00:00South Korea's birth rate rose for a second straight year in 2025, government data showed
00:05on Wednesday, in a further sign that the country facing a demographic crisis for nearly a decade
00:10may be starting to turn a corner. South Korea's total fertility rate, the average number of
00:15babies a woman is expected to have during her reproductive life, stood at 0.8 in 2025,
00:22up from 0.75 back in 2024, according to preliminary data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
00:32New births in the Asian countries started to rebound in 2024 on a post-pandemic boost,
00:38and supported by government policies after eight consecutive years of declines that saw it register
00:43the world's lowest birth rate at 0.72 in 2023. There were five new births per 1,000 people in
00:502025,
00:51up from 4.7 in 2024. That compared with 5.6 in China last year, 4.6 in Taiwan last
00:59year,
01:00and 5.7 in Japan in 2024, where the trend remains downwards. Marriages, a leading indicator of new
01:07births with a time lag of one to two years, rose 8.1% in 2025, after recording the biggest
01:15ever jump
01:15of 14.8% in 2024.
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