[News Today] PLUNGING BIRTH RATE IN N. KOREA

[LEAD]
North Korea is also grappling with serious low birth rate issues. In response, families with multiple children are receiving priority access to new homes in Pyongyang, alongside additional benefits like hospital services. We look into North Korea's measures to address this demographic challenge.

[REPORT]
North Korea's 5th National Conference of Mothers was held late last year for the first time in 11 years.

At the time, Kim Jong-un brought up the issue of the falling birth rate at an official event for the first time.

Kim Jong-un / North Korean leader (Dec. 2023)
Preventing the fertility rate from falling and educating children is our common task that needs to be resolved in a joint effort with mothers.

This means the North Korean leader views the country's plunging birth rate seriously.

North Korea's total fertility rate, which reached nearly 2.7 in the 1980s, has plummeted since then, falling to 1.38 recently.

The regime has laid out measures to boost fertility rate. One of them is housing supply in Pyongyang.

The Rodong Sinmun has reported lately that families with multiple children received newly built apartments in Rimhung Street in the capital on a priority basis. The newspaper added there were hundreds of families eligible for the housing.

Rimhung Street is a new urban development project. The North Korean media once publicized it as modern-style housing.

Women who are pregnant with triplets are eligible for health care support at Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, the top obstetrician hospital in the North. Women with multiple children are also given the title 'maternal hero'.

Choi Ji-young / Korea Institute for National Unification
North Korea's fertility rate is too low compared to its income level. It needs to implement an economic development strategy using cheap labor, but its birth rate is low and the ageing is serious.

However, pundits say given the North's limited resources, measures to boost fertility rate have numerous limitations and the percentage of working women continues to rise, meaning reversing the birth rate will likely be challenging.