Asian Population Studies

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EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY

PUZZLE

Thomas Anderson & Hans-Peter Kohler

To cite this article: Thomas Anderson & Hans-Peter Kohler (2013) EDUCATION FEVER
AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE, Asian Population Studies, 9:2, 196-215, DOI:
10.1080/17441730.2013.797293

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Published online: 19 Jun 2013.

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Asian Population Studies, 2013
Vol. 9, No. 2, 196215, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441730.2013.797293

EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN

FERTILITY PUZZLE
A case study of low fertility in South Korea

Thomas Anderson and Hans-Peter Kohler

Fertility throughout East Asia has fallen rapidly over the last five decades and is now below the
replacement rate of 2.1 in every country in the region. Using South Korea as a case study, we
argue that East Asia’s ultra-low fertility rates can be partially explained by the steadfast parental
drive to have competitive and successful children. Parents throughout the region invest large
amounts of time and money to ensure that their children are able to enter prestigious universities
and obtain top jobs. Accordingly, childrearing has become so expensive that the average couple
cannot afford to have more than just one or two children. The trend of high parental investment
in child education, also known as ‘education fever’, exemplifies the notion of ‘quality over
quantity’ and is an important contributing factor to understanding low-fertility in East Asia.

KEYWORDS: education fever; Korea; low fertility; quality-quantity trade-off; East Asia

Background
Recent fertility increases in Europe over the last 10 years have somewhat
ameliorated the concerns about low fertility and its implications for population ageing
and declining population sizes. These increases in total fertility rate (TFR) and related
fertility measures have been interpreted by many as offering a more optimistic outlook for
the demographic trends in Europe and some other highly developed countries.
Specifically, fertility rates in all but one European country have emerged from ‘lowest-
low’ fertility (TFR of 1.3 or less), and many countries seem likely to experience further
fertility increases (Goldstein, Sobotka, & Jasilioniene, 2009; Kohler, Billari, & Ortega, 2002;
Myrskylä, Kohler, & Billari, 2009). These increases have been documented in both period
and cohort fertility. While some European countries (e.g. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark)
have regained TFR levels near replacement level fertility after sustained periods of lower
fertility, others countries persist with relatively low fertility levels*even if it is higher than
the TFR levels observed in the 1990s and 2000s (e.g. Spain, Italy, and Portugal). Although
low fertility in Europe will, in all likelihood, continue to be an important topic for social
scientists and policy makers, from today’s perspective, it seems reasonable to predict that
most countries in Europe, as well as the continent as a whole, have experienced their
‘natality nadir’ in terms of the all-time lowest TFR levels, and that future fertility is likely to
be higher*and in many cases, substantially higher*than the levels observed during the

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 197

last 20 years.1 One manifestation of this expectation, for instance, is reflected in the most
recent UN World Population Prospects, which assume a long-term convergence of TFR to
near-replacement level, a revision from earlier forecasts that assumed a convergence to a
persistent below-replacement TFR (United Nations, 2011).
The renewed modest optimism towards the future of European fertility stems from
recent literature pointing to childbearing postponement (a form of tempo change) as the
culprit for Europe’s natality nadir (Goldstein et al., 2009; Kohler et al., 2002; Kohler, Billari, &
Ortega, 2006) and analyses that suggest that TFR levels might be pushed upward through
quantum increases in the most advanced countries (Myrskylä et al., 2009), especially when
high levels of development are combined with high levels of gender equality (Myrskylä,
Kohler, & Billari, 2011). According to Goldstein et al. (2009, abstract), ‘formerly lowest-low
fertility countries will continue to see increases in fertility as the transitory effects of shifts
to later childbearing become less important’. This trend may be reinforced if there are
indeed quantum increases that elevate fertility from very low levels as countries reach
higher development levels. These claims are supported by new cohort fertility forecasts
from Myrskylä, Goldstein, and Cheng (2012) which show that cohort fertility has stopped
falling and will likely increase in many developed countries, including places most known
for and frequently studied because of their low fertility such as Italy, Germany, and Russia.
Like Europe, period fertility in East Asian countries has probably reached its all-time
low. Key demographic indicators provide evidence that tempo changes due to postponed
marriage and childbearing have had, and continue to have, profound impacts on the
region’s low fertility rate. The mean age of first marriage, which has risen across the region
over the last 15 years, is likely attributable to the fact that East Asian women now study
longer and enter the labour force at a later age. Given the close link between marriage and
childbearing in East Asia, the age at first birth has essentially changed in tandem with the
age at first marriage (Suzuki, 2003). Increased standards of living and opportunities for
social mobility make one’s ’20s a time to travel, grow, and seize opportunities for career
advancement. In fact, Choe and Retherford (2009) note that single [Korean] women are
likely to invest more time in their work in order to improve their chances to return to it
after raising children, thus resulting in marriages at even later ages. Given that East Asian
women are able to work and lead financially solvent lives, many do not feel the degree of
financial pressure they once did to ‘rush into marriage’.
One of the possible effects of the postponement transition in East Asia (i.e., women
marrying and concomitantly having children at later ages) is the temporary lowering of the
region’s TFRs to all-time lows of 1.08 in Korea (2005), 0.9 in Hong Kong (2003), 1.15 in
Singapore (2010), 1.26 in Japan (2006), and 0.9 in Taiwan (2010) (World Bank, 2011). While
these short- and medium-term trends are similar to those that have been observed in
Europe, East Asian countries are distinct in the longer-term magnitude of their fertility
declines.
In sharp contrast to Europe, where lowest-low levels of fertility were primarily driven
by childbearing postponement (Goldstein et al., 2009) and have risen due to fertility
recuperation among older ages (Myrskylä et al., 2012), cohort fertility has fallen
dramatically throughout East Asia. As Frejka, Jones, and Sardon (2010, p. 588) state,
‘very few of the postponed births [have been] recuperated’ and as a result, completed
cohort fertility rates are ‘as low as, or lower than, the lowest rates in Europe’ (Frejka et al.,
2010, p. 602). Frejka et al.’s findings are confirmed by Myrskylä et al.’s (2012) cohort fertility
projections which project that the East Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan, and
198 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

