SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's births grew for the 14th successive month in August amid higher marriages, statistical office data showed Wednesday.
The number of newborn babies rose 3.8 percent from a year earlier to 20,867 in August, continuing to go up since July last year, according to Statistics Korea.
The total fertility rate, or the number of children a woman is expected to bear during life, added 0.02 to 0.77 in the cited month, but it stayed far below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman to maintain a stable population.
The number of marriages spiked 11.0 percent to 19,449 in August on a yearly basis, but the number of divorces fell 5.5 percent to 7,196.
Concerns remained about the younger generation who delayed or gave up on having children owing to economic difficulties such as high housing prices, high education costs and stubborn youth unemployment.
The still low birth rate fueled worry about a demographic cliff, which refers to a sharp fall in the heads of households eventually leading to a consumption cliff. ■