Nonetheless, the reality is that South Korea has been experiencing many of the same problems Japan did in the early 1990s, including high levels of household and corporate debt, labor- and financial-market inefficiencies, and low productivity in the service sector. Given a fertility rate of just 1.2 births per woman – among the lowest in the world – South Korea’s labor force is set to shrink by a quarter by 2050, with people aged 65 and over accounting for 35% of the total population, up from 13% today.
尽管如此，现实是韩国已经开始经历许多日本在20世纪90年代早期所经历的问题，包括高企的家庭和企业债务水平、劳动力和金融市场效率低下、服务业生产率低下等。韩国生育率为每位妇女生育1.2胎——为世界最低之一——到2050年，其劳动力规模将缩小四分之一，65岁及以上人群将占总人口的35%，而今天只有13%。这将给公共预算造成极大的压力。