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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

#91

Post by steve76 »

jackling wrote: post #14
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…

"our future", last time I check, Pakistan wasn't invading any foreign territory, aside from some normal border disputes it's problems are usually within it's own borders. This seems like paranoia that the "others" will come and ruin our civilization. If Pakistan, and other countries like India and China, continues to modernize, eventually the population should stable out and historically that comes with better rights…

No post body was provided.

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

#93

Post by tonmoy »

eric4smith wrote: post #69

My first kid just reached 18. Now I'm seriously thinking of having another one. Remember when we were younger and the world's population hit 7 billion, everyone was really, really concerned about overpopulation??? I even did not want to have any kids because of this. Now, Korea is seriously going to be worse than even Japan. And faster too. Back in Jamaica one of my grandma had 7 children, the other one had 8 (with 2…

Note that child death rates were considerably higher even 50 years ago in all of those countries.

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

#94

Post by juve1996 »

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…

Who's been doing all of that the last 50 years?

Poor people in other countries, just like it is now.

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

#95

Post by qwerpy »

parkingrift wrote: post #64
exhilaration wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the end of the century robots will be doing most of the work anyway 1) What if they don't? 2) The end of the century is 78 years away, somebody's going need to turn you on your side every few hours when you're in that old folks home - what happens if there aren't enough people to do those jobs?

I mean this sincerely. I will kill myself before I become such a massive burden on society. I will not needlessly cling to life at the expense of others.

I can say the same right now, while it's still a distant abstract thought. I've said to my wife repeatedly that I'd rather leave my family some inheritance and go on my own terms than have the nursing home take it all so that I can live, bedridden, for a few extra years.

But I might feel different in a few decades if my physical body starts breaking down while my mind still works. Maybe I'll become afraid of death, or I'll suddenly want to stay alive watch my kids/grandkids grow up.

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

#96

Post by mattnewton »

dron57 wrote: post #7
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…

Most of the past century's gains in quality of life were tightly correlated with rising labor. If the population crashes, then who will do all the specialized work? Another thing to think about is excess capital and investment. With a large population, excess savings become investments into new companies, technologies, etc. Without excess savings there will be no tech industry, improvements in science, infrastructure…

It’s complicated, my understanding is that the current idea of the western state and middle class traces itself back to the period right after the Black Death created one of the largest population shocks in history, which effectively ended serfdom and loosened the grip of the Catholic Church. Basically the effects of population dips are not cut and dry.

It’s not clear to me it would necessarily play out as people stopping all non critical work to take care of old people. Maybe it would, on a family level - People would spend more time taking care of their parents, and then maybe conclude they should have more kids to take care of them when they are older like they do in the developing world. But the modern pyramid-shaped pension program is a recent invention and not necessarily one I think would be so durable as to destroy other industries?

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

#97

Post by eric4smith »

tonmoy wrote: post #93
eric4smith wrote: post #69

My first kid just reached 18. Now I'm seriously thinking of having another one. Remember when we were younger and the world's population hit 7 billion, everyone was really, really concerned about overpopulation??? I even did not want to have any kids because of this. Now, Korea is seriously going to be worse than even Japan. And faster too. Back in Jamaica one of my grandma had 7 children, the other one had 8 (with 2…

Note that child death rates were considerably higher even 50 years ago in all of those countries.

Yes. Duh. That's why I even mentioned my grandma.

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

#98

Post by wrp »

I have been in and out of Korea for many years and know several families where the norm went from several children to one within two generations. The main factors that I think caused this trend are:

1. Husband and wife both now work, not just in jobs, but in careers they are heavily invested in.

2. Getting and prospering in a career is really tough. I heard something like among current college graduates, only 20% are expected to ever find a full-time permanent position.

3. The education system is so competitive that doing well requires effort to the limits of physical endurance. It is not just the financial cost. Supporting a child to adulthood is draining on the parents in other ways. The families I know are in the top 10% for educational attainment, so I don't know how well this applies to working class families.

4. This is relatively minor, but there is a perpetual housing crunch and this affects prices.

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

#99

Post by rr808 »

remarkEon wrote: post #75
colinmhayes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productivity has never been higher. We're just consuming more.

I don’t think that’s OP’s point (plus I’m not convinced we really are more productive). OP’s point appears to me to be something like “a good measure of productivity is how many people a single working person can support”. Today, most families need to have two parents working. This makes a pretty good inference, I think, about how much things have changed.

Most families do not need to have two parents working if they live like people 60 years ago. Ie one car, a 1000 sq ft home, vacations in the local area, home made lunches, hand me down clothes, no AC, no electronics, no braces.
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