Singapore will experience further declines in completed cohort fertility (below 1.4 for the
1979 birth cohort), and that Japan’s CFR will plateau at a very low 1.45.
The following Figure 1 dissects the Korean fertility decline by looking at percentages
of completed fertility parities for women born between 1930 and 1960. According to the
figure, of the women born between 1930 and 1934 (most of whom entered their
childbearing years in the 1950s/1960s), 95.3% had one child or more, while about 90% had
two children or more, 83% had three children or more, 68% had four children or more, and
46% had five or more children. When looking at completed fertility of 5-year age cohorts
from 1935 to 1960, we note that the percentage of women with at least one child
decreased only slightly (from 95% to 93%), while the percentage of families with (at least)
two children fell moderately, the percentage of three children families decreased
drastically, and families of four children or more fell to nearly zero. Figure 1 thus
documents the well-known pattern of stopping behaviour after the first birth as the
primary driving force behind the Korean fertility decline in cohorts born during 1930
1960, rather than an increase in the fraction of women foregoing motherhood (though
childlessness has slightly risen during the period). For cohorts born after 1955, there is a
clear shift towards single or two-child families, in sharp contrast to cohorts born around
1930 that had fairly high fertility.
In this paper we seek to explain why East Asia, the region at the lowest end of the
fertility spectrum, has experienced such dramatic and continual declines in fertility. We first
discuss how East Asian family structures and gender norms have impacted the region’s
fertility transition. We then turn to a crucial piece of the East Asian fertility puzzle:
education fever. Education fever, and by extension, ‘competitiveness fever’ and ‘English
fever’, refers to the high parental investment in education by East Asian parents. In such
ultra-competitive, status-driven societies, the cost of raising children in many East Asian
countries has become so high that many couples are turning to single or two-child
families.
Proportions at Different Parities of Completed
Births to Women Born 1930–1960
1
.8
.6
.4
.2
0

1930 1940 1950 1960

Year

First Birth Second Birth

Third Birth Fourth Birth
Fifth Birth

FIGURE 1
Proportions at different parities of completed births to women born 19301960.
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 199

Our analyses, data, and the majority of our discussion focus on South Korea (‘Korea’,
hereinafter) as a case study for East Asia. We concentrate on Korea because (1) Korea has
experienced the greatest fertility decline over the last five decades among OECD countries;
(2) Korea has the highest participation rates of private education in the region, making it
an exemplary case to study the relationship between low fertility and private education
expenditures2; and (3) the government-collected data on private education expenditures
in Korea is the most extensive in the region. Nonetheless, most of the topics covered in
this paper (such as familial structures and the relationship between private education and
low fertility) are widespread throughout East Asia. Private places of learning similar to the
Korean hagwon, for example, are frequented by the majority of children in Japan and
Taiwan (where they are known as ‘jukus’ and ‘buxibans’, respectively), and by a sizeable
fraction of children in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. While this paper uses Korea as a
case study for the region, it should be kept in mind that the link between having
successful offspring (achieved through high investment in education) and low fertility in
East Asia is widely recognised as a broad regional phenomenon in which various countries
share important commonalities (discussed in more detail below).

Fertility and Family Structures in Developed Countries

While Europe and East Asia can broadly be grouped together for having below-
replacement fertility, over the last few decades, we have witnessed a clear divide emerge
among below-replacement countries, separating them into countries with moderately low
fertility (TFR of 1.7 to 2.1), low fertility (1.31.7) and lowest-low fertility (under 1.3). 3
Moderately low fertility countries are primarily concentrated in Northern and Western
Europe while low and lowest-low fertility countries are found in Southern and Eastern
Europe and East Asia. Moreover, as it has been pointed out by other scholars, lowest-low
fertility has almost exclusively moved to Asia, with no lowest-low fertility country
remaining in Europe (with the exception of Moldova) as of 2008 (Goldstein et al., 2009).
While the intent of this paper is not to give a cross-country comparison on low-
fertility determinants, it is important to evince that many social dynamics and cultural
norms with regard to the family and gender equality in South Korea (and East Asia) parallel
those of Southern Europe and differ from those of Northern and Western Europe.
Specifically, scholars have pointed to a dichotomy of family structure within the developed
world over the last century: strong familism and weak familism. This dichotomy is closely
related to fertility levels, as countries with ‘strong familism’ almost always have low or
lowest-low fertility while countries with ‘weak familism’ typically have moderately low to
stable fertility. Table 1 contains noteworthy characteristics of societies with strong
familism and weak familism.
Societies with strong and weak familism are largely shaped by their defining
characteristics. As we later discuss, the feature of weak familism fosters a progressive and
egalitarian household environment that comfortably aligns with economic development
and social modernisation. This nurtures a childbearing-friendly society and provides a
partial explanation for why fertility is relatively high in countries with weak familism. In
countries with strong familism, economic development and social modernisation clash
with traditionalism in the household. This clash creates an environment in which women
face obstacles in balancing home and work life.
200 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

TABLE 1
Characteristics of societies with weak and strong familism.

