There has been an established trend in the fertility rates of East Asian countries in the 21st century that has generated alarm for its continuous decline in each respective nation. With patterns of steep decline emerging in the 1970s and 80s, the previously high fertility rates of East Asian nation-states such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore plummeted to below the rates of adequate replacement level, a trend which has persisted in each nation in the 2000s.[1] By 2018, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea all recorded total fertility rates (TFR) of less than one child per woman, a figure that is lower than any Western nation-state with low fertility rates.[2] Such persistent rates of decline across East Asian states forecast outcomes of stagnation and inadequacy in terms of national labour supply and productivity.[3] For instance, should Japan’s existing rates of fertility decline remain, by 2040 the nation’s labor capacity would yield 20 million less workers than the present.[4] The significance of such labour shortages increases when one considers the growing proportion of the domestic population of seniors whose life expectancies continue to grow.[5] This paper will explore a collection of structural factors that influence declining birth rates in East Asian countries. 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 respective nation.
The emergent trend of refuting past gender roles and norms in East Asia has played a key role in contributing to declining birth rates in 21st century East Asian nation-states. Notions of individualism and movements questioning existing social norms first emerged in East Asian states during the 1960s and 70s, in which collective and structural understandings of gender roles and obligations were among the norms that were challenged.[6] Such collective pushes toward individualistic perceptions of gender roles resulted in gradual increases in rates of East Asian women enrolled in schools as well as improved access for women to salaried employment.[7] These higher educational and professional qualifications of East Asian women resulted not only in improvements to their purchasing power through entering the emerging white-collar labour force, but also resulted in collective aspirations for higher standards of living.[8] Desires for a higher material quality of life resonated beyond East Asian women’s individual selves to one’s own nuclear family, with specific attention given to one’s children. It should be noted that aspirations for higher standards of living did not immediately translate into the desire for less children or no children. Rather, the ideal number of children and family size as reported from East Asian nations has remained consistently higher than actual figures. For instance, the average obtained from responses by young Japanese women on questions regarding the ideal family size remained above two children from 1983-2008.[9] Likewise, the ideal number of children as reported by South Korean women steadily remained equal to or above two from 1988-2008.[10] Such figures suggest that it is not solely the heightened aspirations for improved standards of living that are incentivizing women to envision smaller families and less children. Rather, the figures propose that the cost of attaining these improved standards, and the cost of sustaining these high standards into a child’s adolescence and adulthood are what act as significant obstacles to creating larger families. The figure suggests, furthermore, that should the constraints on securing high material quality of life decline, young couples would choose to have more children than the present.[11] The disparity between the aspired number of children compared to the reality of average children per household is identified as the “low fertility trap,” a feedback cycle in which consistent levels of low fertility as a result of aspirations towards higher standards of life further reduces the desired fertility of individuals, which then results in fewer births.[12] As the average family size continues to decline throughout successive generations, young couples mold their expectations of family around the norms that they observe around them; thus, if there are few or no children around them, children would play a smaller role in one’s vision of adulthood and family life.[13]
Despite the desired number of children maintaining high rates across East Asian families, their inability to transform into the actual figures of children per household stems from cultural and economic costs associated with child-rearing in East Asian societies. To begin, under commonly shared Confucian values, East Asian societies emphasize education as the key driver of status, socioeconomic prosperity, and upward mobility.[14] As a result, households in East Asia share the expectation and burden to invest heavily in their child’s education by enrolling their children in private institutions and programs. Such is evidenced in the proliferation of hagwons or “cram schools” in South Korea, in which parents are expected to fulfill their “obligations” as patrons enabling their child to compete with all of his or her peers who are enrolled in numerous external programs outside of school.[15] A significant proportion of household revenue is expected to be diverted into improving the child’s qualifications and skills as an adolescent, with the expected amount of investment contingent upon the comparative investments spent by surrounding households. With the 21st century emergence of the “spec” generation – which emphasizes the need for students to foster prestigious skills and qualifications – the comparative investment in children stands at unprecedented rates.[16] Expectations of complete financial support often collide with the professional and economic interests of the parent, who must navigate an increasingly competitive labour market that demands greater and more persistent investments in her own human capital.