What Do South Korean Young People Think About The Falling Birth Rate?

In my earlier article, South Korea’s Lesser-Known Dark Side >>, I wrote about the side of South Korea that is far less visible from the outside. This time, I want to look at the same country, the same crisis, and the same dark picture from another angle. Because sometimes the harshest truth does not come from statistics, news reports, or documentaries. It comes directly from the people living inside that reality.

After Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell released its video about South Korea’s demographic collapse, a large number of comments appeared underneath it. I wanted not only to recommend this documentary, but also to gather some of the comments left by South Koreans under the video. Because these comments do not simply say that the birth rate is falling. They explain why it is falling, what kind of psychological state it has created, and why so many people no longer trust the future.

Comment 1

The first comment is the one that hits the hardest. The writer says they are Korean, born and raised in the country, and that after watching the video they sat in silence for a while. But not because they were shocked. It was because the video had simply said out loud what many people in South Korea already felt deep down: it is too late, and there is no real way to fix this anymore. They say they are in their early thirties, living in Seoul, went to a good university, and did everything society expected them to do. Yet even after doing everything “right,” they still feel as if they are going nowhere. They are not living, they are surviving.

The same person says government support such as baby bonuses, housing incentives, and free childcare solves nothing. To them, all of it feels like a tiny bandage placed on a broken system. They describe a society where the pressure to succeed begins in childhood, where the school system is ruthless, and where the work culture glorifies sacrifice and burnout. In that environment, marriage and children are no longer part of a hopeful future. They are seen as a burden. The writer even says that they and their friends talk more about escaping the country than starting a family in it. The most powerful line in the whole comment is probably this one in spirit: this is not only a demographic crisis, it is a spiritual crisis. And the ending is even darker: not only is the population shrinking, hope is shrinking too.

Comment 2

The second comment comes from a much more concrete economic angle. The writer says they are Korean, that they completed military service and graduated from university, and that they now work 75 hours a week at a company. Despite that, they say they do not receive overtime pay or extra night compensation. Their monthly income is about $2,200, and with that income they have neither a house nor a car. If they want to buy a home, they say they would need to save for more than ten years even while spending at the bare minimum. The conclusion is brutally simple: when even taking care of yourself is already this hard, marriage and starting a family stop feeling realistic at all.

What makes this comment strong is that it is not theoretical. It is not abstract criticism. It is just a direct life equation. I work nonstop, and I still cannot build a life. Once that becomes the reality, having children naturally disappears from the picture.

Comment 3

The third comment is interesting because this time the speaker is not Korean, but a Canadian working at a South Korean education company. In some ways, that makes the observation even harsher. The commenter describes the work culture as completely insane and says their boss is basically a borderline sociopath. They explain that both younger and older students frequently talk about overtime, severe stress, depression, and anxiety. Many of them have almost no social life outside work or school. The commenter says it feels as if these people have lost any sense of autonomy and can only think in terms of rankings, outcomes, and positions. Their whole sense of control has been pushed outside themselves.

That is what gives this comment weight. It comes from someone looking at the system from the outside, yet still clearly seeing how suffocating it is. So this no longer looks like a local complaint. It looks like an obvious social reality visible even to outsiders.

Comment 4

The fourth comment comes from a Korean university student and focuses directly on how trapped young people feel. According to them, companies now prefer experienced workers and do not want to hire young employees. And when young people do get hired, they are placed under enormous pressure. The same commenter also gives a basic financial breakdown of childrearing. They say raising two children until adulthood costs around $2,000 to $3,000 a month, while young full-time workers earn around $2,500 to $3,500 a month, and part-time workers earn even less. In other words, raising children looks nearly impossible even before you begin. Yet despite this, older people still criticize the younger generation for not having children.

This comment makes something very clear. The issue is not only cultural. It is mathematical. Once income and cost are placed side by side, having children stops looking like a beautiful life choice and starts looking like economic self-destruction.

Comment 5

The fifth comment puts generational conflict at the center. The writer says everyone is aware of how serious the situation is, but that older people and the baby boomer generation are draining the younger generation and making any real solution almost impossible. According to them, young people in South Korea’s political and social system are ignored, treated like inexperienced children, and seen as unfit to have real influence. Since most politicians are in their fifties and sixties, the policies that get written mainly serve older voters rather than younger people. The commenter describes this as something deeply rooted in modern South Korea, to the point that laws and institutions that exploit the young now feel normal. They also point to 69-hour workweeks, pension burdens, and military service as additional pressures crushing young people and leaving no room for new life.

This is important because it does not explain the falling birth rate as a matter of personal lifestyle preference. It frames it as the natural outcome of a system that has been exhausting, exploiting, and politically sidelining the young for years.

Comment 6

The sixth comment also returns to generational conflict, but this time through the pension system. The writer explains that people in South Korea pay into the system before turning 60 and are supposed to receive more back after retirement. But the deeper problem, from the perspective of a young person, is the belief that the national pension service may go bankrupt before they ever reach that age. They say most lawmakers are older and therefore represent the interests of people their own age, essentially taking money from the younger generation to protect themselves. Even though South Korea is already facing an unprecedented crisis, the writer believes the conflict between generations shows no sign of improving.

What makes this comment especially dark is that young people do not seem unhappy only with the present. They feel their future has already been taken from them as well. In other words, they no longer believe the system offers them anything now or later.

Comment 7

The seventh comment comes directly from inside the education system. The writer says they are a second-year high school student in South Korea attending a foreign language high school. They wake up at 6 in the morning, school officially ends at 4, but extracurricular activities and evening classes mean they often do not get home until after 11 at night. At the same time, the school still insists that students get enough sleep, which the writer finds absurdly ironic. They say the pressure to get into a good university is overwhelming, to the point where anything below a SKY-level university is treated as failure. They have even seen graduates who got into good universities retake entrance exams again. According to the writer, adults tell them that life peaks with university admission, and their school seems to view students less as human beings and more as tools for producing prestige.

This comment makes one thing clear: the feeling of collapse does not begin in adult working life. It begins much earlier. Children are pushed into a system that teaches them how to compete, but not how to build a life worth living.

Conclusion

The common thread in all these comments is clear. South Korea’s falling birth rate cannot be explained with the lazy claim that young people simply do not want children anymore. What we see instead is the combined effect of extreme competition, burnout, work pressure, unaffordable living, education hell, and a complete loss of trust between generations. People are not only losing interest in having children. They are losing faith in marriage, work, politics, and long-term life itself.

That is what makes these comments powerful. They are not outside theories. They are not distant academic analyses. They are voices from people living inside South Korea or watching the system from close range. And what those voices are really saying is this: the falling birth rate is a result. The real crisis is that many people no longer see this life as something worth building a future inside.