Wednesday, data from the official annual reading from Statistics Korea showed that South Korea’s fertility rate fell to the lowest in the world last year, due to COVID-19 discouraging couples from marrying or starting a family.

According to the data, the number of expected babies per South Korean woman fell to 0.84 last year. In 2019, the number was 0.92. The nation’s capital Seoul recorded the lowest birth rate of 0.64.

The aforementioned numbers were the lowest among over 180 member countries of the World Bank, far below 1.73 in the US and 1.42 in Japan.

South Korea is Asia’s fourth largest economy and is also the fastest aging country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The government failed to reverse the falling birth rate despite spending billions of dollars each year on childcare subsidies and maternity leave support.