South Korea’s World Lowest Fertility Rate Drops Again

People wearing face masks read books at a bookstore in Seoul on January 30, 2023, after South Korea lifted its indoor mask mandate as Covid cases dwindle. (AFP)
People wearing face masks read books at a bookstore in Seoul on January 30, 2023, after South Korea lifted its indoor mask mandate as Covid cases dwindle. (AFP)
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South Korea’s World Lowest Fertility Rate Drops Again

People wearing face masks read books at a bookstore in Seoul on January 30, 2023, after South Korea lifted its indoor mask mandate as Covid cases dwindle. (AFP)
People wearing face masks read books at a bookstore in Seoul on January 30, 2023, after South Korea lifted its indoor mask mandate as Covid cases dwindle. (AFP)

South Korea's fertility rate dropped last year to a record low, data showed on Wednesday, in yet another grim milestone for the country with the world's lowest number of expected children for each woman.

The average number of expected babies per South Korean woman over her reproductive life fell to 0.78 in 2022 down from 0.81 a year earlier, the official annual reading from the Statistics Korea showed.

That is the lowest among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which had an average rate of 1.59 in 2020, and far below 1.64 in the United States and 1.33 in Japan the same year.

The government has failed to reverse the falling birth rate despite spending billions of dollars each year on childcare subsidies.

As of 2020, South Korea was the only country among the OECD members to have a rate below 1, giving it a shrinking population.

Being married is seen as a prerequisite to having children in South Korea, but marriages are also plunging in the country amid sky-high costs of housing and education.

The nation's capital Seoul logged the lowest birth rate of 0.59.



Europe's Oldest Lake Settlement Uncovered in Albania

A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
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Europe's Oldest Lake Settlement Uncovered in Albania

A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci
A drone view shows archaeologists diving in the lake of Ohrid to uncover objects, in the village of Lin, Albania, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci

Archaeologists working on the shores of Ohrid Lake in Albania are convinced they have uncovered the oldest human settlement built on a European lake, finding evidence of an organized hunting and farming community living up to 8,000 years ago. The team, from Switzerland and Albania, spends hours each day about three meters (9.8 feet) underwater, painstakingly retrieving wooden stilts that supported houses.

The are also collecting bones of domesticated and wild animals, copper objects and ceramics, featuring detailed carvings.

Albert Hafner, from the University of Bern, said similar settlements have been found in Alpine and Mediterranean regions, but the settlements in the village of Lin are half a millennium older, dating back between 6,000 and 8,000 years.

"Because it is under water, the organic material is well-preserved and this allows us to find out what these people have been eating, what they have been planting," Hafner said.

Multiple studies show that Lake Ohrid, shared by North Macedonia and Albania, is the oldest lake in Europe, at over one million years.

The age of the findings is determined through radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, which measures annual growth rings in trees. More than one thousand wood samples have been collected from the site, which may have hosted several hundred people.

It is believed to cover around six hectares, but so far, only about 1% has been excavated after six years of work.

Hafner said findings show that people who lived on the lake helped to spread agriculture and livestock to other parts of Europe.

"They were still doing hunting and collecting things but the stable income for the nutrition was coming from the agriculture," he said.

Albanian archaeologist Adrian Anastasi said it could take decades to fully explore the area.

"(By) the way they had lived, eaten, hunted, fished and by the way the architecture was used to build their settlement we can say they were very smart for that time," Anastasi said.