Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

nationalinterest.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 444 posts

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#111

Post by soperj »

rjzzleep wrote: post #77
3pt14159 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One core issue is housing. And the core issue with housing is that prices are an arms race where everyone always wants more. Most people would have two or three kids if they felt like they could afford it. The second core issue is modern dating. That one I don't know how to fix, but the essential issue there is the dynamics of dating not requiring commitment coupled with financial security for women mean long term pa…

I don't know about South Korea, but looking at some other asian countries, there are a couple of things, I think the housing part falls into number 3 but is only a small part of the whole: 1. Having children without being married has a bunch of problems, and in some countries like singapore gets punished for it in lack of certain social services 2. Most of these societies expect women to work or have their husband ta…

>2. Most of these societies expect women to work or have their husband take care of them. Maternity leave is in some aspects as bad as or worse than in the US.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, looks like Korea has a year, just split into maternity and parental, and Japan has a year off for both mother and father, although the father seldom takes it. Which countries are comparable to the US?

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#112

Post by atom_arranger »

thow-01187 wrote: post #92
nerdponx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much looking forward to a lower-birthrate future in which fewer people live better and more sustainably. The problem is in the short/medium term, figuring out how to pay for all these checks that politicians have been writing over the last 50 years. The problem isn't that "the young" have to support "the old", it's that a lot of promises were made on the assumption of indefinite growth.

Unfortunately, low fertility rate is not a one-time problem of boomer generation followed by a stable plateau. It leads to a perpetual spiral of gerontocracy, high dependency ratios, under-investments and general vitality being sapped out of the populace. It's no coincidence that Italy and Japan, once vigorous and creative, are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm in the past ~20-30 years

Random idea:

What if the votes of each age group were weighted to account for the size of that group, e.g. making the votes of 18-20 have the same weight as the votes of 40-42, even if there may be more people in the 40-42 group.

This would prevent an aging population from giving too many benefits to older age groups, and would encourage policies that consider long term impacts more.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#113

Post by kijin »

mathverse wrote: post #103
kijin wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been changing very rapidly in SK. Almost everyone in their 40s and 50s today have been putting money into public pension plans as well as a multitude of private options. When they retire, they won't be economically dependent on their children. Nor can they expect to, because their children's generation is by all means poorer than their own. Whether those public funds and private options will be enough, of cour…

The average price of an apartment in Seoul is hitting $1M and the avg gdp per capita is around $38k.I am afraid a lot of that wealth is just real estate market speculation that might burst when the supply outstrips demand in 50 years.

I doubt that there will be a major, irrecoverable housing crash in South Korea within the lifetime of anyone who grew up believing that their children will support them later on. In the meantime, retirees who own nothing but an expensive apartment can reverse-mortgage their homes for a stable source of income. The bank, not their children, will inherit the property.

Two reasons why I don't think there will be a supply/demand mismatch:

1) Housing doesn't simply stay there once it has been built. Koreans seem very eager to tear down "old" buildings (anything more than 30 years old), so it's going to be fairly easy to control supply if demand goes down.

2) The number of people per household is steeply declining. Even if the population drops to half of the current level, if there are only half as many people per household, the total number of housing units needed will be largely the same. Smaller units will become more popular, though.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#114

Post by danmaz74 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #60
calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

Pay people to be stay at home parents so they don't face an enormous opportunity cost / survival threat to having a kid.

They do that in France, and birth rates are actually higher than most Western nations

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#115

Post by emptysongglass »

I don't see anyone mentioning this so I'll take a gander with my "modern jackass" [1] solution based on my own personal observations of the reasons why I don't want kids:

I have so much I still want to do with my life and I want to sink what time free from work into dinners and trips with my wife. Given the extant threat modern nations face, why aren't they offering to care for and raise our children? They'd be raised by professional caregivers with educations in pedagogy, surely an in-aggregate higher quality of childcare than that given by stressed out, first-time parents. Mine did a terrible job of raising me. I think if Denmark or South Korea wants a higher birthrate they should offer to step in.

