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

#261

Post by mrcartmeneses » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:12 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #129

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?

Ah I see your confusion. You’ve missed that renting is more expensive than buying a home and gets more expensive each year, possibly forcing you to move away from your local area and hence your child’s school. There are some places where rent controls and renters rights can mean renting can work for families. But few places are like Berlin.

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

#262

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:13 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" ?

[deleted]

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

#263

Post by nunb » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

nxm wrote: post #147

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I heard the most bizarre & unexpected opinion first-hand from an obgyn. Prior to this I was firmly in the nurture camp of nature/nurture, but this obgyn's opinion on adoptions shocked me out of my complacency.

I am hoping Sapolsky's latest book may shed some light on the subject without the Wade/Murray "bell curve" implications.

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

#264

Post by ratsmack » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:15 AM UTC

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…

>This kind of dangerous logic...

Different or opposing opinions are neither dangerous or violent.

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

#265

Post by visarga » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

onepointsixC wrote: post #60

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically population drops were bad. When you lose population, you lose the labor required to support as many specializations, and civilization regresses. Now, though, fertilizers and modern medicine support excess human population, fossil fuels are an energy wellspring that helps reduce the need for physical labor, and AI can free people from repetitive mental work. Combine this with the fact that yes, our oversh…

You're missing the demand side and the dependents problem. AI, Automation, etc. may replace factory workers but those workers also consumed products. With less consumers you have less demand thus your revenues are doomed to shrink year on year. Just about every society has dependents who can no longer work and younger workers who support them through tax revenue. With fewer and fewer young workers and more and more d…

We might have lower demand for consumption but have higher demand on "global works" - fight global warming, upgrading with AI the economy, space development. You can think of them as technical debt we have to pay.

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

#266

Post by seibelj » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

FBISurveillance wrote: post #206

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…

Apologies for ranting but this topic resonates too much. Housing prices are 9x salary vs 4.5x salary in the 70s and it takes a while to save up. Personal data point: it took me winning an IPO lottery to start thinking about having kids for real. Having kids while earning minimal wage? Terrifying, especially in the US where getting yourself or your kid sick could bankrupt you in the blink of an eye - and if you want m…

This is because you think too much. Most people just have kids and figure it out, same as it has been since the beginning of time.

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

#267

Post by moomoo11 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:20 AM UTC

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…

As an American (immigrant) I'm honestly really alarmed by seeing the high birth rates in countries that are well, to put it bluntly, kinda backwards (I'm from one of them btw).

One of the reasons we moved to a country like the US is to be away from a backwards minded, theocratic af, corrupt society. To see that these types of countries are actually booming while highly progressed ones are depressing is super depressing.

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

#268

Post by lettergram » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #240

lettergram wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean intentional? If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures?

> If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures?

Those fertility procedures are not the desired way to go about having a baby. The vast majority of the time it's a procedure of last resort (i.e. can't get pregnant another way). These procedures are expensive and often don't work.

It could be intentional that a government, organization or pharmaceutical / chemical company is knowingly sterilizing / making it more difficult to conceive. This could either be through a willingness to look the other way (i.e. a side effect) or intentional (North Korea for instance may do some sabotage or government is intentionally pushing population reduction)

For instance, the US government gives funding to Planned Parenthood which provides birth control, abortions, and other drugs to support people looking to not have children. This organization advertises and gives a lot of birth control out for free or low fees. That's an overt intentional act of reducing population growth.

Similarly, a concern I have is purposefully downplaying the risks of long-term birth control via "the pill". Then having policies that make that pill easy to acquire (without being knowledgeable of said side effects) AND with the ability for minors to obtain them without parental awareness. Those are intentional policies intended to reduces fertility.

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

#269

Post by Thorrez » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:24 AM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #212

ctoth wrote: 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…

Monogamy has been around for a long time. I don't see how it could cause a drastic change in the last 60 years.

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

#270

Post by moomoo11 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:26 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…

We may be genetically similar but there are literally millions/maybe billions of people in the world who do not agree with LGBT or women's rights. Some of these places execute people for expressing their authentic selves. Some of these places do not believe in science and progress, and are extremely insular and religiously conservative.

So no, I don't think it is a victory unless human rights and progress don't mean anything. I'm from one of these places where birth rates are high but the quality of life is awful and government corruption is astronomical. Most people there will probably shun you if not actually harm you for doing something that nobody cares about in the US or some western countries. Recently I saw a post about how the Norwegian health ministry released some images of people doing various sexual poses as part of some sex-ed. I thought it was quite neat, and it features multiple sexualities. I will bet my life savings you try doing that where I'm from that it won't go so well and the number of fundamentalist minded people is rising.