Chey Tae-won Urges Korea-Japan Economic Community to Tackle Low Birthrates

"Beyond tourism, jobs and education"

"Let young people work across Korea and Japan"

Korea faces practical barriers, Japan a weaker desire to marry

Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said a Korea-Japan economic community could help address the low-birthrate crisis facing both countries. He called for closer links between the two labor markets and regional economies to widen job and income opportunities for young people, while using artificial intelligence to lift productivity.

Speaking at the opening of the first Korea-Japan Symposium on Low Birthrate Measures at the Westin Sendai on Aug. 30, Chey said shrinking populations make it essential to expand the size of the market. Korea and Japan need to deepen ties to the level of an economic community, he added. Chey serves as the Korean co-chair of the Korea-Japan Low Birthrate Countermeasures Exchange Committee.

He said low birthrates are undermining the growth potential of both economies while increasing social costs for support and caregiving. The number of children and workers is falling, while the number of people requiring support is set to rise. Conditions and the pace of change differ between the two countries, but neither has much time left, he said.

Chey also pointed to the drop in births since the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. The number of children born each year in the two countries has fallen from about 2 million to about 1 million. A child born this year will take 20 years to become a new entrant to the workforce, he said. Everyone who will enter the labor market over the next 10 years has already been born. Population decline is no longer a distant concern and is already constraining companies and the broader economy.

Chey said the fundamental solution is to create conditions in which young people can choose marriage and childbirth without hesitation. Young people who lack stable jobs and income are delaying or giving up on marriage and children, he said.

Companies need to create good jobs and workplaces where employees can raise children while continuing to work, he said. They also need to move more quickly to adapt to demographic change that is already under way.

Still, Chey said low-birthrate policy should not be limited to measures aimed only at directly raising fertility. If Korea and Japan form an economic community, expand the market and combine their strengths, they can lower costs and generate stable income, he said.

He outlined three priorities for young people under a Korea-Japan economic community: jobs, regional exchange and technology.

First, Chey proposed closer integration of the two labor markets so young people can work and study in both countries. That would require institutional changes allowing people to find jobs in the other country, as well as mutual recognition of qualifications and career experience earned in either market.

If the two countries work together to let young people move back and forth for work, they can offer better jobs and more opportunities, he said. Young people need a wider horizon for income and opportunity.

More than 13 million people traveled between Korea and Japan last year, but exchange should not remain centered on tourism, Chey said. The closer ties built through travel should extend to the broader economy, including employment, education and recognition of qualifications and work experience.

Second, he called for bilateral exchange to spread to regional areas. Many parts of Japan remain little known in Korea, while Korea also has many destinations unfamiliar to Japanese visitors. Governments, the tourism industry and local communities in both countries should develop ways to expand regional exchange, he said.

Chey cited his earlier proposal for travel packages that would allow visitors to tour regions in Korea and Japan in a single trip. Exchange needs to move beyond tourism and reach local areas more broadly, he said.

His third priority was boosting productivity through AI. As the labor force shrinks and demand for care and medical services rises, AI and robots should be used to reduce social costs and increase the value each young worker creates, he said.

If care robots and AI are used together and institutions are updated for new technologies, social costs can be cut while sharply increasing the value created by each young person, he added.

The symposium also released results from the Korea-Japan Youth Perception Survey 2026, conducted by the two countries' committees. The survey found that young Koreans were more inclined than their Japanese peers to pursue dating and marriage, but had greater difficulty turning that intention into marriage and childbirth because of concerns over jobs, income and housing costs.

Among unmarried young people, 42.4% in Japan said they had no intention of ever marrying, more than double Korea's 18.6%. Koreans were also more likely to say they had a fiance or were in a relationship, at 32.2% versus 21.4% in Japan.

By contrast, 43.1% of Koreans cited employment and income as their biggest source of anxiety about the future, compared with 32.5% in Japan. Korean respondents called for specific institutional support, including housing and assistance for childbirth and child care, as conditions for marriage. The findings suggest Korea faces a crisis of execution, in which intentions to marry do not translate into marriage and childbirth, while Japan faces a crisis of motivation, in which the desire to marry itself is weakening.

Chey said the people who will enter the labor market in the coming years have already been born, but the value they create has yet to be determined. The first step is to let young people work and study across both countries, expand exchange into regional areas and use technology to ease burdens in the field, he said. He added that he hopes the newly launched committee will mark the start of that effort.

Choi Man-su, Sendai correspondent, Hankyung.com, bebop@hankyung.com