[Inside Chodong] For True Population Recovery, What Does It Take to Achieve a "Real Top Grade"?

"10 Million Workers Will Disappear in 20 Years"
Despite Alarming Outlooks, Low Birthrate Issue Still Tackled From a Government Perspective
Instructor-Parent 'Top Grade' Project Falls Short if Students Don't Feel the Impact
Efforts Needed to Shift Public Awareness and Make Citizens the Main Agents of Change

Drama 'Graduation' main image [Photo by tvN website].

"Make it happen, top grade." In the recently aired tvN weekend drama 'Graduation,' there is a scene where Daechi-dong star instructor Seo Hye-jin (played by Jung Ryeo-won) conducts a simulation of a consultation with a junior instructor and a parent. Playing the role of the parent, Seo Hye-jin repeatedly interrupts the junior instructor, who is recommending a reading list emphasizing the importance of reading habits, asking, "(Enough) Is it possible to get a top grade?" The student, who is the main subject, is absent from the process. This scene vividly reveals a distorted aspect of the education field.

There is another urgent issue in consultations: South Korea's population problem. Last year, a columnist in the New York Times (NYT) warned that "Korea's population could decline faster than Europe during the Black Death in the 14th century." Following this, chilling forecasts have been released domestically this month. The Korea Future Population Institute emphasized in its '2024 Population Report - The Crisis of Population Extinction and Finding Solutions' that "in 20 years, 10 million working-age people (productive population) will disappear from our country." Although the report's purpose was to diagnose changes in the domestic population structure and propose countermeasures, the outlook for 'South Korea's population over the next 40 years' from the current perspective was bleak. By 2031, half of the population will be over 50 years old; by 2050, the elderly population will reach a historic high of 19 million; and by 2060, the number of deaths will be five times the number of births. Ultimately, it is even predicted that by 2065, South Korea will enter an era of a 30 million population. This is a warning that if we do not properly prepare for change from now on, such a future will come to pass.

The Statistics Korea also projected in this month's 'Future Population Projections by Province: 2022-2052' that from 2045, all 17 provinces including Sejong will experience natural population decline, with deaths exceeding births. Until last year, Sejong was the only region with natural population growth, but in about 20 years, even Sejong is expected to see deaths surpass births. The total dependency ratio, which refers to the number of youth and elderly supported by 100 working-age people, is projected to exceed 100 in 10 provinces including Jeonnam (127.0), Gyeongbuk (125.4), and Gyeongnam (118.9) by 2052. This means there will be more dependents than supporters.

Faced with successive alarming analyses, the government, in a state of urgency, is still fixated on the "visible top grade." President Yoon Suk-yeol recently announced, "To overcome the low birthrate, which can be called a national emergency, we will mobilize all national capabilities," and declared the establishment of a low birthrate response planning department at the vice-premier level. However, there is little expectation that this government effort will finally reach a fundamental solution. The government already enacted the Framework Act on Low Birthrate and Aging Society in 2005 and has implemented various policy projects. According to the National Assembly Budget Office, the government has spent 380 trillion won on low birthrate policies from 2006 to last year. Nevertheless, the total fertility rate has continued to decline, plummeting to 0.72 last year, and a significant portion of the public still does not fully recognize the seriousness of the population decline phenomenon.

Expanding work-family balance, reducing childcare burdens, and resolving housing insecurity are all important tasks for population recovery. However, equally important is the change in awareness among individual citizens, who must become the main agents in solving the low birthrate problem. If students themselves do not feel the reason for studying, no matter how perfectly instructors and parents plan a top-grade project, it will be useless.