Low birth rate leads to 29% drop in daycare centers and kindergartens

Over the past 10 years, three out of 10 daycare centers and kindergartens have closed due to the low birth rate. Most of these closures involved privately operated facilities, while the number of national daycare centers and public kindergartens has actually increased.

According to education and childcare statistics published by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Sunday, there were a total of 37,395 daycare centers and kindergartens nationwide last year, a decrease of 28.7% (15,053 places) from 52,448 in 2013. The number of these institutions has been declining for nine consecutive years since reaching 52,568 in 2014.

In particular, the number of daycare centers decreased by 33.8% to 28,954 last year, compared to 43,770 in 2013. By type, home daycare centers, which primarily serve infants and toddlers aged 0 to 2, saw the largest decline, decreasing by 54.8% over the past 10 years. This was followed by private daycare centers (39.8%), those run by corporations/organizations (36.5%), social welfare corporations (16.2%), and cooperatives (3.9%).

Conversely, the number of national and public daycare centers increased by 165.3% (from 2,332 to 6,187), and the number of workplace daycare centers increased by 111.3% (from 619 to 1,308). There were 8,441 kindergartens last year, a 2.7% decrease from 8,678 in 2013. The number of private kindergartens dropped by 19.3%, from 4,101 in 2013 to 3,308 last year, while the number of public kindergartens slightly increased from 4,574 in 2013 to 5,130 last year.


김예윤 yeah@donga.com