Resolution criteria

The market resolves YES if South Korea's total fertility rate (children per woman) increases in 2026 compared to 2025. Resolution will be based on official data from Statistics Korea, published in early 2027. The fertility rate is measured as the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime based on age-specific birth rates for that calendar year.

Background

South Korea's fertility rate rose to 0.75 children per woman in 2024 from 0.72 in 2023, after eight consecutive years of decline from 1.24 in 2015. The rate reached 0.82 in the first quarter of 2025, up from 0.77 the year before, and rose to 0.85 in September 2025. Between January and September 2025, a total of 191,040 babies were born, an increase of 12,488 from the same period last year, marking the largest year-on-year gain for this timeframe since 2007.

Considerations

The larger cohorts of women born in the early 1990s are aging out of their childbearing years. From 2026 onward, they'll be replaced by smaller generations born after 1996, when births had already begun declining. This demographic shift could create headwinds for fertility rate growth despite continued increases in absolute birth numbers. Experts are unsure if the fertility momentum will persist, with some warning that the rebound appeared to be a post-pandemic blip and that "things can get worse if the economy deteriorates".