The number of babies born in South Korea in January plunged to a new record low for the month.

According to Statistics Korea on Wednesday, 21-thousand-442 babies were born in January, down seven-point-seven percent from a year earlier. The latest tally is the lowest for the month since the state agency began compiling related data in 1981.

The nation has been seeing record-low births for the month for 16 consecutive months since October 2022.

The crude birth rate, which means the annual number of live births per one-thousand population, also fell zero-point-four year-on-year to five.

The agency explained that the drastic decline in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic likely had an effect on the record-low number of births in January.

The number of deaths in January, meanwhile, fell zero-point-five percent year-on-year to 32-thousand-490, leading to a natural population decline of around eleven-thousand.