Fear of Falling Behind in Korea’s Status Race Cuts Birthrate by 28%

South Korea’s fertility rate might have been nearly one-third higher without the pressure to keep children from falling behind their peers, according to research presented at a population economics conference.

The study, titled “Status Competition, Intensive Parenting and Low Fertility in Korea,” argues that parents’ comparisons with other families push private education spending beyond socially efficient levels. The research team developed a model linking education investment per child with fertility, compared countries using the World Values Survey’s education-concern indicator, and examined regional and period-based changes in regulations on late-night academy classes.

The findings connect stronger status competition with more spending on private education and fewer births. South Korea, Singapore and Chile emerged as representative cases in the cross-country comparison. For South Korea, the researchers estimated that women born between 1970 and 1975 would have had an average of 2.45 children instead of 1.92 if status competition had not affected fertility, a difference of 28%.

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Status competition causes socially excessive investment in education and low fertility, providing grounds for government intervention.

The researchers said the problem lies less in parents investing heavily in one child than in anxiety over a child’s relative position. When parents fear that their child will be unhappy if they fall behind, they may choose to have one child and concentrate their resources on that child rather than have more children and spend less on each. A culture that places strong value on educational credentials and success can intensify that pressure.

The burden also falls unevenly. Lower-income households were found to spend a larger share of their income on private education than higher-income households, 8.4% for the bottom income quintile compared with 5.1% for the top quintile. The study estimated that a 10% reduction in private education spending among the top 15% of households, through limits on late-night academy classes, could lower the share spent by the bottom 50% by 0.4 to 0.9 percentage points.

Professor Yeom Min-cheol said the findings support government intervention, including a tax on high-income households’ private education spending, childbirth incentives and university admissions reform. Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong said demographic change poses a serious challenge, but “population is destiny” is not an inevitable conclusion because future changes can be anticipated and addressed in advance.

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Population is destiny.