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

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

#141

Post by Aeolun »

ctoth wrote: post #63
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 Does the change necessarily have to be societal? > In 1992, a study found a global 50% decline in sperm counts in men over the previous 60 years. Multiple studies over subsequent years confirmed that initial finding, including a 2017 paper showing a 50% to 60% decline in sperm concentration between 1973 and 2011 in m…

The same things that cause a higher average life expectation? Maybe the microplastics floating through the atmosphere everywhere? The constant stress about what is happening with the whole world instead of just your neighbor?

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

#142

Post by makeitdouble »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108
makeitdouble wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a trend happening in many countries where economical stagnation or downturn push young people and couples to wait for better days to engage in romantic relationships or build families.

You could shelve that as "society not providing enough incentives", but to me it looks like a more complex issue than what's covered by carrot/stick mechanisms.

Not all issues leading to forgoing procreating are that complex, but putting any of them as "women chose to xxxx" is I think only useful at a micro level, and kinda misses the reasons why they chose to do so, which are usually not in any individual's hand.

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

#143

Post by lotsofpulp »

internet_user wrote: post #123
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).

How do you respond to this comment? seems an environmental factor is at play as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32580631#32588473

I guess I do not know enough about South Korean fertility to make a credible claim, but if most of the fertility decline is due to birthing children at older ages, then I would file that under the same category as women gaining financial independence and ability to choose when to have kids.

Women basically saying in order for me to risk what I have to risk to have a child(ren), I need security first. Which can manifest as working to save and achieve higher income levels instead of having kids.

But I suppose there could be a huge environmental or whatever biological factor causing reduced pregnancies. Marriage rates might help tease this out.

Edit: from 2019

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/til-death-do-i-s...

> A decade ago, almost 47 per cent of single and never-married Korean women said they thought marriage was necessary.

>Last year, that fell to 22.4 per cent, while the number of couples getting hitched slumped to 257,600 - down from 434,900 in 1996.

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

#144

Post by Aeolun »

gbronner wrote: post #47

Lots of highly opinionated clickwarriors in this comments section. Free time brought to you, almost certainly, by having relatively few kids.

I do not think more kids translates into less time. If anything it’s the opposite. If there’s many of them they’ll do stuff together and you are free.

Stuff like brushing teeth and bath take relatively little extra time, so does cooking for 4 instead of 1 kid.

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

#145

Post by SilasX »

Beached wrote: post #132
SilasX wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

buying your own place gives you permanence you can plan around. you know where you will live, you know where your kids will go to school, you know your neighbors and neighborhood your kids will grow up in, and probably most important, you know how much it will cost each month, and you won't get thrown out on your butt because land lord wants to liquidate or have nephew Timmy live there next year. this type of stabili…

So renters in Korea actually have to move a lot, and the awareness of this dynamic actually matters in practice, or you're just assuming that much because that's how America works?

Edit: Don't mean to come down hard, it's just that in the kinds of topics I often see people casually assume certain things are "obviously" important for starting families, which it turns out other first-world countries do without just fine.

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

#146

Post by lettergram »

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…

As soon as you hit 30-32 the rate of issues conceiving and issues with the baby grow exponentially.

How long have you been seeing this trend?

There’s a lot of experts who have been arguing that everything from pesticides to vaccines will slowly degrade our ability to produce [healthy] offspring. The general reasoning is fairly straight forward - if one thing damages your DNA or what have you, then it might be anywhere from 0 to 3 generations for issues to crop up.

There’s also social factors - fear, stress, isolation, etc will all impact willingness to reproduce (imo that’s not it).

Finally, there’s general stagnation. Ie if your not eating well, working in a field, etc you’re not going to be healthy.

Reality is probably a combination of everything, BUT women should also seriously research side effects of birth control. I have a sneaking suspicion birth control mediating hormones will have many long-term effects. I know women who were impacted by this.

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

#147

Post by nxm »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #119
internet_user wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why adoption instead of IVF?

It gives a child a normal childhood and saves them from a system of foster care that can never fully meet the needs of a child?

Much respect to those who adopt, but bloodlines matter

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

#148

Post by lettergram »

decafninja wrote: post #127
wrp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Korea…

To be honest, this sounds environmental in nature…

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is intentional. That said, all I have is the constant drum of “the world is over populated” by leaders around the world to back up my reasoning for potentially being intentional.

Plenty of non-intentional possibilities as well.

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

#149

Post by mensetmanusman »

waterlaw wrote: post #52
robocat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surrogacy will be the next big thing For most couples, the first 9 months for a child isn’t the problem, it is the costs of the following 2 decades.

Yeah. Their idea was to reduce the population until you reach a number low enough that is viable for the ecosystem. The population would then be "maintained" at a stable level. Most people would not be able to afford children. You could make child-rearing unaffordable enough to require government assistance. Then that assistance could be limited by quota. There's a lot of things that could happen in the future. We do…

Wealth is meaningless when there is no one to pay for services. Expect costs to dramatically out-grow savings and interest.

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

#150

Post by nxm »

green-eclipse wrote: post #117
internet_user wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why adoption instead of IVF?

IVF is incredibly expensive and certainly not guaranteed to be successful. Might have something to do with it.

If a couple wants something that is priceless so badly, then it’s worth even the multiple rounds of ivf
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