South Korea faces a severe population crisis as its fertility rate drops further, shattering its own world record.

What Happened: The South Korean government's statistics office said the women in the country were estimated to have an average of just 0.81 children over their lifetimes based on the data from 2021, down from 0.84 a year earlier. 

According to United Nations global population projections, the Asian nation is the world's fastest-aging nation among economies and its population of 51 million people is at a prospect of more than halving by the end of this century.

See Also: As Elon Musk Points To Japan 'Adult Diaper' Stats To Back His 'Population Collapse' Warning — Another Metric Worries Tokyo

This came after Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong warned in April that the country's economy faces the risk of secular stagnation as the population ages and productivity slows. 

Earlier, Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk also reiterated his warning about the plummeting population globally. Musk, in a recent appearance on the "Full Send" podcast, said, "people are living longer, that's the only reason why the population of Earth isn't plummeting."

He also pointed toward Japan's statistics — which is also facing the population aging crisis — and suggested that the "metric to track" the population is the "ratio of adult diapers to baby diapers."

Recently, Japan's waiting list for admissions in daycare facilities stood at a record low, while its adult diaper production has seen a 49.05% rise between 2011 to 2020.

Check out more of Benzinga's Europe and Asia coverage by following this link.

Photo by imtmphoto on Shutterstock

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