South Korea is in the midst of a population crisis, but there is one segment of society where there are now more babies than before — the children born to unmarried mothers.

The Asian country of some 51 million people saw its birth rate hit a record low in 2023. It is widely seen as a conservative and traditionally minded society, but analysts suggest that a gradual shift is taking place among the younger generations in modern Korea, with changing attitudes towards marriage, work and family.

At the same time, older Koreans cling to what they see as the appropriate standards.

"There is a deeply ingrained prejudice against women who become mothers outside of marriage in Korean society," said Hyobin Lee, an adjunct professor of politics and ethics at Chungnam National University.

"In Korea, a woman who has a child without being married is perceived as having no defense; she is automatically seen as guilty," she told DW. "That is not only the attitude towards unwed mothers, but also divorced women and widows, who are often looked down-upon and stigmatized in traditional Korean society."

One child out of 20 born out of wedlock

"These women were often considered less desirable for remarriage and, in some cases, the woman's parents would register the child under their own name to hide the truth," she said. "These women were labeled as 'loose' or 'women with a hard fate,' implying they should be avoided."

"Interestingly, there was little to no criticism directed toward the men involved in these situations," she pointed out. "In such a patriarchal society, the stigma against children born out of wedlock seemed inevitable."  

But the latest government figures indicate this taboo is not as strong as it once was.

Data released on August 28 by Statistics Korea showed that just 230,000 babies were born across the country in 2023, down 7.7% from the previous year and the lowest figure since data was first collated in 1970.

The fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman will have during her lifetime, also fell to a new low of 0.72, down from 0.78 in 2022. To ensure that South Korea's population remains stable, the fertility rate needs to be at 2.10.

However, some 10,900 babies were born to women who were not married or in a civil partnership, accounting for 4.7% of the total and the highest number since statistics were initially collected in 1981. And while that figure may be relatively small in comparison with other nations, it has continued a recent rise from 7,700 out-of-wedlock births in 2021 and 9,800 in 2022.

A billion-dollar divorce pushed societal change

Casual relationships have become more common in South Korea, partly due to economic polarization that makes it harder for young people to find well-paid jobs and subsequently start a family. A study published last year declared South Korea the world's most expensive country for raising children. The change in social mores also includes more divorces, including those involving famous and wealthy couples whose messy separations are played out in the tabloids and often include allegations of infidelity.

In May, a court in Seoul ordered billionaire businessman Chey Tae-won to pay 1.38 trillion won (€936 million, or $1.04 billion) in property and an additional KRW2 billion in alimony to his estranged wife, Roh Soh-yeung, in the most expensive divorce suit in Korean history. In 2015, Chey admitted he had a new partner and had fathered a child outside of his marriage, prompting and a series of suits and counter-suits which took another nine years to go through the courts.

"The case has been in the media for many years and, to me, started to change the public's perceptions of marriage in Korea," law professor Park Jung-won of Dankook University told DW.

Professor Lee, of Chungnam National University, points to a number of other likely tipping points in social attitudes. In 2020, Sayuri Fujita, a Japanese television personality with a large following in South Korea confirmed that her newborn son was conceived through donated sperm and that she was not married.

Similarly, a contestant on popular TV show "I am Solo" said she was not married but had wanted a child, so she had a son with a former boyfriend and was raising him as a single mother.

Single parents get priority for childcare, housing

"Stories like this are no longer unfamiliar in Korean society," Lee said. "Some women want a child but cannot find a suitable partner, or they become pregnant during a relationship and choose to have the child and raise him or her on their own."

And even though the Korean term for a child born out of wedlock — "horojasik" — is still commonly used as an insult, Lee already sees the changing attitudes transform into government policies. 

"With the birth rate hitting rock bottom in recent years, a range of welfare policies are being implemented to support children from single-parent families," she said. These include tax reductions and awarding priority to children of single parents when they apply for kindergarten or daycare centers, as well as when applying for public housing.

"In the past, welfare policies were primarily focused on encouraging birth rates within 'happy' and 'normal' families," Lee said. "However, there is now a greater effort to include and support families where children are born out of wedlock."

Edited by: Darko Janjevic