Strong familism Weak familism

. Late parental home move out (‘late . Premarital parental home move out (‘early
nest leaving’) nest leaving’)
. Traditional gender roles . High degree of individual autonomy
. Strong family ties . Lowered parental authority
. Very low out of wedlock births . Cohabitation common
. Cohabitation not very common . High use of childcare, babysitters, and
. Often linked to religion, ideology, or nannies
ethical and philosophical system . Housework is shared relatively equally by
(e.g. Confucianism, Catholicism) both men and women
. Mothers as primary caregivers . Moderately low or near replacement level
. Women take on household (TFR of 1.72.1) common
responsibilities . Northern and Western Europe
. Low (TFR of 1.31.7) or lowest-low
(TFR of or below 1.3) fertility levels
common
. Southern Europe, East Asia, Eastern
Europe

Source: Reher, 1998; Suzuki, 2008.

Women with children in countries with strong familism are almost always tasked
with being the primary caregivers, in charge of managing ‘unpaid work’ or household
tasks, and in many cases, expected to work. Balancing a job, a family, and daily household
chores is both physically and mentally taxing on women, and makes the prospects of
having a large family (three or more children) difficult. Furthermore, career-oriented,
individualistic women in countries with strong familism may perceive marriage and
childbearing as threatening, as they can interfere with women’s self-aspirations or goals.
As a result, women in societies with strong familism often delay marriage and childbearing
until later ages and in some cases, forego the two entirely.
Societies with weak familism, on the other hand, tend to foster environments in
which the mother and father can lead both domestic and professional lives. Government-
subsidised day-care and the hiring of babysitters and nannies are highly prevalent in
societies with weak familism. These ‘outside care’ sources take much of the burden off
mothers to act as the ‘primary caregiver’ and facilitate women in balancing their roles as
both workers and mothers. Additionally, the amount of household chores (‘unpaid work’)
is much more evenly split between men and women in societies with weak familism than
in those with strong familism, thus creating a less taxing situation for mothers.
Lastly, social norms regarding the institution of marriage vary in countries with weak
familism and strong familism. In the former, marriage still remains a strong institution but
is more of a formality or legal contract as opposed to a religious or social pathway
‘permitting’ one to cohabit and have children. As a result, cohabitation is quite normal and
out-of-wedlock births comprise a significant share (if not majority) of total births. In
societies with strong familism, conservative social norms dictate marriage as being an
important step before cohabiting or childbearing. This explains why countries with strong
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 201

familism have significantly lower levels of cohabitation and even lower levels of out-of-
wedlock births.
A growing body of literature supports the idea that in developed countries, a high
level of gender equality is essential in fostering a child friendly society. Myrskylä et al.
(2011, p. 4), for example, argue that very low fertility is most prevalent in countries ‘high in
health, income and education but low in gender equality’. Their argument appropriately
fits within the framework of strong and weak familism, as a society with the former is
characterised by a low degree of gender equality and very low fertility and a society with
the latter tends to have high gender equality and relatively high fertility.
In Table 2, four countries with strong familism (e.g. South Korea, Japan, Italy, and
Spain)4 are compared with four countries with weak familism (Denmark, Finland, Norway,
and Sweden) using key characteristics.
Like other countries with strong familism, Korea also has very conservative traditions
with regard to household and gender roles. The country has experienced economic
prosperity over the last 50 years, but despite the technological, economic, and social
advances, Korea still harbours high gender inequality and long-established social norms.
As highlighted, based on the recent theories and empirical evidence that points to gender
equality as an important factor facilitating moderately low, rather than very low or lowest-

TABLE 2
Key characteristics of strong and weak familism in selected countries.

% Living at
TFR Home: Ages Unpaid Work % Enrollment Rate Out- Global Gender
Country 2009 1529 Difference of-school Child Care Gap Index 2010

Sweden 1.94 22.2 72 84.2 4

Norway 1.98 27.6 73 71 2
Denmark 1.84 23.9 57 87.8 7
Finland 1.86 15.5 91 26 3
Italy 1.41 73.2 223 3.8 74
Spain 1.4 64.2 187 7.4 11
Japan 1.37 66.5 210 11.2 94
South Korea 1.27 68 182 2.6 104

Note: The ‘percentage of 1529 year olds living at home’ illustrates that nest leaving occurs later in societies
with strong familism and earlier in others. The difference in unpaid work indicates how many more minutes
women spend a day doing household chores than men. The enrollment percentage of ‘out-of-school’
childcare refers to the use of non-parental childcare, and sheds light on the high use of outside source
childcare in countries with weak familism and the low use of outside source childcare in countries with
strong familism. The data were nationally collected and compiled by the OECD, though the age ranges
corresponding to each country vary slightly (610 years old in Italy, 68 in Korea, 611 in Japan, 35
in Spain, 79 in Finland, 68 in Denmark and Sweden, and 310 in Norway). Lastly, the Global Gender Gap
Index, a measure of gender inequality, indicates the ‘rank’ of each country (out of 192 countries, 1 being the
most gender equal country and 192 being the least). The fertility rate of each country is included to stress that
countries with weak familism have much higher fertility than countries with strong familism.
Sources:
TFR: World Bank (2011).
% Living at Home: European and World Values Survey, 1999 (Denmark), 2005 (Italy, Japan, South Korea,
Finland), 2006 (Sweden), 2007 (Spain and Norway).
Unpaid Work Difference: OECD, 2010.
% Enrollment rate: Out-of-school childcare: OECD, 2011a, OECD, 2011b;
Global Gender Gap Index: Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi, 2010.
202 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

