SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for efforts to tackle the isolated country’s falling birth rates, describing the challenge as “everyone’s housekeeping”, state media KCNA reported on Monday (Dec 4).
Kim made the comments during an event for mothers in Pyongyang on Sunday.
“Preventing a decline in birth rates and good childcare are all of our housekeeping duties we need to handle while working with mothers,” Kim said at the event.
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that as of 2023 the fertility rate, or the average number of children being born to a woman in North Korea, stood at 1.8, amid an extended fall in the rate during recent decades.
The fertility rate remains higher than in some of North Korea’s neighbours, which have been grappling with a similar downward trend.
Source: CNA
