Is Korea over? A crisis that demands leadership, not alarmism

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Is Korea over? A crisis that demands leadership, not alarmism

Published: 08 May. 2025, 00:01

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Kim Eun-mi

The author is a professor of communications at Seoul National University.

By all appearances, it looked like a typical YouTube video. A dramatic thumbnail featuring a melting South Korean flag and the words “South Korea Is Over” emblazoned in bold type. But this wasn’t tabloid clickbait. It was a 15-minute video produced by Kurzgesagt, a German YouTube channel with over 23 million subscribers worldwide. Its premise? That South Korea's plunging birthrate will not just cause social discomfort or economic stagnation — it will bring about total collapse. The country, it warns, is past the point of return.

This picture taken on July 19, 2023 shows a "No Kids Zone" signboard installed in front of a cafe in Gimpo. In a country with the world's lowest birth rate, the emergence of an increasing number of facilities barring children -- such as cafes, libraries and art galleries -- is infuriating parents. [AFP/YONHAP]

Sensational as that may sound, the underlying concerns are not new. South Korea has for years posted the lowest fertility rate in the world, reaching a record low of 0.72 in 2023. In response, economists, policymakers, and academics have issued urgent warnings about the strain this will place on the country’s economy, pension system, labor force, and national defense. Among them, Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong has been especially vocal, pointing to the limitations of piecemeal pronatalist policies and calling instead for bold, structural reforms in housing, labor, education and urban planning.

What’s different now is the degree of public resignation. Scroll through the Korean-language comments under the Kurzgesagt video, and a pattern emerges: people aren't just worried — they're exhausted. There is widespread acknowledgment that building a family in today’s Korea feels like an unaffordable luxury, if not an outright delusion. The problem isn't just that raising children is expensive. It's that the social and economic infrastructure makes balancing work, life and parenthood feel nearly impossible.

There have been notable shifts in attitudes toward gender and family roles. A March 2024 survey by the National Unity Committee and the Korean Women’s Development Institute found that 58.2 percent of men agreed that “married men should reduce work hours depending on family needs,” and 68.8 percent said men “should take time to care for the family.” For women, the corresponding figures were even higher. The data suggest that gender expectations are evolving — men, increasingly, are willing to share caregiving responsibilities, and women feel entitled to pursue careers without having to sacrifice family life.

A newborn nursery at public postpartum care center in Seoul on Tuesday. President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered a fundamental shift to tackle Korea’s low birth rates at this year’s last Cabinet Meeting on Tuesday. Korea’s fertility rate was 0.78 last year, the lowest among the member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the second lowest in the world. According to the Statistics Korea, Korea’s total population will decrease to 36.22 million by 2072 and more than half of the population will be older than 60-year-old by then. [YONHAP]

But culture change alone cannot solve what is, at its core, a structural problem. Despite this shifting mindset, the conditions needed to support work-life balance remain elusive. The government's 2023 budget for low birthrate response was 23.5 trillion won. Of that, 20.5 trillion was spent on direct financial support such as cash incentives and child allowances. In contrast, funds allocated to programs like flexible work hours, parental leave and workplace childcare facilities — the cornerstones of a sustainable work-family balance — remained modest. If resources continue to be skewed toward short-term cash transfers, without real investment in labor reform or child rearing infrastructure, the return on public spending will remain low.

Budget restructuring is urgently needed. Even if it means reducing cash handouts, greater investment should go toward creating an ecosystem in which parents — especially mothers — are not penalized professionally for raising children. That means more robust protections for parental leave, greater access to quality public childcare and workplace norms that do not punish employees for working less when they have caregiving duties. At the same time, ministries such as Gender Equality and Family, Employment and Labor, and Health and Welfare must streamline overlapping projects and close service gaps. Efficiency alone won’t solve the problem, but incoherence will certainly worsen it.

Even with policy reform and improved public services, one obstacle looms large: organizational culture. South Korea’s rapid industrialization has fostered a deeply embedded belief that individual sacrifice fuels collective success. In the workplace, that has translated into long hours, presenteeism and guilt around taking leave — even when legally entitled. Terms like “passion pay” for underpaid young workers and “tae-um” (burning out) for the harsh training of nurses reflect a work environment where overexertion is normalized and rewarded. These are not just labor issues; they are cultural expressions of a model that asks people to burn themselves out in pursuit of abstract national goals.

Until we abandon the belief that success is only achieved through unrelenting personal sacrifice, work-family balance will remain out of reach. Employees will continue to hesitate before taking parental leave, and parents — mothers in particular — will face unspoken penalties for choosing family over deadlines. The pressure-cooker culture that defines education, corporate performance and even Korea’s globally lauded entertainment industry is predicated on maximizing output, often at the expense of well-being.

For real change to occur, Korea must embrace a new model — one that prioritizes quality of life over GDP growth, collective resilience over individual burnout. That kind of transformation is not merely technical but moral. It requires leadership.

The Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District. [YONHAP]

Such leadership must go beyond political calculation. The country needs not just skilled politicians but true statespersons — those with a long-term vision and the moral authority to guide the public through necessary discomfort. The transition away from growth-at-all-costs will inevitably produce friction and resistance. But that does not mean it should be delayed. Leaders who read the polls more than they read the moment will only perpetuate paralysis.

South Korea is not over. But a chapter is. And the next one cannot be written without acknowledging that the old formulas have failed. Whether the nation renews itself or continues to unravel will depend not on slogans or subsidies, but on the courage to rethink what prosperity truly means.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.