low fertility in developed societies (McDonald, 2002; Myrskylä et al., 2011), this ‘clash’
between economic development/social modernisation and household traditionalism
foments a society almost destined to persistently have very low fertility rates.
Korean mothers primarily hold the responsibility for raising their children. This
deeply rooted norm, coupled with a lack of public childcare facilities and high childcare
costs, makes it difficult for the average woman to evade this societal expectation.
Additionally, Korean women assume responsibility for the majority of rudimentary
household tasks from cooking to cleaning (Jones, 2011). After the 1997 financial crisis,
Korean men who once insisted on being the sole breadwinner came to realise the financial
advantage of a working wife and began to favour employed women when searching for a
wife (Eun, 2007). This not only made it more socially acceptable for women to work but
also encouraged them to do so. Now, women who decide to marry and have children often
find it physically and mentally strenuous to raise multiple children while also having to
manage the majority of household chores and in many cases, work a job (see Caldwell &
Caldwell, 2005). The obstacle faced by mothers to balance their work and home lives*
stemming mainly from high gender inequality*exerts an immeasurable yet undoubtedly
important influence on Korea’s low fertility rate.
Familial traditionalism and gender inequality are not particular to Korea but can also
be found in other highly economically and technologically advanced countries. Many
Southern and Eastern European countries, along with most East Asian countries, enjoy
highly modernised economies but still manifest strong familism. Women in these regions
are faced with the same difficulties as women in Korea, namely that of balancing a job and
childcare. Yet, while fertility in Southern and Eastern Europe is very low, both period and
cohort fertility seemed to have stopped falling in these regions (Myrskylä et al., 2012) and
have never reached the lowest points as experienced in East Asia. Why is fertility saliently
lower in East Asia than in Southern and Eastern Europe, where fertility levels have recently
risen above the ‘lowest-low’ TFR threshold of 1.3?
The title of this article refers to East Asian fertility as a ‘puzzle’ because the literature
on the topic lacks a thorough and compelling explanation for why East Asian families have
experienced continual declines in family size. Popular media and various academic sources
speculatively point to the high cost of raising children as driving low fertility, but none has
been able to provide a convincing case for their suspicions, and careful empirical analyses
are scarce. The remainder of this paper draws upon recently published quantitative and
qualitative data to add credibility to the argument that the high costs invested in one’s
offspring, specifically in their education, partially explain why East Asian fertility persists at
such a low level. As stated, most of our analyses and discussion are centred on Korea,
though these driving factors of low fertility and more generally, the notion of ‘quality over
quantity’ regarding family size, is similarly pervasive throughout East Asia.

The Missing Piece to the Korean Fertility Puzzle: Education Fever,

English Fever, and Competitiveness Fever
Obsession with education in Korea has become an integral part of contemporary
Korean culture and affects all aspects of social life. Deeply rooted Confucian values stress
education as the best way for achieving high social status and economic prosperity (Seth,
2002). Park (2009) argues that more recently, a collapse of the hierarchical social class
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 203

system coupled with egalitarian ideas from the West have created the notion that any
Korean child can achieve personal advancement, economic prosperity, and social mobility
through education. Korean parents widely recognise this and see it as their duty to
provide their children with the proper educational resources and support in order to
produce successful and competitive children. In the mid 1970s as part of their family
planning project, even the Korean government adopted the notion of ‘quality over
quantity’ with colourful and creative ‘population propaganda’ exclaiming: ‘Daughter or
son, let’s not think about which. Just have two and raise them well’ (J. Lee, 2009).
The 1997 economic crisis in Korea is commonly noted for intensifying Korea’s
competitive environment (see, for example, Eun, 2007; Park, 2009). During this time,
according to Eun (2007, p. 7), ‘[job] uncertainty was endemic’ and standing out as more
qualified than others was an absolute necessity in order to receive the best university
education and later obtain a well-paid and secure job.
Once illegal for allegedly ‘promoting social inequality’, hagwons, also known as
‘cram schools’ or ‘private after-school education centres’, were once again permitted by
the Korean government in the 1990s and have been exploding in popularity ever since.
Students attend hagwons after their regular school hours for additional training in all
subjects including math, writing, music, science, and perhaps the most common, English.
Hagwons are seen by many as crucial for admission to Korea’s utmost prestigious and elite
‘SKY’ universities (Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University).
Sending one’s child to after-school activities has become embedded in the Korean culture
as a social norm. In fact, over 75% of children in 2009 partook in some form of private
education (Korea National Statistical Office [KNSO], 2009). Parents who fail to send their
children to these additional lessons, i.e. breaking the norm, may even run the risk of being
classified as irresponsible or even neglectful parents (Lee, 2011).
Hagwons are notoriously expensive and as a result, they are often cited by parents in
popular media as a reason why they only have only one or two children (see ‘Qualitative
Support’ below). The social pressure to send one’s child or children to hagwons coupled
with the high cost of private education is likely to deter the idea of a big family. After all,
the more children in a family, the fewer financial resources are able to be delegated to
each child’s education and, as thought by many Korean parents, the less likely their
children will end up being ‘successful’. In an attempt to measure the effect of private
education expenditures on fertility behaviour, we correlate provincial average income
adjusted education expenditures with the respective regional TFRs for the year 2009.
First, we use data from the 2009 Survey of Private Education Expenditure (KNSO,
2009) which reports yearly expenditures on private education for the entire country of
Korea and each of its 16 provinces. While the average amount spent on monthly private
education expenditures equated to 240,000 won (US$208) per student in 2009, there was
great provincial variation in the amount spent, from 160,000 won (US$140) per student in
Jeonbuk to 321,000 won (US$278) in Seoul. The 2009 report on ‘Regional Income
Estimation’ from Statistics Korea reports the personal disposable income (PDI) for Korea as
a whole as well as for each of the 16 provinces. The data also shows great variability
among the different provinces, as the average family in Seoul had nearly 15,800,000 won
(US$13,700) while the average family’s personal disposable income in Jeonnam was just
11,104,000 won (US$9,600). In order to account for provincial income differences, we
divide the average monthly private education expenditure by the personal disposable
204 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

