One out of 5 teenagers in South Korea do not think there is a need to have children in life, a report showed Sunday.

The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs surveyed 1,179 students in middle and high schools to look into teen perceptions of marriage and childbirth.

While 21.1 percent said they did not think they “must have children” when they became adults, 55.1 percent said they should. Some 23.6 percent said they were not sure yet. The response also varied between genders, with 60.6 percent of male students saying they must have children, while 49.7 percent of female students said the same. The number of female students (28.7 percent) who said they did not have to have a child was twice that of male students (13.7 percent).

As for reasons why they did not necessarily want kids later, 29.8 percent said they wanted to focus on their careers, while 26.8 percent said because it cost too much to raise and educate them.

Some 51.7 percent of the respondents said bearing a child was a social responsibility. While most of the teens were aware of Korea’s low birthrate, 23.5 percent said it was irrelevant to their own lives.

As of this year, Korea’s total fertility rate, the average number of children that a woman gives birth to in her lifetime, stands at 1.3, the lowest among the surveyed countries after Macau, Hong Kong and Singapore at 1.2, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
(khnews@heraldcorp.com)