SEOUL, April 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's births grew for a 20th successive month, showing signs of breaking away from the chronically low birth rate trend, statistical ministry data showed Wednesday.
The number of newborn babies jumped 13.6 percent from a year earlier to 22,898 in February, continuing to go up since July 2024, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
The total fertility rate, or the number of children a woman is expected to bear during life, added 0.10 to 0.93 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 decreased 4.2 percent to 18,557 in February on a yearly basis, and the number of divorces dropped 15.6 percent to 6,197.
The number of deaths shrank 3.5 percent to 29,172 in February compared to the same month of last year.
Affected by the still high deaths and low births, the natural population decline stood at 6,275 in the cited month. ■