You cannot have real estate prices that outpace wage growth and a rapidly growing population at the same time for too long. Couple this with increased expectations of what a baseline “good life” is and you get a declining population.
Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, same as the economy, too many things depend on infinite growth (retirement funds being the main one).
Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners — you could also sort that with a higher retirement age. (Long-Term question I’ve had: how does this compare with UBI, which is kinda like a pension but for everyone?)
Retirement age cannot be pushed higher much longer, we already have too many too much old people doing _badly_ their work because they are not sharp enough / willing enough / energic enough to do any better (so destroying any productivity value for that position + not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations).
I am in a country which has the s.k. problem since a decade and since then tried to push retirement age over and over with extremely bad results (one of the higher young unemployment rate in the whole eu area).
Add to this that already now losing your job, especially if low-skilled, in your 50ies it's basically a sentence to never find another one and live under unemployment benefit until you get your small state pension.
For my generation (Born 1985-1995) it is already planned we will have to retire minimum at 74yo in the most optimistic situation. I mean, I don't even see myself capable of doing well my work at 65, and probably no one will want to keep me after 60, doesn't matter how sharp I will be. All supposing I am not gonna get pretty sick around that age, which is highly probable.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#43Birth rates are dropping globally and we’re all living longer. The local answer for counties like South Korea is immigration from areas that have higher birth rates. With climate change likely to affect the habitability of many of our current settlements, as a species we’ll need to support massive migration shifts over the next few hundred years. So the problem kind of solves itself if we manage migration and resourc…
> The local answer for counties like South Korea is immigration from areas that have higher birth rates. It's not as if people and culture where fungible. Multiculturalism is just a naive dream that as been elevated as a dogma in certain countries, but it doesn't work on the ground.
You probably follow a religion that came from some Arabian desert. There’s no way that would happen if multiculturalism wasn’t a historical reality. It’s not something woke people invented.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, same as the economy, too many things depend on infinite growth (retirement funds being the main one).
Theoretically, if immigration wasn't an option, what would happen in this case? Just imagine entire earth is well developed, so this issue is present on every single nation on earth. What would happen then? Would economy just slow down or would everything come crashing down? Would automation see widespread adoption? Anything else?
Economic growth would slow down because it would be based purely on productivity gains rather than productivity gains and producers/consumers base growth (and automation would likely have a big part to play in that).
But that would not necessarily be a bad thing as that would force to indeed focus on productivity growth and growth of indicators per capita instead of overall indicators.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#45So what's the long-term plan here? A country's population is just supposed to keep growing... forever?
unification with the North, which has higher birth rate (1.9) than the South (1.1)?
Why does the north have such a low birth rate? I thought this was a phenomena exhibited by women's rights/education and increase in wealth. All of which the north lacks.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The local answer for counties like South Korea is immigration from areas that have higher birth rates. It's not as if people and culture where fungible. Multiculturalism is just a naive dream that as been elevated as a dogma in certain countries, but it doesn't work on the ground.
What do you mean it doesn’t work on the ground? Culture is completely fungible, humans have migrated constantly and continuously changed culture, it’s how ideas and technology has transferred and persisted all over the globe. Do you think your ancestors would recognise your culture? Will your descendants? (Hint: They would/will not.)
I agree with your point but I have to point out that many cultures have remained distinct after hundreds if not thousands of years of immersion in other cultures. Which is an amazing feat.
However people are both fickle and in many cases easily influenceable by populists and in-group/out-group is the oldest trick in the book. And it still works.
So there is definitely a big risk there.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
unification with the North, which has higher birth rate (1.9) than the South (1.1)?
Why does the north have such a low birth rate? I thought this was a phenomena exhibited by women's rights/education and increase in wealth. All of which the north lacks.
Don't women have equal rights in the North? Almost all other Communist states did this right, despite their many other flaws.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The local answer for counties like South Korea is immigration from areas that have higher birth rates. It's not as if people and culture where fungible. Multiculturalism is just a naive dream that as been elevated as a dogma in certain countries, but it doesn't work on the ground.
What do you mean it doesn’t work on the ground? Culture is completely fungible, humans have migrated constantly and continuously changed culture, it’s how ideas and technology has transferred and persisted all over the globe. Do you think your ancestors would recognise your culture? Will your descendants? (Hint: They would/will not.)
Not the grandparent, but I'll add some points anyway:
Replacing large parts of a country's population, culture and traditions won't be possible without 1) societal changes affecting the existing population and 2) societal changes affecting the migrant population. In the end, neither the existing population nor the migrant population are likely to be happy about the end result.
1) Being a part of a cultural minority is a very different experience from being a part of the majority population, and the experience of simply having one's expected but unborn children/siblings replaced as suggested, would, to put it plainly, fuck with a lot of peoples' minds by messing with peoples' sense of belonging, identity, and general trust of society. In other words, if societal cohesion is a priority then replacing the populace will be tricky; many countries have raging debate about immigrants despite having an immigrant population of less than 5%. Imagine the debates if that number was steadily increasing and approaching 50%. My guess is it won't be pretty.
2) Whenever this topic is brought up, the main issue is usually that modern society needs to import workers in order to fill the positions open at the bottom; the existing populace is progressing upwards, since employees are scarcer and wages go up; while the low-paying jobs get filled by immigrants. The problem is that the migrant populace probably aren't really aiming for those jobs; moving halfway across the World to clean toilets simply isn't what most people want, and since linguistical, educational and cultural differences will shut the doors for more than a generation (assuming we don't get _much_ better at integrating migrants into our societies), migration won't provide what many migrants are looking for.
It is definitely possible to compensate for falling birth-rates by the means of immigration. It just won't be a drop-in replacement and it won't be easy. In the end, especially considering other issues, I'd say it's time to have a look at having a look at how to structure our societies in order to manage declining birth rates over an extended period of time. Migration is not inherently bad, and cultures can and will continue to evolve, but importing people to handle the shittiest of jobs available simply isn't a good way of welcoming anyone into your own society.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we don't fix the stupid economic system in place and throw immigrants at the problem, all the while making their origin countries even worse since it's now deprived of the ones bright enough to qualify for skilled labour... doesn't sound like the best of plans.
Bright people have a whole world to move to, not just South Korea. For example, I went from the UK to Germany, and my sister-in-law went from the Philippines to the UK.
That's my point, I too went from a 3rd-world country to a developed one, haven't seen many people doing the opposite.
Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bright people have a whole world to move to, not just South Korea. For example, I went from the UK to Germany, and my sister-in-law went from the Philippines to the UK.
What about "not bright" people?
Personally? I’m in favour of anyone being free to move anywhere anywhen. I don’t see opposite sides of international borders as being more substantially different than different regions within any single country, likewise corresponding movement of people.