Birth rate in S. Korea falls for six months

Birth rate in South Korea continued to fall amid the trend of delaying marriage and postponing having children, a government report showed Tuesday.

The number of babies born in June was 33,400, down 12.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Statistics Korea.

It marked the sixth straight month that the country's childbirth declined. For the first six months of this year, the childbirth dropped 8.1 percent from the same period last year.

The low birth rate came as young people with the marriageable age sought increasingly to delay marriages and put off having children amid growing costs for rearing a child and daily livelihood.

The chronically low birthrate boosted concerns over a fall in working age population and its consequent damage to the country's growth potential as well as rising welfare expenses.