The average Thai family has only 1.3 children while it should have two or more, but many factors are behind the sliding birth rate, such as the modern lifestyle, the choice to remain single, or couples choosing not to have children, according to health experts.
Only 502,000 children were born in Thailand last year, about 30% below the target of 700,000 and the lowest birth rate in 71 years, Anukul Pidkaew, permanent secretary at the ministry, told a press conference.
Thailand's successful government-sponsored family planning program has resulted in a decline in population growth from 3.1 percent in 1960 to around 0.4 percent in 2015. The World Bank forecasts a contraction of the working-age population of about 10 percent between 2010 and 2040.
South Korea, according to a report by CNN, needs a fertility rate of 2.1 to maintain a stable population. While the birth rate in the South East Asian nation has been falling since 2015, it has recorded more deaths than births for the first time since 2020. Its population reportedly shrank for the first time in 2021.
It will argue that East Asia's collective levels of low fertility emerged from an amalgamation of social, cultural, and economic shifts within the region that incentivized smaller families, created rigid gendered expectations on parenting, and increased the risks and costs associated with raising a child in one's ...
Young Koreans cite as obstacles the high cost of housing in greater Seoul (home to roughly half the country's 52 million citizens), the expense of raising a child in a hypercompetitive academic culture, and grueling workplace norms that are inhospitable to family life, especially for women, who are still expected to do ...
Dropping birth rates are a result of a number of reasons, such as growing living expenses, an increase in the number of women in the workforce, as well as easier access to contraception, which encourages women to have fewer children. The declining social and cultural values are a major factor in Japan's low birth rate.
Cost of living deters prospective parents
The reasons putting women off having children are similar across the region: astronomical housing costs, the financial strain of raising children in a competitive society, and women increasingly prioritizing their careers.
The declining marriage rate can be seen as one result of the extreme workism culture, coupled with ongoing gender issues in Korea, experts say. "[The Korean government] successfully discouraged nonmarital fertility, but they've also very successfully discouraged marriage," Stone said.
China is facing a population crisis in part due to more women choosing to focus on their careers and personal goals, instead of starting a family. The Chinese government abolished its one-child policy in 2016, and scrapped childbirth limits in 2021 — but married couples are still having fewer children.
The analysis also finds that with an income Gini coefficient of 43.3 percent in 2019, Thailand has the highest income inequality rate in the East Asia and Pacific region. For rural households, the average monthly income was only around 68 percent of urban households.
Population, female (% of total population) in Thailand was reported at 51.41 % in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources.
Due to a decrease in the population in the past three years, Thailand is expected to become a super-aged society by 2029, according to research conducted by Kasikorn Research Centre (KResearch). The research also shows the number of newborns and adolescents between 2020 and 2022 has fallen.
South Korea breaks its own record for world's lowest fertility rate in 2022 | CNN.
Angola, Benin, DR Congo, Mali, and Niger have the highest TFR. The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, had an estimated TFR of 4.57 in 2023. The second most populous country, Ethiopia, had an estimated TFR of 3.92 in 2023.
The decline in fertility in Taiwan between the 1960s and the 1990s was primarily a result of mortality decline, family planning, industrialisation, economic growth and associated changes in values and lifestyles.
Indranee Rajah, who serves as minister in the Prime Minister's Office, told a parliamentary committee that the falling fertility rate was because of people marrying later and parents caring for older family members at the same time as children as the population grays.
Official world population statistics show that South Korea has a falling birth rate, with just 6.89 births per 1,000 people. Andorra also has a plummeting number, with 6.91 births per 1,000, with Puerto Rico (7.90) and Portugal (8.02) also appearing on the list.
The international adoption of South Korean children was at first started as a result of a large number of orphaned mixed children from the Korean War after 1953, but later included orphaned Korean children.
In 2020-21, the fertility rate was 1.66 babies per woman, similar to the rate recorded in 2018-19. In 2019-20, the rate had fallen to 1.61 babies per woman. According to the report, the data suggests people “adapted to the uncertainty of the pandemic and quickly caught-up on delayed childbearing plans”.
Fertility rates in Australia and around the world
Dr Allen says the decline in the average number of children per woman is a result of increased education and paid employment for women. Women are starting families later and consequently having fewer children, and more people are choosing to be child-free.
Japan's population shrank by 556,000 in 2022 from a year earlier to 124.9 million, marking the 12th straight year of decrease, government data showed Wednesday, as the number of Japanese nationals saw its largest drop on record.
"A major factor is the reduction and the ageing of the female population in the 15-49 age group conventionally considered reproductive," said the institute in its report. It added that fertility rate for Italian women went down to 1.24 from 1.25 in 2021 — with the central and northern region registering a decline.
The study, commissioned by the nonprofit organization The Club of Rome, predicts that if current trends continue, the world's population, which is currently 7.96 billion, will peak at 8.6 billion in the middle of the century before declining by nearly 2 billion before the century's end.
Fertility rates in Asia
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate globally at 0.9 children per woman, closely followed by Puerto Rico at 1.0 and a trio of Malta, Singapore, and the Chinese Special Administrative Region Hong Kong all at 1.1 children per woman.