The number of babies born in South Korea fell for the second straight month in October despite the government‘s efforts to boost the nation’s chronic low birthrate, a report showed Monday.

According to the report by Statistics Korea, 38,600 babies were born in October, down 5,000 or 11.5 percent from a year earlier.

That followed a 7.1 percent on-year drop in September.

From a month earlier, baby births also shrank for the second consecutive month.

“The decline is attributable to relatively high baby births tallied in September and October last year, when more married couples gave birth after delaying pregnancies during the 2008-09 economic slump,” an agency official said.

The government has been working to boost childbirths on worries that the low number of births, coupled with an aging population, will lead to a reduction in the number of workers and eventually undercut the nation‘s economic growth.

South Korea’s birthrate stood at 1.23 in 2010, which is quite low compared with other major economies.

Baby births had increased for 19 straight months until they started to contract in September. The agency expects that the contraction over the past two months will not help the nation‘s chronic low birthrates for this year.

Meanwhile, the report also showed that 21,900 South Koreans died in October, down 4.4 percent or 1,000 from a year earlier.

About 25,900 couples tied the knot in October, up 7 percent from a year earlier, while divorces declined 1 percent to 9,700, according to the report.

In a separate report, the agency said 666,000 people changed their legal residence in November, down 4.7 percent from a year earlier. (Yonhap News)