A Solution to Low Birth Rates: Immigration

By 서희준

Despite years of government programs encouraging women to give birth, Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world. This has wide implications for Korea’s future. An aging population leads to an economic slowdown, where there aren’t enough workers or consumers, causing companies to go bankrupt. It looks like things like higher prices of goods, due to labor shortages. It leads to foreign investors pulling out of the country due to a loss of investor confidence. 

This is critical because, in the age of the 4th industrial revolution, there will be rising economic and technological disparity between nations based on how they performed during this crucial period. Note that Korea was only able to achieve rapid economic development insofar as it quickly adapted to the previous industrial revolution, transitioning to semiconductors and the IT sector. Now comes the second test, with the rise of new industries like AI development. The implication is clear: If South Korea messes up now, its future is grim.

But more importantly, an aging population leads to a significantly lower quality of life for the young people who do have to work. They have to work longer and harder to pay for health insurance and pension funds for the elderly. Moreover, they face a slowing economy, where there’s a constant reduction in the quality of life. In addition, punitive tax rates, caused by an increasingly burdened healthcare system, punish the youth for simply being born at the wrong time. 

The conclusion here is simple. Aging population is a critical problem that, if not solved now, has momentous consequences both for Korea’s future prospects and young people’s livelihoods. 

What is the solution? One word: Immigration.

The logic here is simple. There is a huge labor shortage in Korea. If immigrants come here, they can fill this gap.

The reason why this is such a brilliant solution is that immigration is immediate. Immigrants can work as soon as they come here. In contrast, the problem with traditional strategies with low birth rates is that, even if birth rates were to become higher (and they don’t), it takes 25 years for that to affect the job market. Therefore, previous strategies were insufficient in solving such an urgent problem like this, especially during a huge economic transition like the 4th industrial revolution. We need a short-term, not a long-term solution.         

In fact, I’d argue higher birth rates paradoxically worsens the aging population problem, because now young people have a double burden: not only do they have to care for the elderly, but they also must look after the children, who put a burden on childcare and education systems. This doubles the punishment that the youth face for being born at the wrong time

Now that I explained why other approaches don’t work, let’s see why immigration is likely to be better.

Firstly, there’re a lot of immigrants we can choose from. Note that millions of people want to emigrate. This might be because of political reasons, fleeing ideological, ethnic, or religious oppression. It’s also due to economic incentives, where in India, for example, there aren’t enough jobs because the market is saturated by billions of people. People immigrate to other countries for a higher quality of life. In addition, there’re also millions of refugees fleeing war, such as the one in Ukraine or in Ethiopia, who desperately wants a safe environment to live and work in.

On the other hand, there aren’t a lot of countries that are willing to accept these people, because of right-wing populism and xenophobic sentiments that are pervasive in many countries. Take the US, for example, where Trump was elected on the basis of deporting “illegal immigrants” from Mexico. Many people feel fearful of immigrants and have bigoted sentiments against them, being reluctant to accept them.

What does this mean? This means that there’s a huge ‘supply’ of immigrants, but not a lot of ‘demand’. Therefore, we can freely pick and choose immigrants that we need. That is, we can choose the ones who specialize in sectors where we have a labor shortage. If Korea needs more computer scientists, then we can take those computer science undergraduates from Ukraine. If we need more doctors, we can get doctors from Croatia. If we need manual labor workers, we can get some from Uzbekistan. 

Compare this with increasing birth rates, where we have no control over these future people. We don’t know what jobs they’re going to like. We don’t know how motivated they’ll be. We don’t know how smart they are. The quality of these future individuals is uncertain compared to immigrants.

Secondly, immigrants are more likely to create new businesses. Note that immigrants are people who are willing to leave behind what they have to start a new life. This means they’re likely to be people who are ambitious and willing to try new things. They’re more likely to engage in entrepreneurship and start new businesses that create jobs for local workers.

Thirdly, immigrants are likely to be hard-working. These are people who believe in a better life. People who want their children to grow up in a better environment. This means immigrants tend to have a high degree of productivity because of the ambitions they have.

What this means, is that, not only do immigrants solve the short-term problem of labor shortages, but they’re also likely to be people beneficial to the economy in the long term.

Another argument I’d like to make for immigration is that trying to encourage birth as a policy is likely to be downright harmful, both for women and children.

Firstly, on women. Note that birth rates have decreased due to higher respect for women’s choice in terms of having a child, as well as increased access to contraception. This means a) this is a long-term cultural phenomenon that is hard to reverse, but b) even if it were to be reversed, it has massive implications for women’s rights. Women are more likely to be pressured to give birth. Abusive husbands can exploit their wives and coerce them to have children to get financial benefits.

Secondly, on children. If the government is successful in increasing birth rates, the delta is probably going to be in low-income households, who need that money to raise a child. This means the “new children” born as a result of economic incentivization are going to be born in low-income families. This is problematic because it’s harder for poorer families to pay for high-quality education for their children, simply because they have less money. If the government covers the funding, then that’s problematic as well, as it increases the burden on the youth, hence a double punishment.