The number of births in South Korea hit a new low for the month of February as the natural population decline extended to a 40-month streak.

According to data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, 19-thousand-939 babies were born in February, down three-point-seven percent from a year earlier, marking the lowest figure for the month since the state agency began compiling related data in 1981.

The tally for newborns has seen an on-year decline for 87 straight months since December 2015, while the crude birth rate, which refers to the number of births per one-thousand people, posted a new low to stand at five-point-one in February.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths slipped six-and-a-half percent to stand at 27-thousand-390 in February.

Despite the drop, the number of deaths outweighed the number of births to result in a population decline of seven-thousand-452 as the negative growth trend that began in November of 2019 continued.