income for each of the 16 Korean provinces and the country as a whole, thus yielding the
percentage of personal disposable income spent on private education.
There are various reasons why we focus on a provincial analysis to explain the effects
of private education expenditures on fertility as opposed to examining the relationship on
a cross-country analysis. First, Korea is largely homogeneous which makes widely differing
cultural or societal norms across different provinces unlikely. Second, competition to enter
university is countrywide; it is equally difficult for all students to be accepted into
university and therefore private education to enhance competitiveness is ‘equally
necessary’ across all provinces. Third, the tax structure and governmental investment in
education is uniform for Korea; the risk of inaccurately comparing public and private
investments in education in proportion to tax structure and income differences across
multiple countries would be relatively high.
We perform a linear regression analysis using the TFR of each province, provided by
Statistics Korea upon request, and the provincial percent of income spent on private
education. The scatter plot with the regression coefficient is found below in Figure 2.
The regression scatter plot (Figure 2) suggests that after income adjustment, regions
in which parents spend more on education tend to have fewer children than regions
where parents spend less on their children’s education. This relationship strengthens our
hypothesis that there exists a relationship between private education expenditures and
fertility, where an increase in the former is associated with a decrease in the latter.5
Next, in an attempt to examine the relationship between family size and education
expenditures, we correlate parity percentages (i.e. the percentage of women with one, two
three, etc. children) with income adjusted private education expenditures by province. For
this purpose, we gathered data from the 2005 Korean census and calculate the percent

13
1.4

11
16

10 7 15
Total Fertility Rate (2009)

12 14
9
8
1.2

6
17
5 4

3
1

1
2
.8

12 14 16 18 20 22
% of Household Personal Disposable Income Spent on Private Education

PROVINCES: 1-Seoul 2-Busan 3-Daegu 4-Incheon 5-Gwangju 6-Daejeon 7-Ulsan 8-Gyeonggi 9-Gangwon
10-Chungbuk 11-Chungnam 12-Jeonbuk 13-Jeonnam 14-Geongbuk 15- Gyeongnam 16-Jeju 17-South Korea

FIGURE 2
Percentage of personal disposable income spent on private education and provincial total
fertility rates.
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 205

parities of women aged 4549 years in each of the Korean provinces used in Figure 1
(KNSO, 2005).6 Since the hypothesis is that ‘private education expenditures make it
financially difficult for families to have more than a couple children’, we group the first and
second parity percentages and the third, fourth and fifth parity percentages to form two
aggregate statistical groups.7 We then correlate the provincial income adjusted private
education expenditures with the two groups of parity percentages (‘first and second’ and
‘third or higher’). The results are presented in Figure 3.
Furthermore, Figure 3 supports our hypothesis that private education expenditures
discourage couples from having families with more than two children. From the figure, we
note that families in provinces with a greater concentration of small families (one or two
children) spend, on average, more of their PDI on their children’s education while families
in provinces with a greater concentration of large families (three or more children) spend
much less of their PDI on their children’s education. In other words, regions with higher
percentages of families with one or two children correlate positively with higher
percentages of PDI spent on private education. Conversely, the concentration of large
families correlates negatively with higher average spending on private education.
When examining the scatter plot in Figure 2, the provinces of Gyeonggi (8) and
Busan (2) stand out as outliers to the relationship. In the province of Gyeonggi, both the
birth rate and the private education expenditure are relatively high (a deviation from our
‘high(er) expenditure, low(er) fertility’ relationship). On the other hand, the province of
Busan has extremely low fertility with a relatively low per household payout on private
education expenditures. Geographic location and internal migration are two possible
factors to explain why Busan and Gyeonggi deviate from the linear relationship.
Gyeonggi sits in the northern part of South Korea and was home to Seoul until 1943
when the nation’s capital administratively separated to form a ‘special city’. While Seoul is

% of Income Spent on Private Education and Parity Births by Province

7 2 4 1 8
.8

3
6
17
15
10 14
11 9 5
12
.6
Parity Percentages

1613
.4

13
12 16
11 5
10 9
.2

14
15
17 6 3
7 2 4 8
1
0

12 14 16 18 20 22
% of Household Personal Disposable Income Spent on Private Education

First or Second Parity Third or Higher Parity

PROVINCES: 1-Seoul 2-Busan 3-Daegu 4-Incheon 5-Gwangju 6-Daejeon 7-Ulsan 8-Gyeonggi 9-Gangwon
10-Chungbuk 11-Chungnam 12-Jeonbuk 13-Jeonnam 14-Geongbuk 15- Gyeongnam 16-Jeju 17-South Korea

