Nation With Lowest Birthrate Is Rocked by Soaring Sales of Dog Strollers
狗推车销量飙升震惊了出生率最低的国家

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.”
惊讶的女人盯着婴儿车，看到了那位小乘客：一只名叫可可的棕色贵宾犬。她离开了，恳求康建立一个家庭。 “我不想结婚，”康说。 “我宁愿把钱花在我的狗身上。”

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.
包括美国在内的全球范围内已经出现了关于无子女和不愿生育后代的讨论。但这种担忧可能在韩国最为严重，韩国是世界上出生率最低的富裕国家，而且还有另一个令人毛骨悚然的特征：狗狗推车的销量猛增，去年首次超过了婴儿车的销量据韩国最大的在线零售商之一 Gmarket 称。今年前六个月也出现了这种趋势。

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.” 
它们无处不在，国家广播公司在一月份播出了一段题为“我是唯一对此感到恼火的人吗？”的片段。关于狗推车的激烈争论。”

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. 
在包括美国在内的许多发达经济体，成年人像对待娇生惯养的孩子一样对待他们的宠物，他们会举办豪华的生日派对、装饰华丽的狗狗豪宅、乘坐私人飞机旅行和乘坐狗推车。

But pet parents have South Korean officials howling.
但宠物父母却让韩国官员嚎啕大哭。

‘Demographic national emergency’
“国家人口紧急状态”

The country is confronting a national fertility rate of 0.72—or a mere third of the level needed to maintain the population. At a youth roundtable last year, Kim Moon-soo, the country’s now labor minister, scolded the fresh-faced attendees: “What I worry about is young people not loving each other,” Kim said. “Instead, they love their dogs and carry them around, they don’t get married, and they don’t have children.” 
该国面临的生育率为 0.72，仅为维持人口所需水平的三分之一。在去年的一次青年圆桌会议上，现任劳动部长金文洙（Kim Moon-soo）斥责新来的与会者：“我担心的是年轻人不互相爱护，”金文洙说。 “相反，他们很爱自己的狗，并带着它们到处走，他们不结婚，也没有孩子。”

Members of a left-leaning minority party protested Kim’s comments at a recent press conference, and said he should consider intense working conditions and low wages before blaming pet owners for low birthrates. 
左翼少数党成员在最近的一次新闻发布会上对金正恩的言论提出抗议，并表示，在将低出生率归咎于宠物主人之前，他应该考虑紧张的工作条件和低工资。

In a recent local poll, one in two South Korean women aged 20 to 49 said they had no intention of having children, seeing it as inessential and citing financial constraints. While pet-friendly venues proliferate across the country, restaurants and cafes declare “No-kid zones,” pointing to disruptive behavior. 
在最近的一项当地民意调查中，二分之一的 20 至 49 岁韩国女性表示，她们无意生孩子，认为这无关紧要，并以经济拮据为由。尽管宠物友好场所在全国范围内激增，但餐馆和咖啡馆却宣布“禁止儿童进入”，指出存在破坏性行为。

The central government’s entreaty for younger generations to choose children over pets does have a twist: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is married without children—and has a menagerie of at least 10 dogs and cats himself. 
中央政府呼吁年轻一代选择孩子而不是宠物，这确实有一个转折：韩国总统尹锡烈已婚，没有孩子，而且他自己也拥有至少 10 只狗和猫的动物园。

“Sorry, this food’s only for daddy,” reads one of his Instagram posts, which shows two bichons frises staring at him as he eats a sandwich. 
“抱歉，这些食物只适合爸爸，”他在 Instagram 上发布的一篇帖子中写道，帖子中显示，当他吃三明治时，两只比雄犬正盯着他看。

Still, in June, Yoon declared a “demographic national emergency” over South Korea’s low birthrate. He called on government ministries to resolve the plummeting birthrates to avoid an “existential crisis.” 
尽管如此，尹在六月还是因韩国的低出生率而宣布进入“国家人口紧急状态”。他呼吁政府各部门解决出生率直线下降的问题，以避免“生存危机”。

