South Korea has turned into one of the loneliest countries in the world, with more than two-fifths of all households having a single member. One out of four families are adopting pets, especially dogs, for companionship. Meanwhile, Japan reported more than 20,000 solitary deaths, about 80% of them aged 65 or older, during the first three months of 2024, and the toll is estimated to go up to 70,000 by the end of the year. Almost 38% of households in Japan are single-person. In China, more than 57% of the population lives in households with two or fewer individuals.
Changing Social Norms
Major economies in East and South-East Asia have been witnessing a deep plunge in total fertility rates (TFR). Taiwan recorded the world’s lowest (1.09), followed by South Korea (1.1), Singapore (1.17) Hong Kong (1.23), while China and Japan, respectively, had 1.45 and 1.39. The four high-growth economies like Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, the ‘Asian Tigers’ or ‘Dragons’, share many common characteristics, such as an educated populace, high savings rates and now, the reduced number of marriages and births. While, the world’s two top-ranking economies, China and Japan, also face the huge burden of an ageing population as they hit a ‘death cross’, when the death rate surpasses the birth rate, impacting severely their economies with a reduced working population.
In South Korea, a nationwide survey in 2024 disclosed that 39% of men and women (aged 25 to 49), 33.7% of women and 13.5% of men, have no intention of getting married or haven’t put thought into it. Many youth feel that they ‘do not have an onus to have a family’, and consider family as ‘a luxury good’. Women are increasingly opting for ‘an alternative life without men’. In Japan, one in four in their 30s ‘have no plans to get married… because of rising financial pressures and a desire to live without social obligations’. Women who ‘enjoy their freedom, have fulfilling careers, do not want the burdens of the traditional housewife… and marriage is no longer seen as a safety net for a stable life’, said recent research.
The concept of ‘personal choice’ has changed marriage dynamics in Chinese society, said a senior lecturer in Chinese and Asian Studies at the University of New South Wales. “Married life is just one of the many lifestyle options today,” said Wang Pan, the author of the book Love and Marriage in Globalising China. Many young Chinese people consider marriage as ‘less of an economic necessity… and incompatible with their modern lives’. As singlehood becomes the new norm, China is slowly turning into a ‘single’s economy’.
Demographic Shifts
Now, researchers contend that ‘future trends in fertility rates and live births will completely reconfigure the global economy’. By 2044, South Korea is going to lose nearly 10mn of its economically active population. The country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate is likely to fall at 1-1.5% in the next decade. In Japan, around 12mn people may disappear from the country’s workforce by 2040. The Japanese economy already shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in last quarter of 2024, and is expected to dip further to 1% in 2025. In 2023, China registered a decline in total factor productivity (TFP) and its growth rate decreased to just 4.6%, seriously affecting productivity gains (GDP per employed person).
While globally, the TFR has more than halved over the past 70 years, from around five children for each female in 1950 to 2.2 children in 2021, by 2050, over three-quarters (155 of 204) of countries will not have fertility rates high enough to sustain the population size. Around 28% of governments have introduced incentives like baby bonuses, family allowances, maternal, paternal and parental leaves, tax reductions and flexi work schedule. In India, the Southern states have registered a declining TFR trend, which has prompted political leaders of the region to mull over policy corrections for fear of lesser representation in Parliament. But many socioeconomic analysts feel that ‘throwing a bit of money is not going to fix it… a broad social change is necessary… as it is a big institutional, cultural, structural problem’.
On the other hand, proponents of radical feminism contend that ‘women would never truly be free of patriarchy until they were freed from the yoke of reproduction’. A 2017 global study in 39 countries revealed that 18% of adult women surveyed were ‘childless and do not plan to have children in the future’. In India, too, a 2018 research analysed the experiences of a number of ‘child-free’ women in metro cities, who asserted that ‘they redefined their identity beyond the institution of motherhood, and went ahead following their personal desires’.
Now, as women’s perception about motherhood changes, the contemporary world must factor in the evolving realities while making decisions on economics and demographics. Let the world accept non-motherhood as an ingredient of gender equality.
The author is former press secretary to the President of India, and former director-general, All India Radio and Doordarshan. Views are personal.
