Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by mrcartmeneses » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:06 AM UTC

decafninja wrote: post #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 affe…

Regarding twins, doctors like to implant two embryos to give a better chance of successful insemination per procedure.

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

#122

Post by _aavaa_ » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:07 AM UTC

labster wrote: post #77

alcover wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you assume the current population is the correct one? There’s a reasonable argument to be made that humans are over the Earth’s carrying capacity nearly everywhere, and are causing environmental and social damage to maintain the current size. It is quite normal in ecology to see crashes and recovery in the event of overpopulation. If we assume humans are biological organisms, it all seems pretty normal.

Except unlike the foxes which eat their rabbits to near extinction, and therefore soon join them, humans can change the rules of the system they're in.

Calculating the carrying capacity of the world before agriculture would have given you a much different number than after it.

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

#123

Post by internet_user » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

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).

How do you respond to this comment? seems an environmental factor is at play as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32580631#32588473

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

#124

Post by zamfi » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #89

wil421 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everything I can find says it started in Britain with textiles. Everything from Wikipedia, National Geographic, to Encyclopedia Britannica all say the same thing.

You are citing a British-US founder's product, an US magazine, and Encyclopedia Britannica to assert it all started in Britain. I'd wager we need a bit more geographically/culturally varied sources to have a fair guess at the truth.

This kind of dangerous logic is how you end up with anti-vax conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and mind control, about how one could trust Pfizer’s Phase 3 vaccine trial data they submitted for approval, etc.

On the one hand, yes of course: sources matter and you need to consider whether anyone has a motive to mislead, or even merely a motive to not dig too deeply into a claim they might wish to believe.

But on the other hand, a company merely merely being founded decades ago by a someone of a particular nationality does not on its own constitute strong evidence that any claims about that country are tainted or self-motivated. That connection is just too weak — you need to bring other evidence!

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

#125

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #80

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

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" ?

I read it more as "men have traditionally undervalued the societal contributions of women".

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

#126

Post by wrp » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

decafninja wrote: post #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 affe…

I know of this problem in Korea and even know one couple affected. I've thought that it may be caused by the stressful nature of Korean life. Is this difficulty in conceiving also prevalent among persons of Korean ancestry raised in America?

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

#127

Post by decafninja » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

wrp wrote: post #126

decafninja wrote: post #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 affe…

I know of this problem in Korea and even know one couple affected. I've thought that it may be caused by the stressful nature of Korean life. Is this difficulty in conceiving also prevalent among persons of Korean ancestry raised in America?

A big part of our social circle consists of recent immigrants from Korea (But it does seem to affect Korean-Americans that have been here longer too.

Even amongst our close family, my cousin is affected, two of her cousins are affected. All three were born and raised in Korea to adulthood and came here within the past 10 years. My cousin has an American (Caucasian) husband, her two cousins have born-in-the-USA Korean-American husbands.

Interestingly enough, our friends of other nationalities don't seem to be as affected - or maybe they just don't talk about this subject as openly? Either way, I have not noticed the twins phenomenon there.

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

#128

Post by mrcartmeneses » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

I have no evidence for this beyond my own anecdotal experience but my guess is the biggest factor is lack of affordable housing. The average price of an apartment in Soul is 1.18 billion won (883k usd). It’s very difficult to buy a home and live off a single income as a young Korean, this is forcing people to start families later or not at all.

One compounding factor could be the extension of childhood, which has been a very successful strategy for humans, and is more prevalent in the developed world.

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

#129

Post by SilasX » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:19 AM UTC

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #128

I have no evidence for this beyond my own anecdotal experience but my guess is the biggest factor is lack of affordable housing. The average price of an apartment in Soul is 1.18 billion won (883k usd). It’s very difficult to buy a home and live off a single income as a young Korean, this is forcing people to start families later or not at all. One compounding factor could be the extension of childhood, which has bee…

If "buying a home" just means buying a shoebox apartment, why is it important in the first place for starting a family? Doesn't that mean you're just as well off renting?

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

#130

Post by agentwiggles » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

faeriechangling wrote: post #76

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…

Talking about “developed countries” here, not SK specifically. Is declining fertility really such a societal and evolutionary danger when we’re talking 1.4-1.5? If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting…

I think it's less about preserving sparkling blue eyes and more about the negative effects of a declining population on a country's economy. Sam Harris had a guest (Peter Zeihan) a few episodes ago who talked about the downsides of population decline, and he was pretty interesting.

One of the key points he made that seemed fairly intuitive is that as your population declines you eventually wind up with significantly fewer long term experts in various fields of science and engineering. This means that the people who train up the next generation of scientists and engineers are spread thinner, and therefore less depth of expertise in those fields as the decline continues.

I'm not sure how much that idea is backed up by evidence, but it at least makes some sense.

Population decline had never really registered as a problem to me until I heard that episode - I always kinda figured that less people around would be a net good. Definitely worth a listen if you're interested in the topic.