“Samsung Group's corporate dominance in South Korea has contributed to social and economic conditions that lower South Korea's fertility rate.”

In a reflection of Korea’s dual labour market, many parents allocate a sizeable portion of their income to private tutoring to help their children get ahead, making education expenditure another major hurdle to have children. … The opportunity cost of having children is high due to a dual labour market with unequal pay, working conditions and social insurance coverage, and largely seniority-based career progression combining to create a very high cost for any temporary absence from the labour market.

The options available are therefore for many to either remain fully committed to work at the expense of family formation or to temporarily halt working altogether and commit fully to taking care of children and household, with severe long-term career repercussions. This is a choice mostly faced by women, since gender and family norms place the responsibility for childrearing mostly on mothers. Many women therefore choose not to marry, not to have babies, or to have fewer babies than in the past, a trend which has given rise to the terms “birth strike” and “marriage strike”.

In our dynamic life-cycle framework, a key advantage of taking PL is job protection. Having an infant imposes time costs, pressuring parents to work less. This is particularly costly when regular jobs require a minimum number of working hours. We assume that taking PL helps workers retain their regular jobs, as it is legally counted as a working period.

Using South Korea as a case study, we argue that East Asia's ultra-low fertility rates can be partially explained by the steadfast parental drive to have competitive and successful children.

Using South Korea as a case study, we argue that East Asia’s ultra-low fertility rates can be partially explained by the steadfast parental drive to have competitive and successful children.

South Koreans appear to be preoccupied with their offspring's education and also have the lowest total fertility rate in the world. We propose a novel theory with status externalities and endogenous fertility connecting these facts, motivated by novel empirical evidence on private education spillovers.

This paper explores the relationship between labour market dualization, insecurity and low fertility, through a case study of South Korea, an extreme case of ultra-low fertility where the total fertility rate fell to 0.84 in 2020.

The deteriorating economic circumstances of young adults have been posited as a major contributor to such a drastic decline in fertility.

The deteriorating economic circumstances of young adults have been posited as a major contributor to such a drastic decline in fertility.

East Asians, especially South Koreans, appear to be preoccupied with their offspring's education---most children spend time in expensive private institutes and in cram schools in the evenings and on weekends. At the same time, South Korea currently has the lowest total fertility rate in the world. In this paper, we propose a theory with status externalities and endogenous fertility that connects these two facts.

Our country's fertility rate is falling to a level that is unprecedented in the world. In 2022, South Korea's total fertility rate was 0.78, the lowest among OECD member countries and the second lowest in the world among 217 countries and regions, after Hong Kong.

Concerns have been raised that the concentration of economic power in chaebols reduces the vitality of the economy, such as by depriving small and medium-sized enterprises of opportunities to participate in the market.

Although various factors play a role in the decision to have children, recent empirical research results suggest that the widening wage gap between large corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) acts as a factor that deepens the decline in fertility rates. According to a study recently published by the Fighter Institute for Economic Research, when the wage gap between large corporations and SMEs widens by 1%, the total fertility rate decreases by an average of 0.005.

Analysts say that with the final settlement of a wage and collective agreement between Samsung Electronics' labor and management, the in-house housing loan system with an annual interest rate of 1.5% is stimulating the rise in housing prices of the "semiconductor belt" in southern Gyeonggi Province.

In terms of distribution, the mechanism through which Samsung Electronics' profits are spread to multiple stakeholders is weak, and the gap and division between insiders and outsiders have deepened.

The trend is also affecting Korea’s marriage market. … Marriage matchmaking company Sunoo recently raised the spouse desirability score assigned to Samsung Electronics employees from 84 points to 87 points.

As some jobs come under pressure, barriers to entry for young workers could rise, leaving future generations to bear part of the cost of today’s bonus boom.

The political and economic system has operated in a way that maximizes profits on the premise of labor sacrifice and reducing labor costs through employment flexibility, conversion to non-regular workers, and subcontracting, rather than through investment or productivity enhancement by chaebols.