From demographic crisis to ethical dilemma: A critical occupational science perspective on South Korean pronatalism

The occupational and ethical implications of South Korea’s expansive pronatalist interventions to halt persistent fertility decline have been insufficiently examined. This article presents a conceptual and critical analysis to interrogate how pronatalist strategies reshape the occupational landscape of family-making. Drawing on occupational science concepts—occupational justice, deprivation, imbalance, and agency—alongside care ethics and feminist moral theory, the analysis demonstrates that pronatalist policies operate as forms of sociopolitical governance that structure and constrain everyday occupations related to reproduction and caregiving. Three interrelated problems are identified: pronatalist logics obscure the structural inequities that restrict occupational rights and choices; reinforce gendered and normative expectations of care that distort its ethical meaning; and instrumentalize citizens as demographic resources, thereby narrowing the legitimacy of diverse life trajectories. Rather than addressing the structural determinants of fertility decline, these strategies produce new forms of occupational injustice and erode conditions for self-determined living. By situating South Korea’s case within broader global debates on demographic governance, the article advances occupational science’s capacity to examine how population-level policies shape possibilities for meaningful, pluralistic occupational lives.