With more women choosing to marry and give birth at a later age, the birth rate among those in their late 30s reached a record high last year, Statistics Korea said Wednesday.

The number of births per 1,000 of the population remained at record low. The country’s fertility rate also still remained far below the average among the member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.

A total of 438,400 babies were born last year, showing a 0.7 percent rise from the year before.

The crude birthrate reached 8.6 for the third consecutive year -- the lowest in recorded history.

The fertility rate, the number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, reached 1.24, showing a 2.8 percent increase.

It was still far below the OECD average of 1.68, and narrowly escaped being the lowest among its member countries, ranking second to last place, which went to Portugal at 1.23.

By age, women in their early 30s showed the highest birthrate, with 116.7 out of every 1,000 women in the age group having had babies.

Among those in their late 30s, aged between 35 and 39, 48.3 per every 1,000 women had babies, breaking the record of 43.2 a year before.

The birthrate among those in their 20s dropped on-year to 12.5 for those aged 20-24 and 63.1 for those aged 25-29. Each marked a 4.6 percent and 0.5 percent decline, respectively.

The average age of women giving birth rose by 0.2 to reach 32.2. It was 27.9 in 1995.

Statistics also showed that more couples tended to stop at having one or two babies.

While a total of 228,600 firstborns were birthed last year, marking a 1.4 percent rise, there were 166,100 second children, declining slightly by 0.5 percent on-year. The number of third children birthed last year dropped by 2.9 percent.

Meanwhile, a total of 16,166 twins were born, nearly 2.8 times higher than the 9,422 in 1995.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)