[17] In this demanding labour market, where risk aversion is emphasized, a child becomes characterized as an object of uncertainty in which no returns are guaranteed from the parent’s investment in the child’s educational resources.[18] Moreover, the mere existence of the child is cast as a distraction that pulls time and effort away from the parent’s struggle to invest in her own human capital to meet her employer’s expectations.[19] These discourses adopt an inherently gendered form when one considers that women’s careers in East Asia suffer disproportionately from childbirth and child-rearing as a result of traditional gender roles that burden women with the role of caregiver.[20] The persistence of familism and entrenched gender roles in East Asian nations means that mothers are expected to forego their individual professional interests for those of the family, with little support from either the workplace or the state to help balance work and home life.[21] This lack of cultural and institutional support for East Asian women suggests that the starkly low fertility rates in East Asian countries is not an outcome of young East Asian professionals being more individualistic or family averse than a non-East Asian counterpart. Rather, it suggests that smaller families are direct outcomes of minimal institutional sources of aid for young couples – especially young working women – who struggle to balance the expenses of child-rearing with professional obligations and external expenses.[22]
Despite the emergence of national policies seeking to inflate fertility rates, low birth rates continue to persist as a concern for East Asian nation-states. Although there are a multitude of intersecting factors contributing to low birth rates, this article examines four key considerations that influence the decisions of young East Asian couples. The emergence of higher expected standards of living, a culture of perpetual competition demanding heavy investment in a child’s education and capacity development, higher costs to living in urban centres, and an unstable working environment that unevenly punishes women can all be observed as direct and indirect factors that influence a household’s decision-making concerning the size of their family. Until such structural concerns are addressed at a policy level, young East Asian families will continue to face daunting barriers that challenge the prospects of sustaining a family with one or more children.
Chan-Min Roh is a second-year undergraduate pursuing a major in Contemporary Asian Studies and a double minor in South Asian Studies and Asian Canadian Studies. His research interests include citizenship, development, and the history of pro-democracy movements. As a contributor to Synergy, he hopes to promote discourse on the socio-political challenges faced by East Asia in the twenty-first century.
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[1] Stuart Basten, Tomáš Sobotka, Kryštof Zeman, “Future Fertility in Low Fertility Countries,” in World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Wolfgang Lutz, William P. Butz, and Samir KC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 20.
[2] Yen-hsin Alice Cheng, “Ultra-low fertility in East Asia: Confucianism and its discontents,” Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 18, no. 1 (2020): 84.
[3] Peter McDonald, “Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: A comparative perspective,” in Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia, ed. Paulin Straughan, Angelique Chan, Gavin Jones (London: Routledge, 2008), 25.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Peter McDonald, “Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: A comparative perspective,” in Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia, ed. Paulin Straughan, Angelique Chan, Gavin Jones (London: Routledge, 2008), 23.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, 24.
[9] Ibid, 28.
[10] Ibid, 28.
[11] Gavin W. Jones, “Ultra-low fertility in East Asia: policy responses and challenges,” Asian Population Studies 15, no. 2 (2019): 133.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Wolfgang Lutz, “Has Korea’s Fertility Reached the Bottom?” Asian Population Studies 4, no. 1 (2008): 3.
[14] Thomas Anderson and Hans-Peter Kohler, “Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle,” Asian Population Studies 9, no. 2 (2013): 202.
[15] Thomas Anderson and Hans-Peter Kohler, “Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle,” Asian Population Studies 9, no. 2 (2013): 202.
[16] Haejoang Cho and Jeffrey Stark, “South Korean Youth Across Three Decades,” in The Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society (London: Routledge, 2016),124.
[17] Peter McDonald, “Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: A comparative perspective,” in Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia, ed. Paulin Straughan, Angelique Chan, Gavin Jones (London: Routledge, 2008), 24.
[18] Peter McDonald, “Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: A comparative perspective,” in Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia, ed. Paulin Straughan, Angelique Chan, Gavin Jones (London: Routledge, 2008), 24.
[19] Gavin W. Jones, “Ultra-low fertility in East Asia: policy responses and challenges,” Asian Population Studies 15, no. 2 (2019): 137.
[20] Thomas Anderson and Hans-Peter Kohler, “Education Fever and the East Asian Fertility Puzzle,” Asian Population Studies 9, no. 2 (2013): 200.
[21] Ibid, 202.
[22] Peter McDonald, “Explanations of low fertility in East Asia: A comparative perspective,” in Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia, ed. Paulin Straughan, Angelique Chan, Gavin Jones (London: Routledge, 2008), 24.