Credit: Public domain.
More than one in four pregnancies in South Korea end in miscarriage, according to a recent study by the National Health Insurance Service 국민건강보험공단.
The NHIS report, submitted to People Power Party Assembly Member Baek Jong-heon 백종헌 국민의힘 국회의원, found that 25.43% of all pregnancies in South Korea in the first half of 2024 ended in miscarriage, up from 20.65% in 2013. However, because of the drop in the total number of pregnancies, the absolute number of miscarriages declined significantly from 2013 (112.8k) to 2023 (77k).
The high rate of miscarriage is attributable to the rising age of pregnant women. South Korea’s low birth rate is due to some extent to the fact that women are getting married and pregnant later in life. In 2013, the average age of South Korean women giving birth for the first time was 30.7; ten years later in 2023, it was 33.0.
