[비즈한국] 0.75. This is the total fertility rate per woman of childbearing age in South Korea as of 2024. It means that the number of children a 15-year-old girl is expected to have by the time she reaches the end of her childbearing age at 49 is less than one. Even this figure is an increase from the previous year's 0.72. According to UN population data (World Population Prospects), South Korea and Hong Kong recorded the lowest total fertility rates in the world at 0.72 in 2023.
Now that low birth rates have emerged as a global issue, how are other countries trying to overcome them? Recently, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs published two reports studying the population decline response policies of Japan and Germany. We introduce the policy cases worth referencing from these two reports, highlighting the strategies used by Japan and Germany—countries that experienced aging and low birth rates ahead of us—and their actual effectiveness.
Japan: Establishing the Children and Families Agency to Unify Child-Related Services
There are largely two ways to increase the population. One is to increase the domestic population by raising the birth rate and lowering the mortality rate, and the other is to increase the inflow from abroad through immigration. Most countries pursue both policies in parallel.
Our neighbor Japan entered a super-aged society as early as 2008. By 2050, the aging rate is projected to approach 40%. While Japan was quick to respond to the aging issue, its response to the low birth rate was relatively delayed. As the sense of crisis regarding population decline spread around 2010, various countermeasures were subsequently introduced. Among them, two policy directions stand out: focusing on childcare rather than just childbirth, and responding to population decline through balanced regional development.
In April 2023, the Japanese government established the "Children and Families Agency" under the Cabinet Office with the goal of realizing a "society where children are the center." It separated the child and family support system, which had been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (equivalent to South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare), and unified it. The Children and Families Agency addresses issues such as child poverty, school maladjustment, abuse, and bullying, while implementing policies to increase satisfaction and happiness in children's lives. When children's happiness increases, families become happier, which positively influences the restoration of family functions and rising birth rates.
Children and Families Centers have been set up in each municipality to serve as hubs for comprehensive child support. They have unified consultation channels and established a comprehensive support system related to children.
Revitalizing Regions to Grow the Population
Japan's population is expected to decrease to 86 million by 2060. Consequently, the working-age population is also expected to continue to decline. The problem of population decline is already accelerating, mainly in rural areas. Conversely, a phenomenon of population concentration is occurring in the metropolitan areas, especially in Tokyo. In response, the Japanese government established the "Regional Revitalization Strategy" with the goal of securing a population of 100 million by 2060. It is a form of regional regeneration strategy.
The Regional Revitalization Strategy approaches the challenge of regional extinction due to population decline from the perspective of balanced regional development. In fact, population decline and regional revitalization are deeply related. Many studies at home and abroad have verified that when decentralization and fiscal health improve, regional employment and income increase, which in turn has a positive effect on population growth.
The Japanese government provides Regional Revitalization Promotion Grants to each local government, and the local governments plan and implement various regional regeneration strategies tailored to their local circumstances, such as housing, employment, economy, and childcare.
In particular, the "Hometown Tax Payment System" (Furusato Nozei), started in 2008, plays a key role in balanced regional development through regional revitalization. The Hometown Tax Payment System is a system where donors can designate their hometown to make a donation and receive a tax deduction. (A similar system, the "Hometown Love Donation System," is being implemented in South Korea.) Local governments provide local specialties or processed goods as a token of appreciation to donors, which creates a virtuous cycle for the local economy. Jobs and income are created in the region, which also enables the local government to secure funding.
The amount of hometown tax payments increased more than 100-fold from 8.14 billion yen (about 80 billion won) in 2008 to 830.2 billion yen (8 trillion won) in 2021. This is being used as a financial resource for each local government to promote projects in various areas such as education and talent development, medical care, welfare, and children.
Germany's Population Policy Covering All Ages
Like Japan, Germany experienced aging and low birth rate problems before us. Having seen the number of deaths exceed the number of births since 1972, Germany has been researching population issues and creating strategies since the 1990s. Currently, Germany's population strategy is characterized by seeking the happiness of all ages rather than focusing solely on childbirth, childcare, and children.