I've been around my friends' kids, it's not pleasant. There's a very "big ego thing" going on and sudden tantrums that threaten to topple the softest evening.

Just my 2 cents but I have a hard time understanding why none of these governments have proposed such a system. I'm sure there'd be a big uptake. Open to being schooled here but please be nice.

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/293/a-little-bit-of-knowled...

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#116

Post by mazlix »

ceejayoz wrote: post #88
ptsneves wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration. The only major time i can think of where there were major depopulation events are in the times of the Fertile Crescent civilizations and perhaps in Asia in Angkor Wat. In both of the scenarios this massive depopulation led to the extinction of those civilizations.

> No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration. Nah, at least not of this magnitude. The world's population only hit a billion at about 1800, two billion around WWII. We're now at nearly eight. The idea that we understand all the consequences of that is silly; we're only just recently starting to understand the climate change aspect of it.

I’m not sure with the numbers but but bc were dealing with populations/exponential growth it’s possible the rate of pop growth (doubling time) hasn’t changed much for a longer time period.

However the childhood mortality rates have gone down so raw # of children per household could be lower and still have a higher growth rate.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#117

Post by keewee7 »

calmd wrote: post #7

SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…

The solution is immigration but with high barrier to entry.

I live in Denmark, a country portrayed as anti-immigrant by American and British media.

However there is no opposition to educated professional immigrants from India, China, Iran and Eastern Europe.

Brain drain of these countries could be a problem but countries like India and Iran are probably producing many more highly educated individuals than they can domestically employ.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#118

Post by namarie »

atom_arranger wrote: post #112
thow-01187 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, low fertility rate is not a one-time problem of boomer generation followed by a stable plateau. It leads to a perpetual spiral of gerontocracy, high dependency ratios, under-investments and general vitality being sapped out of the populace. It's no coincidence that Italy and Japan, once vigorous and creative, are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm in the past ~20-30 years

Random idea: What if the votes of each age group were weighted to account for the size of that group, e.g. making the votes of 18-20 have the same weight as the votes of 40-42, even if there may be more people in the 40-42 group. This would prevent an aging population from giving too many benefits to older age groups, and would encourage policies that consider long term impacts more.

> What if the votes of each age group were weighted

Because the principle of "one person, one vote" is widely (and correctly IMO) accepted.

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#119

Post by jbluepolarbear »

emptysongglass wrote: post #115

I don't see anyone mentioning this so I'll take a gander with my "modern jackass" [1] solution based on my own personal observations of the reasons why I don't want kids: I have so much I still want to do with my life and I want to sink what time free from work into dinners and trips with my wife. Given the extant threat modern nations face, why aren't they offering to care for and raise our children? They'd be raise…

I love my kids, it’s everyone else’s I can’t stand. :)

Re: South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

#120

Post by simonh »

thow-01187 wrote: post #92
nerdponx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much looking forward to a lower-birthrate future in which fewer people live better and more sustainably. The problem is in the short/medium term, figuring out how to pay for all these checks that politicians have been writing over the last 50 years. The problem isn't that "the young" have to support "the old", it's that a lot of promises were made on the assumption of indefinite growth.

Unfortunately, low fertility rate is not a one-time problem of boomer generation followed by a stable plateau. It leads to a perpetual spiral of gerontocracy, high dependency ratios, under-investments and general vitality being sapped out of the populace. It's no coincidence that Italy and Japan, once vigorous and creative, are not exactly bursting with enthusiasm in the past ~20-30 years

I understand japan isn't as exciting as it used to be, but they still have a pretty dynamic and influential popular culture. I understand their working population is declining relative to retirees, but eventually those old people will start to die. Anyway, its not as if this will be some sort of old people zombie apocalypse.
Post reply on HN