Family Planning and Fertility Decline in Korea: Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract

The decline in total fertility in Korea from 6.3 children per woman in 1960–1961 to 4.5 in 1970–1971 is attributable, among other factors, to the family planning program. Strikingly, fertility has declined most rapidly in the rural areas where the family planning program was particularly strong. Total fertility, however, has not declined since 1967–1968, generally because budgetary problems for the family planning program have been severe. The present annual population growth rate is 2.2 per cent and the prospects are bleak that a 1.5 per cent growth rate will be achieved in 1976, a goal made explicit in the government's Third Five-Year Plan. Government planning has not sufficiently recognized that even if age-specific fertility continues to decline, a changing age structure will increase the national growth rate to 1.8 or 1.9 per cent by 1981. The authors reconsider the stated national goal of a 1.5 per cent growth in 1976, concluding that it can only be achieved with increased government commitment to family planning, higher targets, incorporation of abortion into the program, and a great increase in the number of sterilizations.