More than 4,000 elementary, middle and high schools across Korea have shut their doors as the country’s student population shrinks, new data shows.
According to the Ministry of Education’s latest figures, revealed on Sunday by Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, since 1980, 4,008 schools under 17 regional education offices nationwide have closed as of March this year. During the period, the number of enrolled students decreased from 9.9 million to 5.07 million.
This has been a common pattern globally. A lot of other wealthy countries only have stable (desired for economic growth) population numbers/growth only because of large scale immigration. ie. US and Canada. Which countries like South Korea, Japan, or China are still quite strict on.
Doesn’t help that child raring has become exceedingly expensive per child as well in wealthy countries.
In a lot of places a parent working is basically pointless if they pay for childcare. A daycare near me was 600 a week. And that was only from 330(after school got out) to 600. If you work 9-5 but school gets out at 330 about 15 dollars per hour of your pay goes to daycare. If you make less than 20 an hour is that even worth working?
On top of that there are expensive academic tutors and extracurricular activities that are seen as necessary in competitive countries.