Kim Jong-un sheds tears for mothers as North combats falling birthrate

North Korea

Published: 04 Dec. 2023, 17:23 Updated: 04 Dec. 2023, 19:25

Kim Jong-un sheds tears for mothers as North combats falling birthrate

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wipes his tears during the National Meeting of Mothers in Pyongyang on Sunday, according to footage released by the North Korean state-run Korean Central TV. [YONHAP]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un highlighted the nation’s dropping birthrate during a national meeting in Pyongyang on Sunday.

The National Meeting of Mothers, held for the first time in 11 years, gathered women from around the country on Sunday to ensure the “mothers fulfill their responsibility and role assumed before society and family,” reported North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday.

Kim highlighted the importance of mothers continuing to contribute to the “national power” of the country. He was captured shedding tears at one point during the meeting, according to the footage released by Korean Central Television, another state-run media in the North.

The World Bank put the North’s total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her reproductive years, at 1.8 in 2020. The UN Population Fund estimated it to be 1.79 in 2022.

North Korea's fertility rate stood as high as 4.05 in the late 1960s, but dropped below the 2.1 rate needed to sustain the population in the late 1990s.

However, its current rate is still more than twice that of South Korea, which dropped to 0.78 last year, breaking its own record as the world’s lowest for yet another year.

Citing these numbers, a columnist at the New York Times recently projected that the difference in fertility rates between the two Koreas could even lead to an invasion from the North.

But the North's fertility numbers do not bode well given the size and make-up of its economy, according to some experts.

Kindergarteners in Pyongyang cheer their teams during an outdoors field day event on June 1 in this footage released by the North's state-run Korean Central Television. [YONHAP]

In October, the Unification Ministry in Seoul warned that the North's fertility rate, “closing in on the verge of low birth and aging society,” is not a good sign given that the North is still a low-income country.

It cited the dire state of the North's economy and the need for more women to participate in the labor force as a likely reason for the dropping fertility rate.

North Korea’s population is around 25 million, about half that of its southern neighbor.

According to some demographic studies, South Korea’s famously low fertility rate could make the country one of the first to go extinct.

Scholars at the University of Washington predicted Korea's population would halve by 2100 given its current rate of decline.

Statistics Korea, run by the Korean government, said recently that young people in Korea — aged between 19 and 34 — are expected to halve by 2050, from around 10.21 million in 2020, or approximately 20 percent of the country’s current population.