South Korea is launching a new high-speed train service linking Seol with its outskirts, substantially reducing travel time. Apart from the obvious benefits of a high-speed train link, authorities in South Korea are hopeful that this will help in solving a particular problem, the problem of dwindling birth rate in the country. It is expected that the train service will give the young population more time to spend with their families or start families, which will increase the birth rate.
South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and the youths in the country often cite the long hours needed to commute to and from Seol, and the cramped & expensive housing in the city, as the reasons for not starting a family by getting married. Almost half of the population of South Korea lives in greater Seol, and the city’s birth rate is even lower than the national average.
As per United Nations Population Fund statistics, the birth rate of South Korea was 0.9 births per woman in 2023, only ahead of 0.8 for Hong Kong. According to preliminary data from Statistics Korea, a government-affiliated body, the average number of children a South Korean woman has during her lifetime fell to 0.72 in 2013, from 0.78 in 2022 – a decline of nearly 8%.
The current birth rate of South Korea is well below the average of 2.1 children the country needs to maintain its current population of 51 million.
Youths who live in small houses in the city are unable to start a family. Those who live in the outskirts and travel to the city daily for work don’t have the time to spend with family, and therefore, they are not getting married. Unlike in Western countries, getting married is seen as a prerequisite for having babies, and the number of marriages is falling due to skyrocketing house prices.
Government efforts to increase the birth rate by giving subsidies have not worked. Since 2006, the government has invested more than 360tn WON ($270 billion) in programmes to encourage couples to have more children, including cash subsidies, babysitting services and support for infertility treatment.
Now, the Great Train eXpress (GTX), the first line of which is set to go into service on Saturday, is expected to solve this problem. This train service will greatly cut the time needed to travel between the city and its surrounding areas, providing enough times to the population to spend with family and give birth to babies.
President Yoon Suk Yeol inaugurated a section of the first line on Friday, which will cut the commute time from Suseo in the capital to the satellite city of Dongtan to 19 minutes from 80 minutes now on a bus. The shorter commute “will enable people to spend more time with their family in the mornings and evenings,” the president said. Notably, the Yoon Suk Yeol has made reversing the falling birthrate a national priority.
The 134 trillion won ($99.5 billion) underground high-speed train project includes six lines linking Seoul to several outlying areas. The entire project in several phases is expected to be completed by 2035. Once fully operational, the GTX will be one of the fastest underground systems in the world, with trains travelling at speeds of up to 180 km per hour (112 mph), officials said.
Prices of houses in Seol are very costly, forcing many people working in the city to live on the outskirts and commute daily, spending long hours in buses. Land Minister Park Sang-woo told Reuters the GTX would allow young people to consider homes far away from the capital without having to spend hours commuting. They can use the saved time to spend with their families, he added.
“With two-hour commute on the way home, for example, how can anyone make time for babies? The idea is to give people more leisure time after work,” Minister Park Sang-woo said.