• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.51-70
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• 2009

The main purpose of this study is to examine how individual's ideological factor, the individual perception of the economic situation, and the individual socioeconomic characteristics affect the fertility behavior during the fertility recovery periods-from 2006 to 2007- by each parity. For conducting this study, the 2008 Korean Fertility Survey Data are used. The respondents in this data consist of 1,467 women born their children at 2007 and 1,000 women not having their children at the recovery periods of fertility rates. Findings are as follows. First, the effect of individual's ideological factor, the individual perception of the economic situation, and the individual socioeconomic characteristics on fertility behavior differ by each parity. Second, the government policies increasing the fertility rate are needed to consider not only providing the economic support but also emphasizing the traditional ideology having the positive effects on the fertility behavior in order to increase the fertility rates. Third, the policy decreasing the age at the first marriage is needed.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.113-136
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• 2010

Low fertility has become quite commonplace worldwide, and Europe has experienced below replacement fertility for several decades. In addition, lowest-low fertility, defined as period total fertility rate below 1.3, has rapidly spread in Europe during the 1990s and is likely to expand further. After the turn of century, lowest-low fertility started spreading in Eastern Asia. Korea's TFR of 1.19 in 2008 is lower than most European countries, although it is higher than the Hongkong(1.02) and Taiwan(1.09). The purpose of this paper is to examine the socioeconomic determinants of lowest-low fertility in Korea. In doing so, this paper discusses the effects of female labour force participation, labour instability on family formation and fertility. The data includes female labour force participation rate, unemployment rate, age at first marriage, and total fertility rate from 1980 to 2008. First, the economic recession hindered young people's economic independence and propensity to marry. Married couples were also depressed with uncertainty toward the future and avoided to have children. Second, the growth in female labor force participation had a negative impact on fertility, under the low level of compatibility between women's work and childrearing. Moreover, this paper argues that the rising cost of children including public and private educational costs is thought to be the main reason of the recent low fertility in Korea. Policy implications and some comments on population policies are also presented in the final section.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.133-144
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• 1982

One of the primary objectives of Korean family planning program is to assist parents in having the number of children they want, both by providing fertility-en-hancing services to infecund and subfecund women and by providing fertility-limitation services to fecund women. As far as fertility-enhancing services to infecund and subfecund women is concerned, there has been little effort from the national family planning program, So far, there is no any basic data on infertility prevalence rate among the Korean women. Therefore, an attempt has been made to review data of 1976 and 1978 fertility and family planning surveys in order to estimate the level of infertility rate among the Korean women. In the 1978 survey 3. 7 percent of the current married women responded that they were physically infertile while in the 1976 survey physically infer-tile women was calculated as 3 percent of the total ever married women which is similar level of 1978 data of 3.7 percent. Mean age at first marriage of Korean women is 23 and most of the women are married in the high fecund age. Only 0.3 percent of the respondents married age 30. in addition, the rate of women with no children among the ever married women whose married duration is more than 5 year is very low;2. 5 percent among 5-9 years, 1. 4 percent among 10- 14 years; 1.8 precent among 15-19 years; 1.0 percent among 20-24 years; and 0. 7 percent among 25 or more years of marriage duration. If we consider those data shown above, it is manifest that infertility rate of Korean women is less than 5 percent level which is much lower than the 10 percent level of infertility rate in the United States of America. However, this kind of estimation is still not able to show definite data on fertility rate. Therefore, a nationwide planned survey should be carried out as early as possible to figure out the real situation of infertility rate in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.463-483
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• 2019

Since 2000, Korea's total fertility rate (TFR) has been different from that of Japan, Germany, and France where irreversible constants do not change easily in the fertility rate increasing or decreasing phase. It also showed a gradual increase from the minimum fertility level 1.08 in 2005 to 1.23 in 2015, which dropped to 1.17 in 2016, to 1.05 in 2017 and to 0.98 in 2018. This is similar to a double dip in the economic status of a recession. This paper investigates such a TFR increase and decrease factor that predicts the number of births affecting TFR, examines trends in the proportion of married and marital fertility rate broken down by TFR decomposition method. We also examined how these changes affect the change in TFR. According to the results, the number of births is estimated to be between 320 and 330 thousand in 2018, 300 thousand in 2020, 230 and 240 thousand in 2025. The proportion of married is steadily decreasing from 1981 to 2025, and the marital fertility rate is predicted to decline until 2002, then increase from 2003 to 2016 and decrease from 2017 to 2025. Finally, the trend of TFR in terms of number of births, TFR decomposition and statistical model is expected to show 0.98 in 2018, 0.93 to 1.11 in 2020 and 0.76 to 1.08 in 2025.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-12
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• 2011

This study was undertaken to determine whether the presence of fertility-associated antigen (FAA) in semen would influence semen characteristics and conception rate of artificial insemination in Hanwoo. The response to FAA of 36 heads of proven bull, 7 heads of young bull, and 27 heads of performance-tested bull was that one proven bull was FAA-negative and the others were FAA-positive, therefore FAA-negative bull was 1.4%. FAA-negative bull was lower in first and second semen concentrations than those of FAA-positive bull in 5,301 semen of 21 heads of proven bull, then FAA-negative bull was fewer as 11.5% in total sperm counts. The estrus of 22 heads was 70d-nonreturned in 36 cows first inseminated with frozen semen of FAA-negative bull, but that of 249 heads in 378 cows first inseminated with frozen semen of FAA-positive bull. Each conception rate was 61.1% and 65.9%, respectively. The difference of conception rates was 4.8%. These results indicate that the response of FAA to semen were influenced semen characteristics and conception rate of artificial insemination, but further investigations are needed to confirm the results.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.146-151
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• 2016