FIGURE 3
Percentage of personal disposable income spent on private education expenditures and
percent parity groups of women aged 4549 by province.
206 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

the country’s financial and political hub, it lacks the abundance of space and security
needed to create a family-friendly environment. For this reason, there has been a trend for
married couples in their ‘prime childbearing years’ (twenties to thirties) to relocate to the
suburbs of Seoul (located in Gyeonggi) to start their families while commuting to work in
Seoul (KNSO, 2010). In 2010 alone, the province of Gyeonggi ‘gained’ 142,437 people while
Seoul ‘lost’ more than 115,000 of its citizens, mostly to Gyeonggi (KNSO, 2010). The influx
of married Seoulite couples to Gyeonggi, many of whom probably have children shortly
after moving, is a likely reason why fertility is ostensibly higher in Gyeonggi than in Seoul.
Similarly, the southern port city of Busan separated in 1963 from Gyeongnam to
become its own ‘distinct administrative entity’ or province. Busan, like Seoul, has a large
urban to suburban migration pattern of those in their childbearing years; from 2005 to
2010, over 80,000 of Busan’s residents relocated to the ‘suburbs’ in the province of
Gyeongnam (KNSO, 2010). The notion that couples in Korea’s two largest cities, Seoul and
Busan, leave the big cities to have children in the ‘satellite cities’ naturally boosts the
fertility rates in their suburbs (Gyeonggi and Gyeongnam, respectively) while having an
equal but opposite effect on the fertility rates in the cities.

Qualitative Support
From the quantitative results above, it is evident that there exist statistically
significant relationships between (1) private education expenditures and TFRs by province
and (2) private education expenditures by region and family size. In addition to these
relationships, various surveys and interviews strongly reinforce the hypothesis that private
education expenditures lower the average Korean couple’s proclivity to have more than
just one or two children.
J. Lee (2009) quotes a report from the Korea Institute for Health and Social Issues
which stated that ‘economic climate is one of the factors’ that has ‘especially played a role
in people’s delaying or giving up on having children’.
A survey by the Korean National Statistics Office asked householders about the
‘difficulties in educating primary school students’ (KNSO, 2007). More than 77% of the
respondents reported the ‘burden of expense in private education and daily life’ as
the main difficulty in educating primary school students, followed by 9% who said the
main difficulty in educating primary school students was ‘balancing between children and
social life’.
The most recent social survey from the Korean National Statistics Office (KNSO, 2011)
polled the ‘awareness of child education expenditure burden’ in Korea. The survey
revealed that 37.4% of respondents view education expenditures as a ‘heavy burden’, 40%
as a ‘substantial burden’, 16.6% as ‘average’ and only 5% as ‘slightly or not a burden’.
Personal accounts in mainstream media along with documented interviews also
consistently report that the extreme cost of raising children causes couples to make the
conscious decision to stop having more than one or two children. For example, a 2011
article in Channel NewsAsia cites Noo Suh Kyung, a housewife with two children, who says
that ‘It’s very difficult to raise two children. We thought about a third child but after doing
the calculations and realising how much it would cost to raise three children all the way to
college, we knew it would be impossible. And so we gave up the idea’ (Lim, 2011). In the
same article, Lee Ko Woon, a Korean mother of one, states that ‘I don’t think we can have
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 207

more children. It just costs so much to educate them. The government is offering no
incentives and yet it keeps urging people to have more children’ (Lim, 2011).
Lastly, a 2012 survey by the Health Ministry showed that nine out of 10 people in
Korea say the country’s low fertility rate is ‘serious, but [people] are reluctant to have
children due to financial problems’ (Ji-Sook, 2012). Respondents of the survey said
‘education costs including private education fees was the most burdensome expense’, and
as Ji-Sook (2012) explains, they ‘found it hard to balance family and work’.

English Fever and Competitiveness Fever

The phenomena of ‘English fever’ and ‘competitiveness fever’ merit discussion in this
paper because they shed further light on the parental fervour to produce successful
children. As touched upon earlier, the 1997 Asian financial crisis intensified the
competitive environment in Korea (Eun, 2007) and has led parents to take over-the-top
measures to ensure their children are competitive and do not have to face the economic
hardships they did. The extent to which parents go in their attempts to create successful
children has transcended the formal educational realm and is now the root cause of two
Korean cultural peculiarities known as the ‘geese father phenomenon’ and ‘competitive
parenting’.
To best understand the reasoning behind the ‘geese father phenomenon’, one must
understand the importance of the English language in contemporary Korean culture.
Speaking English in Korea is not simply a chic status symbol anymore, but a necessary
qualification to stand out in the job market. Park (2009) identifies three historical reasons
why Koreans see fluency in English as so important: first, the Korean government has
instituted a number of policy changes which have placed a greater emphasis on learning
English. Among these include the introduction of a listening section to the national
college entry examinations and a shift from more ‘grammar-based’ exams to exams based
on ‘communicative English’. Second, according to Park (2009, p. 52), the introduction of
English ‘in all [Korean] elementary schools’ in 1995 prompted parents to seek out-of-school
resources such as ‘English-only private institutions, English learning materials for kids, and
English conversation services’. And third, the Seoul Olympic Games and 1997 Korean
financial crisis illustrated how important a solid grasp on the English language was in a
globalised world. As a result, the ‘English fever’ phenomenon has gripped Korea, causing
some people to take unique, almost eccentric steps to ensure their children speak English
fluently.
The Korean phenomenon of ‘girogi appa’, or ‘(wild) geese fathers’, refers to a
growing number of Korean fathers who send their children and wives to English-speaking
countries while retaining their jobs in Korea (Eun, 2007). The geese fathers generally visit
(or ‘migrate to’) their families on a yearly basis. While no official numbers exist, a recent
New York Times article estimates that a staggering 40,000 South Korean schoolchildren
live abroad with their mothers while their fathers work in Korea (Onishi, 2008). Geese
families reflect the sacrifices made by Korean parents to ensure that their children are
multilingual and receive a ‘competitive edge’ through a foreign education, as ‘foreign
diplomas are often regarded as superior to a Korean education’ (Eun, 2007, p. 11).
Within Korea, English fever has even led to what some call ‘competitive parenting’.
Because Korean parents see their children’s success as a reflection of their parental efforts,
208 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

parents compete amongst themselves to enrol their children in the best hagwons, English
language courses, or day-care centres. As Shin Dongpyo states in a televised PBS special
on education in Korea, ‘You see your neighbor’s kid speak better English than your kid, and
you try to figure out what kind of English program he is getting and what kind of kindergarten
he is attending. You have figured it out, and you send your kid to same kindergarten*that
kind of competition going on’ (PBS, 2011). Competitive parenting itself illustrates the broad
cultural notion that parents can take certain measures to ensure their offspring attain high
social and economic status.

