Nation with lowest birthrate is rocked by soaring sales of dog strollers

livemint.com:

SEOUL—After pushing a stroller to a park near her home in a Seoul suburb, Kang Seung-min plopped down on a bench. Then an elderly woman approached, looking for a friendly chat with Kang about motherhood. “I’m not even married yet," Kang, 24, responded.

The startled woman stared into the stroller and took in the little passenger: a brown poodle named Coco. She left, imploring Kang to start a family. “I don’t want to get married," Kang says.

“I’d rather spend money on my dog." A global discourse has emerged, including in the U.S., about childlessness and the reluctance to bear offspring. But the hand-wringing might be at its fiercest in South Korea, home to the wealthy world’s lowest birthrate, as well as another distinction that has fur flying: the skyrocketing sales of dog strollers, which last year outpaced those of baby strollers for the first time, according to Gmarket, one of South Korea’s largest online retailers. The trend held true for the first six months of this year, too.

They are so ubiquitous a national broadcaster in January aired a segment titled: “‘Am I the Only One Annoyed By This?’ A Heated Debate Over Dog Strollers." In many advanced economies, including the U.S., adults treat their pets like pampered children, with fancy birthday parties, decked-out doggy mansions, private-plane travel and rides in dog strollers. But pet parents have South Korean officials howling. The country is confronting a national fertility rate of 0.72—or a mere third of the level needed to maintain the population.