Objective: This study was conducted to compare the effects of static culture, dynamic culture, and the combination of dynamic culture with specialized surfaces involving co-culture on human embryonic development. Embryos cultured using conventional static culture (SC) techniques served as a control group. We compared dynamic culture using micro-vibration culture (MVC) and micro-vibration with co-culture (MCoC), in which autologous cumulus cells were used as a specialized surface. Methods: We conducted a chart review of patients who were treated between January 2011 and November 2014 in order to compare embryonic development rates and pregnancy rates among the groups. Zygotes were cultured in micro-droplets, and embryos were subsequently selected for transfer. Some surplus embryos were cryopreserved, and the others were cultured for blastocyst development. A micro-vibrator was set at the frequency of 42 Hz for duration of 5 seconds per 60 minutes to facilitate embryo development. Results: No significant differences among the groups were present in patient's characteristics. However, the clinical pregnancy rates were significantly higher in the MVC group and the MCoC group than in the SC group. No significant differences were found in the blastocyst development rate between the SC group and the MVC group, but the blastocyst development rate in the MCoC group was significantly higher than in the SC and MVC groups. Conclusion: The clinical pregnancy rate was significantly increased by the application of micro-vibration to the embryonic cultures of poor responders. The blastocyst development rate was significantly increased by the application of MCoC to surplus embryos.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.106-111
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• 2016

Objective: To study the clinical outcomes of single frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer cycles according to the hatching status of frozen-thawed blastocysts. Methods: Frozen-thawed blastocysts were divided into three groups according to their hatching status as follows: less-than-expanded blastocyst (${\leq}EdB$), hatching blastocyst (HgB), and hatched blastocyst (HdB). The female age and infertility factors of each group were evaluated. The quality of the single frozen-thawed blastocyst was also graded as grade A, tightly packed inner cell mass (ICM) and many cells organized in the trophectoderm epithelium (TE); grade B, several and loose ICM and TE; and grade C, very few ICM and a few cells in the TE. The clinical pregnancy and implantation rate were compared between each group. The data were analyzed by either t-test or chi-square analysis. Results: There were no statistically significant differences in average female ages, infertility factors, or the distribution of blastocyst grades A, B, and C in each group. There was no significant difference in the clinical pregnancy and implantation rate of each group according to their blastocyst grade. However, there was a significant difference in the clinical pregnancy and implantation rate between each group. In the HdB group, the clinical pregnancy and implantation rate were similar regardless of the blastocyst quality. Conclusion: There was an effect on the clinical outcomes depending on whether the blastocyst hatched during single frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer. When performing single frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer, the hatching status of the frozen-thawed blastocyst may be a more important parameter for clinical outcomes than the quality of the frozen-thawed blastocyst.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.233-239
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• 2018

A rapid decrease of total fertility rate to 1.08 in 2005 prompted the Korean government to plan and implement a '5-year plan for ageing society and population policy' starting from 2006. The 1st and 2nd 5-year plans had not shown any discernible impact on the fertility and the 3rd 5-year plan was launched in 2016. However, the fertility rate is going down further. The author reviewed the contents and assessment reports of the fertility promotion plan to suggest ideas for complementing the shortcomings of it. Author defined the major determinants of marriage and child birth as philosophy, politics, sense of value, social norm, culture, healthcare, and education. The plan was examined in view of these determinants. Transformation of Korea from an agricultural society to an industrialized society in a short period of time had brought about changes in most of the determinants of marriage and child birth; in particular philosophy and sense of value. These aspects were not put into consideration in the plan. Author suggested to launch a social education program for the general public to establish a sound philosophy of life, reform the sense of value on family, child birth and education, and cultivate the skill to draw a consensus through discussions on the social issues. A special program to promote marriage of women at the optimum age for child birth was proposed. The government should implement well balanced policy for economic development and labor. Multidisciplinary approach was recommended for these tasks.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.137-143
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to propose an effective PR plan for government policies in order to make the people aware of the importance of the fertility rate by seeking strategies to counter the low fertility rate. Focus group interviews were conducted with 6 experts with high expertise in government policy advertising and public relations among advertising and public relations academics and practitioners. It was found that low fertility PR strategy raised the problems of integrated public relations and budgeting. PR message strategy was lacked a creative approach suitable for the target, and the media strategy did not reflect the characteristics of the younger generation. Based on these research results, an improvement plan for government PR to counter the low fertility was proposed, and it is expected that it will be used for policy making in the future.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.468-474
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• 2016

Korean government enacted the 1st Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Population Ageing in 2005 due to the long-lasting ultra-low birth rate. Based on the Act, Korean government set up a step-by-step strategic goal and establish a basic plan, every five years, to achieve the sustainable development of society corresponding to low fertility and aging society. Over the past decade, the 1st Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Population Ageing (2006-2010) and the 2nd Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Population Ageing (2011-2015) was executed. This year, based on the achievements and limitations of the 1st and 2nd Basic Plan, the 3rd Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Population Ageing begins. In this manuscript, I discuss the background of the 3rd Basic Plan and its significance in oral health area.