The proportion of boys among births fell to a record low last year. The idea of preference for boys, which has been deeply rooted in the past, is an atmosphere of old words.
According to the preliminary results of the birth and death statistics of the 2020 Population Trend Survey by the National Statistical Office, the birth sex ratio last year was 104.9. The birth sex ratio is a concept that refers to the number of boys per 100 girls. This means that for every 100 girls born last year, there were 104.9 boys.
This is the lowest figure since 1990, when the National Statistical Office held relevant data. The birth sex ratio has been steadily decreasing from 116.5 in 1990 to 113.2 in 1995, 110.1 in 2000, 107.8 in 2005, 106.9 in 2010, 105.3 in 2015, and 104.9 in 2020.
Source: Statistics Korea
Last year’s birth sex ratio was almost in the middle of the normal range of birth sex ratios (103 to 107 people) judged by the National Statistical Office. It means that it has reached the sex ratio that appears when a child is naturally born without preference for sex ratio. The birth sex ratio first entered the normal range at 106.2 in 2007, and has since gradually converged to the middle of the normal range.
The third child’s gender ratio change is more dramatic. For the first time in 2019, the sex ratio of the third child or higher was 103.2, which was lower than the total birth sex ratio of 105.5.
Usually, the third child had a strong tendency to prefer the so-called’to join the generation’. For example, in 1993, the birth rate of a third child or more was 209.7. The gender imbalance was so severe that the number of boys per 100 girls exceeded 200, but now the opposite phenomenon has appeared.
The National Statistical Office predicted that the female super society will begin in 2029 from a special estimate of the future population from 2017 to 2047 published in 2018. This phenomenon is caused by the disappearance of the atmosphere of preference for boys, and the average life expectancy of men is about 6 years shorter.
Sejong = Reporter Kihwan Kim [email protected]
