Rising housing costs remain the biggest obstacle for declining birth rate

Article: Korea's dropping birth rate... 'rising housing costs' biggest reason as expected

Source: Kyunghyang News via Naver

[+627, -21] Yeah, my friends in the suburbs are all married and have several kids while my friends in Seoul are bachelors still.

[+360, -8] Our country's small enough as it is and housing is in the millions on top of expenses like schooling fees... I don't really see kids as necessary anymore.

[+257, -21] It's very accurate. So we have the answer, now what is the government going to do about it...

[+85, -2] I'd have kids if a single-income family was possible still, but how can you expect us to have kids when we're just getting by on two incomes? One has to stay home if we have a baby, and who's going to pay the mortgage then?

[+58, -1] Now that I have my own kid, I do see how rising housing costs can factor into this, but I don't think fixing that will necessarily cause birth rates to go back up. There are still so many other issues at hand.

[+30, -0] It's not just housing~~ look at the cost of after-school academies. Your kid will fall behind in school without it and it costs at least 2 to 3 million won a month. I think getting rid of the college entrance exam will normalize the costs of everything else. Look at how high housing costs are around areas with good schools... this mess is all because of private education fees...

[+40, -11] There's no one answer... the government either needs to invest enough in public education where it can rival private education or give families enough subsidies to be able to afford private education too.

[+25, -2] People have higher standards now. The average partner isn't going to be worth the risks of marriage anymore. Higher housing costs. People are only making enough to keep themselves afloat. Children require 100% of your energy, with no guarantee that they'll be successful after all of that. Children are basically investment sucks that will likely result in a loss of everything. Keeping up with the Joneses culture means if your neighbor's putting their kid in private education, so will you, or else you're guaranteeing your kid getting bullied. We all see what retirement is like in this country... none of us want to be picking recyclables off the street at that age.

[+23, -0] I just never knew raising kids would be so difficult... and my kid doesn't even look happy after all of that..

[+19, -2] There's just not a single good reason where having a kid will bring you any joy in this country!

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