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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

#161

Post by mensetmanusman »

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.

The robots won’t let you, they need you for their economy metrics.

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

#162

Post by eliben »

greaterthan3 wrote: post #84

Birth rates are low pretty much everywhere in the developed world, but South Korea is an outlier in how low they are. For example, Japan's fertility rate is 1.3, compared to Korea's 0.84. That's a huge difference. It's possible there's something unique to South Korea that causes it. Perhaps it's mandatory 2 years of military service for males. Or maybe their famously judgmental culture. I don't know.

As an opposite data point: in Israel, military service of 3 years is mandatory for males, 2 years for females. Israel has BY FAR the highest fertility in the OECD. So military service probably isn't a strong correlation here.

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

#163

Post by npc12345 »

zamfi wrote: post #124
makeitdouble wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

No post body was provided.

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

#164

Post by labster »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #122
labster wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, sure, but none of that changes what I wrote. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Nor that improvements to Earth’s habitability will be timely, nor whether incentive structures will line up to implement the changes needed.

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

#165

Post by noisy_boy »

Aeolun wrote: post #144
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.

I don't know how people can say that - it definitely takes extra time. Ferrying them to different extra-curricular activities (all of them don't have to like the same thing), teaching at home/different homework, the constant fights. Cooking for 4 instead of 1 may not make a big difference but the extra dishes don't wash themselves. I'm not even getting into additional parent teacher meetings, doctor's appointments and so on.

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

#166

Post by robocat »

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…

Population growth is a solved problem as countries become wealthier. If you want to reduce population quickly, perhaps look at reducing the number of elderly people or reducing their economic dead weight cost (encourage euthanasia, export to cheaper countries, deathly games or sports, encourage pandemics, encourage depression, early payout for future euthanasia, et cetera). This could also solve the housing crisis (and housing is a driver for economic growth, and growth is really the main driver for global harm).

Direct costs for the elderly are currently ~40% of government expenditures in New Zealand and growing.

My guesstimate 23G$ ($==NZD in this comment) for superannuation/pension[1] and 16G$ healthcare costs[2] of 110G$ total expenditure for ~16% of population (789k of 5M in 2020, projected to 20% in 2030, and 25%+ eventually[3]).

That is ~60k$ per person. 50% of people retiring now can expect[4] to live 2 decades i.e. cost ~1M$ (totally ignoring discount value!).

Disclaimer: tongue in cheek: I am middle aged.

[1] https://www.interest.co.nz/news/100033/budget-2019-social-we...

[2] https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/125200191/hey-big-sp...

[3] https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/national-popu...

[4] https://www.stats.govt.nz/tools/how-long-will-i-live

Edit:

> feasible to have children (through surrogate) at the age of 50

If you think it is okay to orphan 1 in 20 children, and that children don't have live grand parents, although maybe benefits of help with elderly care and passing on inheritance? 65 year old helping 90 year old is challenging and very common).

That would definitely reduce population (2 children per 2 adults reproducing at 50 has maybe 40% less total population count, compared against population count if reproducing at 25).

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

#168

Post by octobus2021 »

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…

If a woman has a child in her 50s she will spend her 50s (and maybe part of her 60s) taking care of the toddler and then raise them to be 10 years old. These are not easy years I can tell you that having gone through that more than once. And I was in my 30s and early 40s. Then, when she's in her mid-to-late 60s she'll have to deal with a moody and irrational teenager and try to make sure he/she won't screw up so bad as to ruin the rest of their lives. And she won't see them grow up to be independent adults until she's in her 70s. Is that what you envision yourselves doing in your last healthy years (and for many of us beyond that)?

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

#169

Post by decafninja »

colinmhayes wrote: post #57
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Korea has pretty shit work/life balance. And if you lose your job you're also SoL. There's still a substantial amount of instability and psychic stressors that could lead to someone not wanting kids, on top of constantly fearing war with NK

Yet it is still among the best places to live on earth.

Depends. Versus some third world or developing country? Of course.

Versus other developed countries? South Korea has its pros and cons just like any other.

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

#170

Post by legutierr »

decafninja wrote: post #118
internet_user wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why adoption instead of IVF?

Watching her friends and my friends' wives go through it, we've been scared off. Add to that, the usual HN phenomenon that we're observing how the world and our countries (USA & Korea) seem be going down the toilet, and that makes us feel hesitant to bring a new human being into the world, especially when there are kids already here that could use a loving family.

The world has always been going down the toilet. The only difference now is that we have higher visibility of and lower tolerance for the bullshit. You shouldn’t be so pessimistic.
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