Korea's birthrate rises at fastest pace on record in Q1

Babies are inside the neonatal intensive care unit at CHA University Ilsan Medical Center in Goyang, Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

Korea's birthrate rose at its fastest pace on record in the first quarter of 2026, with the number of babies born jumping nearly 15 percent from a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday.

The number of babies born between January and March this year reached 75,013, up 14.8 percent from the same period last year. It is the biggest quarterly increase on record since 1981, both in percentage terms and in absolute numbers, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

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The March figures were particularly striking. A total of 25,200 babies were born that month, up 19.4 percent from the previous year. The figure was also the highest for that month since 2019.