Education Fever in Other Parts of East Asia

Though the following surveys and data are not standardised and therefore cross-
country enrolment rates cannot be compared, they provide credence to the claim that
education fever is indeed ubiquitous throughout East Asia: in Hong Kong, surveys
conducted in 2009 indicate that about 72.5% of primary students and 85% of secondary
students received some form of private tutoring (Caritas, 2010; Ngai & Cheung, 2010). An
education panel survey in Taipei (Taiwan) found that approximately 73% of grade seven
students were receiving about 6.5 hours per week of private tutoring (Liu, 2012). Although
official statistics in Singapore do not exist, Tan (2009) notes that the ‘phenomenon has
been prevalent in Singapore for decades’*a statement which is corroborated by a 2008
newspaper poll which found that 97% of students were receiving some kind of private
tutoring (Bray & Lykins, 2012; Toh, 2008). While in Japan, a survey found that 65.2% of
junior secondary three students attended juku (Japanese cram schools) in 2007 (Ministry of
Education and Training, 2008, p. 13).
Like education fever, English fever is endemic throughout East Asia (Bray, 2003;
Krashen, 2006). ‘In Taiwan and elsewhere’, writes Witton-Davies (2006, p. 2), ‘[people] have
been starting English earlier, sending children to extra classes (‘cram schools’), hiring tutors
and studying abroad’. Liu (2002) calls studying English a ‘national obsession’ in Taiwan,
while Chang (2003) notes the eagerness of parents to sign their kids up for English classes
in kindergarten or grade one. In Hong Kong, English is presumed to be in greatest demand
because it is ‘not only [important] as a subject but also as a medium of instruction for
other subjects’ (Bray & Kwock, 2003, p. 614). While cram schools in Japan do teach English,
the Japanese are not as fervent about learning English as their East Asian counterparts.
Though these two trends are widespread within East Asia, Takayasu (2003, 2005)
argues that there is significant variation in the intensity of education obsession
throughout the region. Behind this variation lie cultural, demographic, and economic
factors.
Many isolated cultural elements make education fever ‘hotter’ in some Asian
countries. In Korea’s case, many scholars consider Korea as the ‘most Confucius’ country in
East Asia (Berthrong & Berthrong, 2002), so it should come as little surprise that one of the
pillars of Confucianism, education, is likewise strongest in Korea. For Japan, the notoriously
independent-minded attitude of the Japanese toward the rest of the world may explain
why they are less fanatical about learning English (Beck & Dujarric, 2010; Park, 2009).
Differences in living standards between individuals with different educational attainment
levels are more pronounced in some societies, particularly in Hong Kong and Singapore,
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 209

making the ‘rewards from extra levels of schooling, and from supplementary tutoring . . .
greater in some Asian societies’ (Bray, 1999, p. 30).
Second, as Takayasu (2003) suggests, demography may help explain why Japan’s
case of education fever has ‘cooled down’ over the last decade and a half in comparison
with other countries in the region. Japan’s fertility rate has been below-replacement over a
long period of time (since 1974), which invariably translates into smaller birth cohorts and
reduced competition for university spots. Compared to Japan, fertility rates (and sizes of
birth cohorts) declined more recently in other East Asian countries, the educational
environment remains very competitive, and demand for additional private, out-of-school
tutoring remains strikingly high.
Lastly, related to Dore’s hypothesis (1976) that late development is linked with a
greater societal emphasis on education, the ‘compressed’ development stories of the
Asian Tigers differ from that of Japan, which, while also considered a ‘latecomer to
industrialization’, was an ‘economic superpower long before South Korea’ (Takayasu, 2003,
p. 204). In the ‘Tiger countries’ (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea), intergenera-
tional experiences regarding wealth and opportunities have been starkly different for the
pre-development (before 1960s), in-transition (1960s1980s), and post-development
(1990spresent) generations. The oldest generation (‘the grandparents’ of today) grew
up in an impoverished environment lacking economic opportunity and social mobility; the
sandwich generation (‘the parents’) were born into a world of social and economic
transition in which the value of education became an overtly important requisite for
success in a country with more people than well-paid jobs; and today’s children and teens
have inherited their parents’ (the ‘sandwich’ generation’s) education fever mentality.
Interestingly, similar patterns are occurring in Eastern Europe, where the fall of socialism
and the subsequent prospect of greater and faster social mobility have led to a ‘rapidly
spreading’ phenomenon of private tutoring (Silova, 2010).
As we have highlighted with regard to Myrskylä et al.’s (2012) cohort fertility
projections, a unique feature regarding fertility in Japan is its expected plateauing, as
opposed to further (expected) declines in fertility in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Explaining these trends in fertility behaviour may be a result of these cultural,
demographic and economic factors. Less intense education fever due to a lesser emphasis
on Confucian values, smaller birth cohorts and less competition, and weaker intergenera-
tional differences in wealth may explain why parents in Japan are less zealous about
producing ultra-competitive kids. This comparatively lower level of competition may
explain why family size is not expected to shrink further in Japan.