Kim Bora, a 32-year-old freelance web designer, isn’t contemplating having kids yet. She finds South Korea too hypercompetitive and costly for child rearing. Instead, she has tricked out her dog stroller, which can also transform into a carseat, for her bichon frise, Salgu, the Korean word for apricot. Salgu luxuriates in her stroller with a heat pack in the winter and an ice pack in the summer. 
Kim Bora 是一位 32 岁的自由网页设计师，目前还没有考虑要孩子。她发现韩国的竞争过于激烈，而且养育孩子的成本也很高。相反，她为她的比熊犬“Salgu”（韩语中“杏子”的意思）精心设计了她的狗推车，它也可以变成汽车座椅。萨尔古在她的婴儿车里尽情享受，冬天有热袋，夏天有冰袋。

“If I had a kid,” Kim notes, “I wouldn’t be able to take care of Salgu as much as I do now.”
“如果我有一个孩子，”金指出，“我就无法像现在一样照顾萨尔古了。”

While the number of infants is dwindling, the registered canine population in South Korea jumped to a record high in a tally last year, more than doubling since 2018. 
尽管婴儿数量正在减少，但韩国登记的犬只数量去年跃升至历史新高，自 2018 年以来增加了一倍多。

A dog-stroller boom 狗推车热潮

Dog-stroller sales have quadrupled since 2019, according to Yoon Hyun-shin, head of Pet Friends, South Korea’s largest online pet-commerce platform. Airbuggy is hailed as the “Mercedes-Benz” of them. Their fall-winter “Grey Tweed” special-edition model costs about $1,100, sports Scottish fabric and off-road tires. 
韩国最大的在线宠物电子商务平台 Pet Friends 的负责人 Yoon Hyun-shin 表示，自 2019 年以来，狗推车的销量增长了四倍。 Airbuggy被誉为其中的“奔驰”。他们的秋冬“Grey Tweed”特别版车型售价约 1,100 美元，采用运动苏格兰面料和越野轮胎。

 The company began as a baby-stroller maker, but Airbuggy’s Korea division pivoted solely to dog strollers in recent years. “You can put your dog or baby in our strollers,” said Park Soon-jae, head of Airbuggy Korea. “But the market here demands pet strollers.” 
该公司最初是一家婴儿推车制造商，但 Airbuggy 的韩国部门近年来专注于生产狗推车。 “你可以把你的狗或婴儿放在我们的婴儿车里，”Airbuggy 韩国负责人 Park Soon-jae 说。 “但这里的市场需要宠物推车。”

Strollers ferrying generally small, healthy dogs are part of the daily landscape, across South Korean department stores, restaurants, sidewalks and recreation areas. 
婴儿车载着小型健康的狗，是韩国百货商店、餐馆、人行道和休闲区的日常景观的一部分。

They clog the footpaths at Seoul Forest Park—which is larger than New York’s Central Park—befuddling Lee Sung-kyu, 62, a facilities manager there. “Those strollers should be carrying babies,” he said.
它们堵塞了首尔森林公园（比纽约中央公园还大）的人行道，这让 62 岁的设施经理李成奎 (Lee Sung-kyu) 感到困惑。 “那些婴儿车应该载着婴儿，”他说。

So Lee at first felt a certain dismay when his own adult daughter splurged for a dog stroller that cost roughly $225. 
因此，当 Lee 自己成年的女儿花了大约 225 美元买了一辆狗推车时，他一开始感到有些沮丧。

“But the dog won’t ride it,” said Lee, cracking a grin. “The dog keeps jumping out.”
“但是狗不会骑它，”李笑着说道。 “那只狗一直跳出来。”

Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com
写信给 Dasl Yoon，邮箱为dasl.yoon@wsj.com

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