North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was caught in an apparent moment of weakness this week after state media aired footage showing the supreme leader wiping away tears as he discussed the country’s declining birth rate.
On at least one occasion in a news bulletin broadcast on Monday, the official Korean Central Television showed an emotional Kim dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief while seated on stage before thousands of women at a National Conference of Mothers.
Women are treated as second class citizens under North Korea’s intensely patriarchal society, in what is already one of the poorest countries in the world, although their role as potential breadwinners has increased in recent decades—most working-age men are in state-assigned jobs with low wages or in the military.
KCNA
Kim on Sunday named “stopping the declining birth rate” among the social challenges facing the nation, urging mothers to do their part, according to a transcript of his speech carried by the Pyongyang Times.
The 39-year-old, who observers believe to be a father of three children, asked mothers to foster social unity and family harmony, to raise their children to “carry forward our revolution,” and to crack down on “non-socialist practices,” which he said were on the rise, the state-owned newspaper said.
North Korean state media said gifts were handed out to conference participants as the gathering closed on Monday. KCTV showed thousands of women—belonging to varying age groups but all wearing traditional dress—overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of the country’s supreme leader.
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North Korea’s fertility rate stands at 1.8 births per woman, according to estimates by the United Nations Population Fund, an agency focused on sexual and reproductive health.
While this tops the birth rate of its neighbor to the south, the figure is lower than in the United States and other middle- to high-income economies and remains far below those of many other low-income countries.
U.N. experts say a fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a population to sustain itself over time.
While a shrinking labor force may dampen the economic outlook for any country, this is particularly true for North Korea, owing to its lack of capital and technology inflows, South Korean think tank the Hyundai Research Institute said in an August report.
The authors attributed the problem to a famine that gripped North Korea in the 1990s, coupled with policies from the 1970s-80s that limited population growth.
The generation that grew up during the famine has now entered the workforce, according to the researchers, and the childhood malnutrition experienced by this demographic may negatively impact their productivity and reproduction levels.
Kim’s appeal echoed those of other leaders in recent months.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia in a speech last week prevailed upon women in his country to make large families, with as many as eight children, “the norm.”
In late October, Kim’s Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, also called for more births to slow China’s plummeting population numbers.
Japan, meanwhile, posted its steepest population decline on record, continuing a trend that has worried policymakers in Tokyo for decades.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
