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

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101–110 of 643 posts

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

#101

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…

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

#103
post #100

so, uh, in other words there's going to be a glut of affordable housing?

In Korea maybe, the world's population is going to continue rising though. And those climate refugees are starting to come from the fullest countries.

yeah, that's the joke :)

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

#104
Kids are too expensive to raise, housing in major cities with jobs are unaffordable, and women are having a hard time continuing their career after giving birth.

It really comes down to these three problems. The government is aware and making efforts but it's not enough to convince young married couples to have kids.

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

#105
post #93

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.

People keep saying high child death rates mean people have more children. But i have yet to find any proofs or research paper for this. What I really find is that as people's expectations of better living go up (not living expenses per se), then people have less children.

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

#106
My wife and I are Korean-American, albeit with many ties to our country of origin.

Something I've noticed is that many couples that do want a child have a very difficult time conceiving. People are having kids at a later age on average, but even younger couples seem to have a hard time.

Various gynecological disorders seem to be very common too - fibroids, endometriosis, adenomyosis, amongst others, all of which affect a woman's fertility.

My wife and I have been trying for a kid but have been unsuccessful. Many of our friends are experiencing the same, and are resorting to clinical fertility procedures like in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination.

I don't know how true it is, but one of my friends outright said that the majority of women in Korea are conceiving through some kind of fertility procedure, and that if we really wanted a baby, not to waste our time and just go ahead and do the same.

One thing that makes me believe him is that there are a ton of twins amongst the couples in our social circle. My understanding is that naturally twins are a rare phenomenon, but much more likely if doing something like in vitro or artificial insemination?

Us, we've already decided that push comes to shove, we'll most likely adopt.

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

#107
My interest lies in how many zeros of population are required to support certain technology strata.

E.g. about a million workers are required to build and maintain aircraft. How many for nuclear power (counting everyone from teachers to healthcare etc.)

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

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

So to you it can be summed up to "it's all women's fault" ?

Not really.

One can also frame it as society’s fault for not providing both women and men with sufficient incentive to procreate. Note that the word “fault” typically has a negative connotation, but I am not intending to use it with positive or negative connotation, but simply as a causative factor.

The comment I replied to stated something changed, to which I wanted to clarify what I think the biggest variable that changed. Of course, men also may not want to have as many kids as in previous years, but I would still bet this is a much smaller factor than women saying no.

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

#109

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…

No it won't. Poor countries arent that stupid. Many don't allow surrogacy for ethical reasons. What they want is for current rich countries to impoverish themselves so there's room for more competition.

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

#110
post #83

I have just one child. I thought it was kinda sad that they're an only child but I didn't think about that its more than that. They wont have any nieces or nephews, if they have one child with a partner who is an only child my grandchild wont have any uncles, aunts or cousins either. Its a huge contrast to other branches in my family where there are like dozens and dozens of cousins all living close to each other and…

It's more sad than just kinda.
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