An increasing number of South Korean women are choosing not to marry, not to have children, and not even to have relationships with men. With the lowest fertility rate in the world, the country's population will start shrinking unless something changes.


"I have no plans to have children, ever," says 24-year-old Jang Yun-hwa, as we chat in a hipsterish cafe in the middle of Seoul.
"I don't want the physical pain of childbirth. And it would be detrimental to my career."
Like many young adults in South Korea's hyper-competitive job market, Yun-hwa, a web comic artist, has worked hard to get where she is and isn't ready to let all that hard graft go to waste.
"Rather than be part of a family, I'd like to be independent and live alone and achieve my dreams," she says.
Yun-hwa isn't the only young Korean woman who sees career and family as mutually exclusive.
There are laws designed to prevent women being discriminated against for getting pregnant, or for just being of an age where that's a possibility - but in practice, unions say, they're not enforced.
The story of Choi Moon-jeong, who lives in one of Seoul's western suburbs, is a powerful illustration of the problem. When she told her boss she was expecting a child, she was shocked by his reaction.
"My boss said, 'Once you have a child your child is going to be your priority and the company will come second, so can you still work?'" Moon-jeong says.
"And he kept repeating this question."

Moon-jeong was working as a tax accountant at the time. As the busiest time of the year approached, her boss piled even more work on her - and when she complained, he said she lacked dedication. Eventually the tensions came to a head.
"He was yelling at me. I was sitting in my chair and, with all the stress, my body started convulsing and I couldn't open my eyes," says Moon-jeong, her open, freckly face crumpling into a frown.
"My co-worker called a paramedic and I was taken to hospital."
At the hospital the doctors told her that stress was bringing about signs of miscarriage.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45201725

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