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Leading Italian media outlets have highlighted Korea's increasingly serious low birth rate and cited the "gender conflict" as the root cause.

The Italian daily Corriere della Sera pointed out the phenomenon and causes of Korea's low birth rate in an international article titled "Korean Mothers Strike: East Asian Tiger Extinction Threat" on 2 March (local time).

Michela Mantovan, who wrote the article, said that in 2021, South Korea's total fertility rate (the number of births a woman is expected to have in her lifetime) was 0.81, the lowest in the world. The small but mighty Asian tiger is in the midst of a depopulated apocalypse."

Mantoban cited gender inequality in Korean society and discrimination in the work environment as the root cause of South Korea's declining birth rate.

Women who have experienced this contradiction acutely are deliberately avoiding childbirth.

He characterized it as a "maternity strike."

He pointed out that in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, it is easy to see well-dressed and finely dressed women with hair rolls on their heads.

Mantoban interpreted the women's hair rolls, which seem to be unobtrusive, as a symbol of "rebellion" against the world created by men.

He also published a photo of Acting Constitutional Court President Lee Jung-mi wearing a hair roll to work on March 10, 2017, the day of the impeachment trial of former President Park Geun-hye.

He also noted that his novel "Kim Ji-young, Born in '82," which tells the story of a woman growing up amid gender discrimination, has sold more than 1 million copies in South Korea.

Mantoban explained that women in South Korea, long oppressed by the Confucian culture represented by patriarchy, became more conscious of gender discrimination through democratization and the influx of Western culture.

On the other hand, he added that social conflicts are occurring between men and women, women and patriarchal cultures, and young men and bone marrow feminists as social roles have stalled.

This social mood is said to be felt in the Netflix drama "Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo," which garnered worldwide buzz last year.

Episode 12 of "Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo" depicts realistically how companies pressure women to write resignation letters when there are plans to merge or reduce staffing.

Also, one of the most famous groups in K-pop, BLACKPINK, has one of the songs "I don't want to be a princess. I can't put my value on it. There is no prince on the list of things I want. Love is the medicine I quit."

As the conflict between men and women has become serious, many women are striking in the form of childbirth avoidance in order to escape from the "baby manufacturing machine," and some are actively choosing to live a single life in pursuit of non-romance, non-sex, non-marriage, and non-childbirth, the so-called "4Bs" (non-birth).

"In the end, gender equality is the solution to overcome low birth rates," Mantoban said, emphasizing that "only by ensuring a more just and secure life for women can we miraculously defeat the crisis of extinction facing the Korean nation."

(Photo=Corriere della Sera Twitter capture, Yonhap News)