It has been repeatedly warned that Korea’s future is being overshadowed by its falling birthrate coupled with a rapidly aging population. Over the past years, the country’s birthrate has remained the lowest among major developed nations, with its population, which now numbers around 50 million, aging at the fastest pace in the world.

According to recent data from the national statistics office, the proportion of working-age people ― those aged between 15 and 64 ― in Korea is forecast to decrease from its peak of 72.9 percent in 2016 to 49.7 percent in 2060. This means that, in about four decades, each Korean worker will on average have to support an elderly person.

The core working-age population aged 25-49 has already shrunk since 2006.

This demographic trend is prompting government policymakers to work out a series of measures designed to raise the birthrate. But their efforts have not been very effective, as shown in the fact that the country’s fertility rate ― the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime ― was down 0.11 from the previous year to a mere 1.187 last year.

Besides pushing for measures to increase the number of newborns, it is also necessary ― perhaps more important ― to educate younger generations to become more competitive and adaptive to society. With regard to this, more attention should be paid to the need to take care of children from multicultural families. Their number has exceeded 200,000, with about 5 percent of newborn babies being born into multinational families last year.

They should be educated to become full members of society. With their multicultural backgrounds, they might grow up to play a valuable role in making Korean society more diversified and inclusive.

To our regret, the reality is far from this expectation. Nearly all multicultural children enter elementary school but only about 70 percent of them enter middle school. The proportion of multicultural students who have graduated from high school is thought to be far below 50 percent, with few of them having opportunities to be admitted into universities. Most of these undereducated children will likely end up being jobless, with little hope for their future.

Unless this gloomy situation is addressed effectively at an early stage, it will become yet another destabilizing factor for our society. Some rural communities across the country, where nearly all newborns are children born between Korean husbands and immigrant wives, may collapse altogether.

Our future should not be like this. All-out efforts should be made consistently and persistently to get children from multicultural families to be properly educated and become good citizens who contribute to enhancing the stability and prosperity of our society. One effective ― and probably indispensable ― measure is to provide more substantial support for immigrant mothers to encourage them to pass at least elementary school qualifications. This achievement would help them nurture and inspire their children.