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As 'DINKs' rethink parenting, Korea's notoriously low birthrate showing signs of a rebound

Published: 05 Feb. 2026, 07:00

Eom Jeong-hye, right, and her husband Kim Seung-hun, left, smile with their son, Hosu, at their home in Goyang, Gyeonggi, on Feb. 2. [WOO SANG-JO]

Eom Jeong-hye and her husband, Kim Seung-hun, both 36, welcomed their first child last year, ending eight years of their lives as a “double income, no kids” (DINK) couple.

Until her late 20s, Eom had all but given up on having children. She strongly believed raising a child was “a loss for women,” and the couple’s circumstances did little to change her mind. She had just finished a two-year master’s program while her husband was working as a freelancer. With finances tight, she said, adding childbirth to the equation felt like too much.

It was only after the couple's housing situation stabilized in their early 30s that Eom's mind began changing. The couple won a subscription for a Newlywed Hope Town unit. They moved into an apartment in 2024, and life gradually started to look different.

“When we were bouncing from one rental to another, I was constantly anxious, wondering, ‘Where do we go next when the contract ends?’” Kim said. “After moving in here, I’d see other newlywed couples our age walking around the complex holding their kids’ hands, and we naturally decided to have a baby.”

Eom's take on childbirth also changed drastically. “Once I actually thought it through, having a child was the one most worth trying among the many choices that could move my life forward,” she said.

Well, why not?

After dropping by nearly half in eight years, from 438,420 babies born in 2015 to 230,028 in 2023, the number of births in Korea began to rebound starting in 2024. Through November 2025, births totaled 233,708, making it likely the annual figure will surpass 250,000.

Is this increase a light at the end of a long tunnel of ultralow fertility, or merely a brief mirage? To gauge public sentiment, the JoongAng Ilbo recently conducted in-depth interviews with 10 married women from the “echo boom” generation — those born in the early to mid-1990s — who chose to have children over the past two years.

Eom Jeong-hye, right, is with her son, Hosu, left, and their dog on Feb. 2. [WOO SANG-JO]

To these women, “having a child was a loss” in their minds during the years when birthrates saw a steep decline.

Recently, however, they have increasingly seen people around them deciding to have children when certain conditions are met, or even started viewing childbirth as something that can bring benefits.

Key factors that influenced their decisions included economic stability, the expansion of remote work, support from their spouse and workplace cultures where employees do not feel pressured or stigmatized for pregnancy and parenting.

One example is a woman surnamed Hwang, 33, who lived as a DINK couple for three years before giving birth in 2025. She decided to have a child after moving from a private-sector company to a public institution.

“Overtime was frequent at my previous company,” said Hwang. “Work always came first, so marriage and childbirth stayed off my priority list.”

“After switching jobs, I could leave on time,” she continued. “I was surrounded by colleagues who were already moms of two, which gave me room to actually think about marriage and having kids.”

[JOONGANG ILBO]

A better village to raise a child

Changes in her work environment also proved decisive for Lee, a 30-year-old office worker expecting to give birth in March. After marrying in 2024, she joined a foreign IT startup. Since transferring to her current team, she has been working fully remotely from her home in Icheon, Gyeonggi.

“Once a fully remote setup was in place, planning a pregnancy just felt natural,” she said. “Maybe because there are stable jobs nearby, like at semiconductor companies, I see a lot of people raising kids. In our apartment complex, you don’t see dogs, it’s packed with children.”

“Because I’m a civil servant, I can use parental leave relatively smoothly, which helps me a lot in planning for a child,” said 30-year-old Lee Seung-yeon, a police officer who married in February 2025. “I’m preparing for pregnancy while receiving perks such as prenatal checkups.”

Some observers also say government policies aimed at tackling the low birthrate may be playing a role, including housing support such as special loans for households with newborns and expanded parental leave.

The number of beneficiaries of work-family balance programs reached 339,530, surpassing 300,000 for the first time, according to employment administrative statistics released on Jan. 28.

Parents line up to buy learning materials and picture books for children at a kids fair in Coex, Gangnam District, southern Seoul on July 10, 2025. [YONHAP]

An upward trend, hopefully

The uptick in marriage and childbirth is expected to continue for the time being. Births have risen cumulatively in 2025, and marriages, a leading indicator for births, also increased, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. As of November 2025, marriages totaled 19,079, up by 498 cases, or 2.7 percent, from the same period in 2024.

“The birthrate will rise during the echo boom generation’s childbearing years,” said Chung Soon-dool, a professor of social welfare at Ewha Womans University.

Still, many caution that it is too early to interpret the trend as a sustainable, structural rebound. A base effect is also in play as marriages and births that were delayed during the pandemic resume, and statistical factors, such as a larger population of echo boomers, cannot be ignored.

“Marriages and births postponed during the coronavirus pandemic are resuming, and the population of women in their 30s has increased, so the rise in births may continue for a while,” said Lee Chul-hee, a professor of economics at Seoul National University. “But without fundamental structural changes across jobs, housing and education, it will be difficult for the rebound to turn into a long-term trend.”

Meaningful changes must follow to create a neighborhood effect, where seeing more people around you marry and have children prompts others to want the same for themselves, added Prof. Lee. Likewise, Prof. Chung also warned that another birthrate cliff could appear after the echo boom generation, and urged the government to continue strengthening incentive policies.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY LEE AH-MI, KIM YE-JUNG, HAN CHAN-WOO [[email protected]]