A new study suggests steep tax hikes five decades ago contributed to South Korea’s sharp fertility decline, with authors saying the results of the research may hold lessons for policymakers today. Newsweek reached out to the South Korean embassy in the U.S. with a written request for comment outside of office hours. Why It Matters South Korea’s fertility rate has seem the fastest fall in the industrialized world, dropping from about 4.5 births per woman in 1970 to 0.72 in 2023, far below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to sustain a population. The country now has the world’s lowest birth rate, a trend authorities consider a national emergency. Despite more than $200 billion of pro-natal spending since 2006, South Korea’s government has failed to reverse the trend. A rapidly aging workforce has exacerbated the demographic crunch, with those aged 65 and older now comprising one-fifth of the population. What To Know The study reviewed decades of South Korean tax policy. Its findings suggest the economic pressures these policies created still reverberate today. The tax burden on Koreans was relatively low in the 1960s and early 70s, depending largely on industrial and trade taxes, the authors point out. However, sweeping tax reforms between 1974 […]