South Korea moved from the highest to the lowest fertility among four peers

South Korea’s latest World Bank fertility reading is the lowest among the four countries shown here. That comparison is striking because the earliest observation puts Korea at the opposite end of the group. Read from within Korea, the change is a shift in the country’s own demographic profile across generations: the average number of births per woman is now far below its starting level. The large figure fixes the latest magnitude before the longer comparison begins.

The endpoints reverse the ranking

The comparison over time is best anchored at the ends of the World Bank series. At the beginning, Korea stood above Japan, Italy and China on fertility. In the latest observations, it stands below each of them. Look for that reversal between the first and last observations, while treating the intervening line as context rather than evidence for a particular pace. The comparison establishes a large long-run change and a changed ranking; it does not require a claim about when the movement was fastest.

A separate measure of age structure

A second indicator places that fertility comparison beside the population’s age composition. Older people account for about a fifth of South Korea’s population in the latest observation, compared with a much smaller share at the beginning of the series. The endpoint change is severalfold. Among the same countries in the latest observations, Korea has a lower older-population share than Japan and Italy, but a higher share than China. This is a comparison of measured shares, not a claim about the causes of either fertility or ageing.

Taken together, the endpoints show two features of Korea’s present demographic position: fertility is lowest in this group, while the older-population share sits between the older shares in Japan and Italy and the lower share in China. The historical starting points add perspective without assigning a cause. Korea changed from the group’s highest fertility starting point to its lowest latest point, and its older share is now many times its initial level. Those are the durable comparisons the World Bank indicators support.

South Korea changed from the highest to the lowest fertility among these four countries, while its older-population share rose severalfold between the first and latest observations.