The number of births in May was the highest in seven years. The number of marriages fell slightly from a year earlier, while divorces hit the lowest level in 29 years.
According to the "Population trends in May 2026" that the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) released on the 24th, the number of births in May was 23,160, up 13.6% (2,781) from a year earlier. For May, it was the highest since 2019 (25,299) in seven years.
The growth rate (13.6%) was the "largest on record" for the same month since monthly statistics began in 1981. The increase in absolute numbers (2,781) was the third largest for the period after ▲May 1990 (3,475) and ▲May 1994 (2,849).
The number of births has been rising for 23 consecutive months on a year-on-year basis. All provinces and metropolitan cities except Jeju saw an increase in births. The total fertility rate (the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime) was 0.85. That was up 0.10 from the same month last year (0.75). It was 0.99 in January this year and 0.93 in February through April.
Marriages slowed somewhat. The number of marriages in May was 20,368, down 6.4% (1,392) from a year earlier. However, cumulative marriages from January to May this year totaled 103,299, up 3.9% from the same period last year, continuing an upward trend. An official at the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) said, "Marriages are counted based on filings, and in May there were two more holidays than a year earlier, which had a big impact," adding, "If you calculate it considering the number of filing days, you can see a slight increase." The explanation was that it is hard to say the long-term trend of rising marriages and births driven by the population effect of the echo boom generation (born 1991–1996) has turned.
Subtracting the number of deaths (29,573, up 3.8%) from the number of births in May resulted in a natural decrease of 6,413. The natural decrease shrank by 1,690 from the same month last year (8,103). The last time there was a "natural increase" was in April 2019. Regions that saw a "natural increase," where births outnumbered deaths, were three provinces and cities: Gyeonggi, Ulsan, and Sejong. Three cities that saw a natural increase in April—Seoul, Incheon, and Daejeon—turned to a natural decrease.
Meanwhile, divorces in May totaled 7,122, the lowest in 29 years since 1997. Compared with the same month a year earlier, they fell 3.9% (290). An official at the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) said, "Marriage is a leading indicator of divorce, and the number of marriages fell during COVID, which had an impact."