[469 Professor’s Eye] Why Has the New Beginning Stalled? A Philosophical Reflection on Birth Rates

   Plato begins his vision of a just society in The Republic by analyzing the human soul. He argues that the soul consists of three parts—reason, spirit, and desire—and that justice within a person is achieved when these parts are balanced. He contends this inner structure mirrors a just city, where rulers (reason), guardians (spirit), and producers (desire) fulfill their proper roles. Thus, a just society begins with just individuals.

   Yet Plato makes clear just that individuals do not arise naturally. He emphasizes moral character requires proper education, cultivation, and social order. Laws, institutions, literature, music, and emotional disciplines are essential conditions for developing a just soul. Society, therefore, bears responsibility for nurturing just individuals. From this perspective, today’s low birth rate signals a structural failure in the community, a breakdown of conditions for young people to live balanced and meaningful lives.

   For decades, Korean society has framed low birth rates as a national crisis and economic threat. Fertility dropping below 1.0 is an annual headline, followed by government policy responses. But these discourses, focused on national competitiveness, neglect the lived realities of young adults. The real question is not why people are not having children, but why they cannot.

   Today’s young people are making decisions based on survival. Precarious employment, soaring housing and living costs, the collapse of caregiving networks, and the full burden of child rearing. In this context, childbirth is not a choice but a luxury, and the future of the community grows increasingly uncertain. As Heidegger put it, human beings are “thrown” into the world—yet the current generation finds itself thrown into a world that is steep, unstable, and unforgiving.

   Moreover, public discourse around low birth rates often imposes a moral duty on young people, urging them to “build families for the nation.” Reducing childbirth to public utility violates Kant’s ethical principle of human dignity. Childbirth is not something the state has a right to demand; it is a deeply personal decision based on an individual’s life conditions and meaning.

   More critically, the voices of young people are largely absent from public discussions on this issue. While policy seeks to “persuade” them, it rarely makes space to “think with” them. The belief that a lump-sum payment or a few months of parental leave can change the trajectory of a person’s life reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of young people’s realities. The solution lies not in surface-level incentives but in a thorough restructuring of the conditions of life itself.

   We must move beyond numerical goals and change the question entirely. Instead of asking, “Why are not people having children?” we might ask whether the question itself is flawed. Heidegger describes the human being as a being in-the-world (Dasein), a being whose meaning is revealed in its relationship with the world around it. Young people’s delaying or abandoning childbirth reflects the world they inhabit—a world that no longer makes space for new beginnings. This is not a matter of numbers, but of existential conditions.

   Hannah Arendt reminds us humans are natal beings, defined by their capacity to begin anew. A society unable to accommodate new beginnings inevitably grows silent and closed. The birth rate may thus be less an economic metric than a sign of trust in the future.

   Therefore, we must stop asking why the young do not reproduce. Instead, we must turn our gaze inward. Perhaps the young are not refusing to invite the next generation, but are responding to a world that first refused them. If we are to address the low birth rate in any meaningful way, we must begin by reflecting on what kind of world we are building. Childbirth is not a statistic; it is a symptom of trust in the world. That trust must be rebuilt, collectively—through philosophy, politics, institutions, and shared sensitivity.