mass of people who want to come So in this sense, the selective migration policy in Switzerland is quite favorable to compensate for the lack of indigenous children”, specifies the demographer, before emphasizing that at the same time “. we must invest in the reintegration and possibility of development of this population.”
Natalie Bougeard/Anne Delaite