Discussion and Conclusions

High household gender inequality prevalent in Korea (and East Asia) discourages
educated, career-oriented and independent females from seeking marriage. Women who
do decide to marry often find themselves carrying a ‘double burden’ of working and
managing the majority of household tasks (or ‘unpaid work’), making the prospects of a
large family both stressful and unmanageable (Kim, 2005). These difficulties are faced by
women in Southern European societies with strong familism where fertility is also very low,
but not as low as Korean fertility.
210 THOMAS ANDERSON AND HANS-PETER KOHLER

Because Korean parents take a larger responsibility in their offspring’s future success
compared to Western parents, the notion of ‘quality over quantity’ is presumably more
pervasive and influential in determining family size in the country. Given the high social
pressure felt by parents to invest large amounts of time and money in their child(ren)’s
education, Korean parents often find it difficult and discouraging to have more than one
or two children, despite the fact that desired family size for young adults has hovered
around two for the last three decades (Jun, 2005; Nishimura, 2012). Thus, what separates
Korea from low-fertility countries in the West, similar in economic development and
familial structure, is the steadfast parental drive to produce super-educated, competitive
children. In such a competitive country, the average Korean parents are often willing to
forego their ideal family size for fewer children so that they can maximise their children’s
success later in life.
The constant pressure felt by Korean parents to ensure that their children lead
successful lives drives parents to spend large amounts of time and money on their
offspring. Korean parents simply wish the best for their children’s futures; the measures
they take to produce competitive children, now both within and outside of the academic
realm, are intended to put their children on a successful path.
What will the future hold for fertility in Korea? Above all, one must bear in mind that
the reduction in the pace of postponement could increase fertility rates slightly by
reducing tempo effects. Additionally, new governmental provisions to create a child-
friendly environment will likely raise the fertility rate if the measures are successful in
making it easier for women to balance a work and home life.
Yet, as the ‘competition’ for university spots is only relative and the labour market is
inelastic, high test scores or the ability to speak English mean little if everyone else has
similar qualifications.8 It is this principle which has driven and will continue to drive
parents to participate in over-the-top practices to ensure that their children will
outperform, outscore, and out-qualify the rest.
Further research is likely to confirm our presumption that the relationship between
low fertility and expenditures on private education is applicable to other countries in the
region, as parents in many other East Asian countries anecdotally stress ‘quality over
quantity’ more than Western parents, place very high importance on education in their
children’s lives, and take measures similar to those that Koreans take to ensure that their
children are successful and competitive. If the notion of child quality over quantity is
indeed more intense in East Asia than the rest of the developed world, are East Asian
countries destined to persistently have the world’s lowest fertility rates?9

NOTES
1. Fertility across most of Europe has declined slightly since the onset of the recession. A
careful analysis by Sobotka, Skirbekk, and Philipov (2011), however, suggests that these
declines are likely to have been caused primarily by childbearing postponement as
opposed to quantum changes.
2. In fact, a 2011 Time Magazine article titled ‘Teacher, leave those kids alone’ even
mentions that compared to other parts of Asia, Koreans have taken education to ‘new
extremes’ (Ripley, 2011). The article also quotes the Singaporean Education Minister, who
when asked about Singapore’s reliance on private education last year, responded
optimistically that ‘We’re not as bad as the Koreans’ (Ripley, 2011).
 EDUCATION FEVER AND THE EAST ASIAN FERTILITY PUZZLE 211

3. We use the UN definition of East Asia: China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
4. We use these four countries with strong familism because they represent the two regions
where strong familism is most prevalent, East Asia and Southern Europe.
5. It is generally recognised that high housing costs in Korea are a large financial drain on
families, though we found no significant correlation between housing costs (as measured
by a 2009 Housing Price Index) and regional TFRs.
6. It can be said with much certainty that the females in the studied age cohort (4549)
have completed childbearing.
7. As so few families have more than five children, it is statistically insignificant to use above
the fifth parity percent.
8. Indeed, Korean students have achieved very high test scores. In fact, Korean ‘education
fever’ has given the country the top spot on the PISA Education literacy comparison
(OECD, 2011a).
9. This paper does not examine the possibility of the Easterlin effect on the future of South
Korean fertility. Pampel and Peters (1995, abstract) concisely define the Easterlin effect as
‘cyclical changes in demographic and social behavior as the result of fluctuations in birth
rates and cohort size during the post-World War II period’. The Easterlin effect argues that
as cohort sizes fluctuate, so do family structures, income, career and education
competition, and fertility rates (Easterlin, 1973; Pampel & Peters, 1995; Waldorf &
Franklin, 2002). The ‘effect’ has received both praise and criticism and is said to be ‘mixed
at best and plain wrong at worst’ (Pampel & Peters, 1995). If the Easterlin effect were to
apply to Korea, the country would likely experience cyclical periods of high and low
fertility and thus the current period of lowest-low fertility would simply be an ephemeral
phase. Further research is needed to examine if smaller future cohort sizes will indeed
loosen competition in both the academic and labour realms. Furthermore, if smaller
cohorts have higher income, will the burden of educational expenditures be as high as it
currently is? And lastly, will social norms change to foster greater gender equality, a less
traditional family structure, and a more child-friendly environment? Such possibilities
would surely have consequences on the country’s fertility rate.

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wb/wdi/2011-04

Thomas Anderson, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718

Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Email: [email protected]
Hans-Peter Kohler, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718
Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.