The number of childbirths in South Korea sank for the 16th consecutive month in March as the country is struggling with a continuing trend of late marriage and a rapidly aging population, a government report showed Wednesday.

About 33,200 babies were born in March, down 13.1 percent, or 5,000, from 38,200 tallied a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

Childbirths have been on the decline since a 3.4-percent on-year gain in November 2015, along with a double-digit drop for four straight months starting in December last year.

The latest number also marked the lowest number of new childbirths for any March since 2000, when the statistical office started to compile such data on a monthly basis.

But it is higher than an all-time low of 27,200 newborns set in December last year.

For decades, the South Korean government has made efforts to tackle the decrease in newborn babies, coupled with increasing aging, as it raises concerns that low births will drag down the workforce in Asia's fourth-largest economy and drive up welfare costs, undermining the growth potential of the economy.

But the government-led promotions and incentives to encourage young people to have more babies seem to have failed to make a turnaround.

The number of babies born in 2016 reached a record low of 406,300, with marriages also hitting an all-time low of 281,600 last year.

The statistics data showed that the number of marriages also fell 6.8 percent on-year, or by 1,700, to 23,300 in March.

At the same time, 9,500 couples divorced over the cited period, up 5.6 percent from a year earlier.

The number of deaths came to 24,200 in March, down 4 percent from a year earlier, the report showed. (Yonhap)