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

bloomberg.com

221–230 of 643 posts

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

#221
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much respect to those who adopt, but bloodlines matter

Counterpoint: our species has very little genetic diversity, we’re all pretty closely related. The odds that there’s there’s something unique or special about any one person’s lineage is pretty low.

In this context, it's probably more of a matter of personal and familial pride and honor rather than promoting the benefit of humankind.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The other difference now is that we're pretty close to wiping out crucial ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest and show no signs of taking climate change as seriously as we should.

Speak for yourself. I take it very seriously myself.

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

#223
post #63

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 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…

>Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility[0]. This has everything to do with monogamous relationships and marriages in most of the developed human world. In the natural world, there are many factors at play that help ensure only the "healthiest" males conceive with females. Most factors are indirect, such as…

That's an elaborate portrait and narrative you've painted there. Do you have sources for that?

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

#224

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" ?

Basically, that's my theory. Back in the "old days", women didn't get to choose their jobs, or when (or if) they had children. Basically, women were little better than slaves.

Now that women have freedom, society is imploding in a way, at least in terms of population.

So to get back to replacement levels of fertility, we either need to 1) turn women into slaves again, or 2) look at some other way of running the society. #1 doesn't sound very good if you value human rights.

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

#225
post #63

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 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…

>Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility[0]. This has everything to do with monogamous relationships and marriages in most of the developed human world. In the natural world, there are many factors at play that help ensure only the "healthiest" males conceive with females. Most factors are indirect, such as…

Sure, maybe a percentage or two could be explained by this, but 60% in 50 years? Natural selection takes millions of years to accomplish a feat like that.

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

#226
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.

Interestingly enough in Korea the mortality rate in 1955 was the same as in 2005. It increased in the 60s, peaked in the 80s, and has been declining again since the 90s

(It's now even lower than in both 2005/1955)

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

#227
post #30

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…

As usual, society is not preparing itself for new economic realities (many I speak to do not understand this particular one at all), but, has it occurred to you that this is very good news in terms of livability on planet earth and our continued existence? Sure, humans will adapt but only when it's too late, as usual, but at least this is a change in positive direction. Forever growth is nonsensical, and this isn't t…

Good news for who?

While developed nations are below replacement rate, many developing nations are having over half a dozen children per family. The aging population of developed countries is not conducive to production and a healthy economy. This will lead to immigration. If this trend continues, people from the developing nations will eventually inherit the developed world. Until they too fall below replacement rate.

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

#228
It's always interesting to look at what these numbers exactly mean because it's deeply counter-intuitive. For the sake of simple modeling, imagine we have a society with 100 people with a fertility rate of 1, that give birth at 20 and die at 80. Here is how that looks:

---

Year 0: 100 newborns

Year 20: 100 twenties, 50 newborns

Year 40: 100 forties, 50 twenties, 25 newborns

Year 60: 100 sixties, 50 forties, 25 twenties, 12 newborns

Year 80: 50 sixties, 25 forties, 12 twenties, 6 newborns

Year 100: 25 sixties, 12 forties, 6 twenties, 3 newborns

Year 120: 12 sixties, 6 forties, 3 twenties, 1 newborn

---

In spite of having an extinction level fertility rate, the population nearly doubled in the first 60 years, going from 100 to 187. And it took 80 years to even see the population begin to decline. But then suddenly over the second 60 years, the population exponentially declined going from 187 to 22. This is very akin to the scenario in Korea, because they went from a fertility rate of 6+ to Because of the fact that we live much longer than we are fertile, it really damages any idea of "Well we'll just solve this when it becomes a problem." When it starts to become obvious there's a problem, the decline is already coming at an exponential rate. And it's entirely possible that such a small youth population supporting a suddenly massive elderly population will drive fertility rates even lower.

It increasingly seems that the future of our planet will not be decided by politics, ideology, or anything of the sort. It will simply be decided by whichever groups have children at healthy rates.

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

#229
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a great illustration as to why inequality matters, not just poverty.

I'm not sure what inequality has to do with it. To me, it sounds more like chasing the joneses.

There are plenty of free activities.

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

#230
post #63

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 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…

>Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility[0]. This has everything to do with monogamous relationships and marriages in most of the developed human world. In the natural world, there are many factors at play that help ensure only the "healthiest" males conceive with females. Most factors are indirect, such as…

Humans may naturally be monogamous, at least to a degree. It is a common occurrence in the animal kingdom, in many bird species for example. Monogamosity is therefore a very unlikely candidate for fertility drop.
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