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Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

bloomberg.com

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Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#31

Post by brnt »

rowanajmarshall wrote: post #23
throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Industrialisation. The UK began industrialising in the mid-to-late 1700s. Western Europe and North America got going in the early 1800s. Central Europe and Japan followed along, while Russia didn't really industrialise until the Soviet Union. China and Korea, by contrast, just sta…

Nitpick: industrialisation started in Belgium.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#32

Post by anm89 »

dougmwne wrote: post #5

It is always unclear to me if this is a bad thing. In a shrinking population, are individual people worse off, or does it just look like a decline when you look at the country in aggregate? There is no shortage of squandered talent in the world. So many people work below their capability because there are just more people than opportunities. It seems like it’s not a problem to keep running the modern world, even with…

I don't think good/bad is the right framework. It has pros and cons

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#33

Post by Gibbon1 »

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources.

There a tenancy to forget that 60 years ago one working person would have to support a wife and several children.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#34

Post by lotsofpulp »

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life.

Women gained financial freedom and the ability to choose when they get pregnant. Societies will now find out the market price for birthing children (as well as women finding out the price for not birthing children).

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#35

Post by waterlaw »

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. This will aid in the reduction of family formation in poorer countries and serve as population control. While ensuring no one country becomes too populated.

H.G. Wells pointed out that we cannot have population control in one nation of the world, but not another. It must be worldwide, or it'd result in severe unrest.

Julian Huxley, H.G. Wells, Charles Pincus (and many more) made this one of the defining issues of the 20th century. The Pill and IVF were long in the works and heavily funded as a means to avoid the "Population Bomb."

They envisioned a new world without war or environmental destruction. Their solution was to reduce the birth rate, through various means. The reduction of family formation being one of them.

It's interesting to read through these older works and realize the world they'd envisioned has to some extent come to fruition.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#36

Post by incrudible »

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off the planet, and the traditionally oppressive-to-women societies will evolutionarily outlast us.

As the standard of living rises, birth rates are dropping precipitously even in those countries that are relatively more oppressive.

Absent socioeconomic reasons, there are still females that naturally desire having plenty of children, despite there not being any societal pressure in favor (or even against) that. They will be genetically selected for.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#37

Post by pasabagi »

Is there a direct, inverse relationship between per-capita economic productivity, and fertility rate?

It seems intuitive to me: a major way per-capita economic productivity goes up is by working more hours, both at school, and in the workplace. Since you're competing with other max-hours workers for stuff like housing, the price rises to match. Soon, you're in a situation where there's no space in the average budget/apartment for kids.

Widespread misallocation of human resources (i.e. unemployment, part-employment, etc) would presumably drive in the opposite direction.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#38

Post by alcover »

rednerrus wrote: post #27
pengaru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just a lump in the population vs. age graph and you're fixating on the back side of the lump as if it's inevitably going towards zero. After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. Wanna guess what h…

It'll be too late by then. You need to make these choices 35 years ago in order for their population to continue.

I fear I agree with you.

Grossly, south korean couples each makes 1 child. So its population is going 1/2. To correct that and return to previous level, every couple formed among those children would have to bear 4 children.

I think they won't and it looks grim.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#39

Post by tristan957 »

rednerrus wrote: post #28
gumby wrote: post #19

What's the harm? By the end of the century robots will be doing most of the work anyway. People can concentrate on the things that matter to them instead.

Who's going to build and service the robots? Who's going to build the chips necessary to build the robots? Who's going to operate the ships required to move the parts to the destination to be assembled? Who's going to build the ships? Who's going to to secure the shipping lanes? Who's going to grow and process the food? We don't have the parts that we need now to build new cars and tractors. Can we really afford to b…

There is a lot of semiconductor investment going on right now. My employer is pledging $300B of investment in the next decade, with $40B here in the US. I would expect other companies are doing the same, especially as the EU and the US look to bolster semiconductor manufacturing through subsidization.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#40

Post by Kon-Peki »

waterlaw wrote: post #35
throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. This will aid in the reduction of family formation in poorer countries and serve as population control. While ensuring no one country becomes too populated. H.G. Wells pointed out that we cannot have population control in one nation of the world, but not another. It must be worldwide, or it'd result in sever…

> Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations.

So you think women in poorer countries are willing to "pre-sell" their children? That's insanely absurd, and an absolute human rights violation if forced. No. This will not happen.

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