Korean men, women have largest disparity on intention to have children
Published: 16 Jul. 2025, 18:23
Updated: 17 Jul. 2025, 09:23
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- SHIN MIN-HEE
- [email protected]
Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI
![Nurses look after newborn babies at a hospital in Incheon on Feb. 26. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/07/17/c5a04945-01bc-4446-bd77-a948980e0425.jpg)
Nurses look after newborn babies at a hospital in Incheon on Feb. 26. [YONHAP]
Korea exhibits the largest disparity between men and women in their intention to have children among major United Nations member states, yet ranked the highest in terms of how important they think childbirth is, according to recent preliminary data by the Korean Women's Development Institute (KWDI).
In addition, Korean women have the least desire to have children.
The data is the Korean iteration of the Generations and Gender Survey, an international panel study administered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the Generations and Gender Programme. The KWDI selected eight regions — Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong, Denmark, Britain, Norway and Austria — among the 20-odd participants that demonstrated statistically significant results for fertility trend analysis.
Korean women recorded the lowest "fertility intention" — the desire or plan to have children — among eight regions, with a score of 1.58 out of 5, as shown in the KWDI’s data.
Korean men logged a score of 2.09.
All of the other comparison regions recorded a score above 2 for women, except for Hong Kong at 1.73. The gender gap for fertility intention ranged as little as 0.03 points to as much as 0.33, notably lower than Korea’s difference of 0.51.
The large imbalance in the intention of Korean men and women to have children came from women's staunch lack of desire to have children, as opposed to Korean men who shared a similar average sentiment toward having children to the rest of the world.
Despite the reluctance to give birth among most women — with Korea recording the lowest total fertility rate of around 0.75 last year — the data also showed that Koreans ranked among the highest in terms of perceived necessity of having children.
When asked if having children was necessary for women to have a happy and fulfilling life, Korean women scored 2.93 and men 3.08, a stark contrast from Hong Kong’s respective 2.45 and 2.43, Norway’s 1.61 and 1.74 and the Netherlands' 1.35 and 1.47.
When asked the same question concerning men — whether having children was necessary for a happy and fulfilling life for a man — Korean women recorded 3.11 and men 3.2, scoring the highest among the eight regions.
The survey was conducted on 2,634 men and women aged between 19 and 59 nationwide. It was mostly held through face-to-face interviews, with around a quarter held via online questionnaires.
“Family structures and life trajectories continue to diversify in Korea, while the fertility rate remains the lowest in the world,” said Kim Jong-soog, the president of the KWDI. “We need a new survey framework that comprehensively examines family formation processes across genders and generations in order to effectively respond to low birthrates.”
BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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