After putting forward the slogan "All Ages Matter" in 2012, "Prosperity and Better Quality of Life for All Generations" became the goal of its population strategy starting in 2015. To achieve this, it has created working groups in 10 areas—family, youth/young adults, labor, elderly life, dementia, region, skilled labor, foreign labor, education, and public services—to implement the strategy.
Official Declaration as an 'Immigration Country'
What is particularly noteworthy in Germany's population policy is its immigration policy. On November 28, 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz officially declared Germany an "immigration country." In fact, Germany has no choice but to fill the vacuum of skilled labor created by low birth rates and the retirement of the baby boomer generation with immigrants.
According to data from the German Federal Employment Agency, there were 1.7 million vacant jobs in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone. There is a shortage of professional personnel in 183 occupations, most notably in nursing, medical care, construction, and IT. Ultimately, bringing in skilled foreign workers has become the most effective and important policy tool for maintaining economic vitality. For this reason, Germany's recent immigration policy has shifted toward promoting the immigration of skilled foreign workers.
In 2020, the German government implemented the "Skilled Immigration Act (FEG)" to widen the door for skilled workers from non-EU countries to come to Germany more easily. In October 2022, it adopted a "Skilled Labor Strategy" to actively attract overseas skilled personnel and improve administrative procedures to support their settlement. Since then, it has continuously simplified administrative procedures such as visas and employment processes.
Integration policies for immigrants have also been strengthened. Under the motto "Welcome structures create a welcome culture," experts from immigration authorities, state ministries, and local authorities reviewed the structure for supporting immigrants and created practical recommendations to further develop it.
Non-EU foreigners and refugees can take a total of 700 hours of German language classes through the "Social Integration Program." They can also receive pre-integration support before entering Germany. This includes advice on regular migration routes, language support, providing knowledge about life in Germany, and a structure for accompanying skilled workers from their country of origin to counseling centers at the local authority level in Germany.
As of December 2023, the number of foreigners in Germany is 13,895,865, accounting for 15.2% of the total population. Over the past 50 years, the proportion of foreigners has more than doubled. The population "with a migration background" accounts for 28.7% of the total population. This term refers to people who are currently not German citizens, or were not German citizens at birth, or whose parents were not German citizens at birth. They are younger than Germans without a migration background, playing a role in partially mitigating aging. Above all, more than 74% of all foreigners residing in Germany are confirmed to be of working age (as of 2022).
No Longer Someone Else's Problem
Although Germany has been accepting foreign workers since the 1950s, it only began to acknowledge its identity as an immigration country after the 2010s. This is the result of considering both external situations, such as increasing refugees, and internal situations, such as labor shortages and aging. In particular, it is recently actively promoting policies to facilitate the inflow of skilled personnel to secure industrial workers.
This is no longer a distant story for us either. For a long time, South Korea has proudly claimed the identity of a "single-ethnic nation." However, some industries have reached a point where they are difficult to maintain at all without foreign workers. There are many voices arguing that immigration policy must be drastically changed to maintain the vitality of the South Korean economy.
A report titled "Implications of Korea's Immigration Policy from the Perspective of Advanced Countries' Immigration Policies," published by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in July last year, reached a similar conclusion. The report compared the results of Japan and Germany's contrasting immigration policies and pointed out that South Korea's policy direction, which is based on foreign worker policies of discrimination and exclusion like Japan's, should be converted to an inclusive type like Germany's.
References
△ A Study on Japan's Policy Responses to Population Decline (Principal Researcher Hwang Nam-hee, Co-researchers Kim Eun-ji, Lee Sung-han, Ra Min-kyung)
△ A Study on Germany's Population Policy (Principal Researcher Joo Bo-hye, Co-researchers Kwon Young-ji, Kim Yu-hwi, Park Eun-jung, Kim Eun-jung)