Joel Mokyr predicts population decline risks & urges an immigration debate amid the ageing crisis.
Mokyr said that there appears to be a very strange aspect concerning South Korea: it may be committing ‘demographic suicide’. South Korea is a Southeast Asian country that achieved an economic miracle. However, concerns arise regarding the sustainability of this miracle if married couples choose not to have children.
Mokyr is a ’25 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, in addition to being a professor at Northwestern University in the U.S. He gave an exclusive interview to the Korean Chosun daily newspaper during his visit to South Korea. This was when attending the Asian Leadership Conference (ALC) held at ‘The Shilla Seoul’ on Wednesday, 20 May ’26. He praised the South Korean economy as a ‘miraculous success story’, while identifying low birth rates and high external dependency as the nation’s biggest risk factors.
Low birthrate issue: ‘Immigration expansion inevitable’
Mokyr cited demographic challenges as being the greatest structural risk to the South Korean economy. He was of the view that it may be ‘shocking that people in such a prosperous nation have almost stopped having children’. He asserted that if the current trend continues, South Korea’s population could potentially halve within the next four decades. He cited that rapid ageing, beyond mere low birthrates, may destabilise the economy. He opined that 25 years ago, in 2001, South Korea’s median age was 2, although it has now surged to 46. He added that historically, there are almost no precedents for a country becoming a ‘nation of the elderly’ so quickly, within 25 years.
Mokyr acknowledged that the AI revolution, aside from robotics, may partially offset labour shortages but stated that ageing itself may remain unsolvable. He stated that a structure where the elderly keep increasing while the working population shrinks may be unsustainable for economic support. He further added that even if productivity surges due to the AI revolution, it may not fully offset the shock of population decline.
