A 'low birth' that even the welfare state Finland could not avoid.

[Anchor]
' from cradle to grave'! Even in Nordic countries known for their strong welfare policies, the problem of low birth rate seems inevitable.

In Finland, the majority of citizens want to have children, but there is a big gap between the actual number of children born.

It is said that it also promotes policy ideas that encompass the entire life cycle.

Reporter Kim Eun-jin looked at Finland's low birth rate measures.

[Reporter]
In Finland, the number of newborns has decreased by a third in the past 15 years.

Although the government has made efforts to give workers paid leave and subsidies, the total fertility rate has fallen to around 1.26.

As the fertility rate falls, the number of schools closing is increasing one after another.

[Ilmeli Mlermacki / Head of Education and Welfare Department, Local Government Association of Finland: It is true that fertility rates in all local governments in Finland are falling. Schools are closing due to low birth rate.

Some local governments have also dramatically increased the amount of childbirth subsidies.

Some small cities, including the small city of Luhanka, pay 1,000 euros per child for 10 years every year.

But while the policy helped to keep the local population alive and prevent school closures, it turned out to have had little effect on increasing the number of births.

[Ville Hinkanen / Parents: I don't know if financial support will help with the birth rate, but I'm sure it won't hurt. However, I think cultural changes are the cause of low birth rate rather than application status.]

Finland has a high gender equality index and is supported by a strong family support policy, but the reason is that the age of first childbirth is increasing as the way of life changes with the development of SNS.

Not long ago, an official at the Finnish Family Federation Population Research Institute recommended that a sign of "a society that can have its first child before the age of 30" would help increase the birth rate.

[Anna Rottkirch / Demographic: The large proportion of people who never give birth is the cause. One of the 20 recommendations to increase the fertility rate was to prepare the perks to make the first childbirth earlier. This is because the delay in the first childbirth biologically reduces the likelihood of having the desired number of children.]

The Finnish government is said to be considering compensation through pensions, saying it would reduce the economic damage caused by childbirth.

It seems to be a policy that sees the entire life cycle, and attention is being paid to how citizens who are the targets of the policy will react.

I'm Eunjin Kim of YTN World in Helsinki, Finland.