Korea's birthrate uptick masks demographic crisis, advocate warns

“Korea’s slight rebound in births should not lull politicians into a false sense of security, said a leading family policy advocate, calling for mayoral and gubernatorial candidates to treat low birthrates as an urgent structural crisis rather than a past problem. “We may have seen a rebound, but the current numbers are nowhere near a level where we can feel complacency,” Hwang In-ja, executive representative at the Federation for Korean Families and former lawmaker, said during an interview in Seoul, May 7. “This still is a national crisis and in Seoul it is even more serious. The city’s total fertility rate last year was 0.63.” Hwang said her organization began preparing for the June 3 local elections late last year out of concern that birthrate policy was slipping down the political agenda. “In the past five years or so, low fertility was at the center of every election,” she said. “But as soon as the numbers ticked up a little, we saw candidates losing interest. We created this manifesto precisely to wake them up again.” Hwang said the upcoming elections should be

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