BOK Working Paper No.2025-1, An Empirical Approach to the Causes of Low Fertility Rate in North Korea

등록일
2025.01.21
조회수
1491
키워드
North Korea Survey Fertility Rate Ordered Probit
등록자
Jooyung Lee, Kiho Kim
담당부서
North Korea Economic Studies Team(02-759-5647)

Author : Jooyung Lee(Bank of Korea), Kiho Kim(Bank of Korea)



This paper estimated the total fertility rate by surveying the marriage and childbirth experiences of 1,610 relatives/acquaintances of North Korean refugees who were living in North Korea at the time of their departure. The estimated results show that the total fertility rate in North Korea has continued to decline significantly from the 1980s to the 2010s. When the decline in North Korea's total fertility rate is broken down by component factors, the contribution of the marital fertility rate was large in the 1990s and 2010s, while the contribution of the nuptiality and the non-marital total fertility rate was small. However, in the 2010s, the contribution of the nuptiality increased significantly, overwhelming other factors.

To investigate the causes of the declining fertility rate, we analyzed the factors determining childbirth using the Ordered Probit model for the female cohorts born in the 1960s and the female cohorts born in the 1970s. The results of the empirical analysis show that the fertility rate of those born in the 1970s was significantly lower than that of those born in the 1960s, and this is mainly due to the changes in the economic structure caused by the Arduous March that occurred in the 1990s. In the case of those born in the 1970s, the fertility rate seems to have decreased as the proportion of market retail workers with poor childbirth conditions increased and market competition intensified.

In terms of methodology, this study has limitations in that the sample used to calculate the total fertility rate is concentrated in the border region between North Korea and China, and the sample of explanatory variables used in the analysis of factors determining childbirth, such as the proportion of college graduates, differs from the population, resulting in a somewhat lack of representativeness of the sample.

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