hankyoreh

Apartment complexes along the Han River in Seoul (by Kim Myoung-jin

Statistics show in South Korea, marriages and childbirths inevitably decrease when people are unable to find a stable home. Analysts indicated that marriage and birth rates were in indirect proportion to housing and key money deposit prices.

Published on Mar. 26, a Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs report titled “Changing Marriage and Childbirth Behaviors and a Paradigm Shift in Low Birth Rate Countermeasures” stated that comparative analysis of the total fertility rate, crude marriage rate, survey data on nationwide housing price trends, the rate of smaller housing measuring less than 60 square meters in area, and the rate of public rental housing availability per city and province for 2010 to 2014 showed the marriage and birth rates to drop as housing and key money prices rose.

The crude marriage rate (CMR) refers to the number of marriages per 1,000 people, while the total fertility rate (TFR) refers to the average number of children predicted over a lifetime for a fertile woman aged 15 to 49. They are seen as representative indicators of marriage and childbirth conditions, respectively. According to the analysis, regional housing sale prices and the ratio of key money costs to housing sale prices showed a statistically significant negative relationship to the CMR and TFR. This means that the CMR and/or TFR may decline when housing sale or key money prices rise for a particular region.

In contrast, the percentages of small-scale and public rental housing in a region had a positive effect on the CMR. This finding suggests the number of marriages may increase as more affordable housing and/or public rental units become available for newlyweds to call home. The rate of small-scale housing availability did not show any statistically significant effect on the TFR. An analysis of data from a 2014 Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport residential survey for newlywed households showed the residential cost burden (average monthly spending on residential living costs and loan repayment), housing stability, and adequate housing scale to be important factors in couples‘ decision on whether to have children. In other words, couples tend to delay having children when residential costs grow too high or housing area is too small.

Indeed, South Korea recorded just 281,600 marriages last year, its lowest number since 1974, when the total was 259,100. The decline was seen as the result of numerous factors, including the stagnant rate of increase in household income and skyrocketing residential costs.

“The Republic of Korea may be the only one of the advanced economies where the government does not take action with large-scale investment in rental housing efforts,” said former Deputy Prime Minister for Economy Lee Hun-jai in a discussion to commemorate the recent publication of his book “What Should the State Do?”

“As housing issues have been passed off on individuals, housing costs have bounced up and down and household debt has skyrocketed even with a housing supply rate above 100%,” Lee said.

“It’s time for us to reconsider our priorities in government financial investment.”

By Noh Hyun-woong, staff reporter

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