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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

#351

Post by rayiner »

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…

But the people having kids are the ones with less money. The parents in my neighborhood are middle class (I mean like cops and admin assistants) and there’s three families with three kids just within 8 houses. Meanwhile among my law school friends, 0 kids is far more common than 2, and while I’m sure someone else besides me in my class (200 people, late 30s) has 3, I don’t know them.

One thing I think gets really overlooked is that college and job searches tear apart extended families, which in more traditional societies are a huge part of the child care strategy.

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

#352

Post by jxramos »

greaterthan3 wrote: post #187
eliben wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that it's both men and women in Israel could be significant. I heard stories about people meeting their romantic partners in the army during the mandatory service.

Yah I could see that. Opposite sexes commingling during the strength of youth required for military duties and which also happens to coincide with peak fertility. I’m convinced that peak fertility and sexual urges during our 20s is no coincidence—-it’s our bodies screaming a large signal at us that this is the time. That strength and ability to pull all nighters sure comes in handy caring for a newborn. Taking on such a challenge 20 years past the peak without the aid of a 10 or 12 year olds helping hands is a high burden no doubt.

I’m starting to become more convince that economies which fundamentally squander this peak fertility moment will shoulder a burden that will lead to their demise. How long can we get the fertility timing wrong before we are no more? I guess we’re about to find out.

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

#353

Post by pram »

nunb wrote: post #263
nxm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After having kids, my opinion is they come out of the womb with baked-in personalities.

Not that we don't change as we age obviously, but it's definitely not a blank slate by a mile.

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

#354

Post by Psychoshy_bc1q »

collegeburner wrote: post #258
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…

OR we could say "you had 65 years to save up, no way in hell are we going to keep crippling the economic prospects of our youth to fund your retirement"

No post body was provided.

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

#355

Post by yardstick »

decafninja wrote: post #158
nxm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In our case, we are not that desperate. We do know some friends that were though, and did do exactly that. Also IVF is significantly cheaper in Korea? We know some friends who are low income that had the procedure done there.

Move to the UK and IVF is free for your first child. After that it’s about £15-20k per attempt.

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

#356

Post by rayiner »

jxramos wrote: post #343
rayiner wrote: post #293

So my dad spent his career working on US family planning efforts abroad. (We came here from Bangladesh because of my dad's work at a US public health company.) And the results have been positive in many ways: the fertility is down from 7 when my dad was born to 2 today. At the same time, the whole shtick was kind of "there's too many Asians!" I can't help but think that these efforts condemned these countries to long…

That odd one out deal I picked up on too in my experience. It really awoke in me a perception of the whole sense of family friendly vs adult oriented. I realized I had been on an adult only train for decades never contemplating the absence of children as being anything abnormal. I just assumed for the most part they were around just not in the venues or circles I mingled with. Eventually I realized they’re mostly abs…

It’s a stark stark difference. Going into a restaurant in DC versus say a heavily Hispanic suburb of Texas. Nearly everything’s family friendly by default in the latter place. Just because you’d have no customers if you weren’t.

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

#357

Post by yardstick »

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…

Have you thought about some basic, non-intrusive tests to identify some possible issues? Blood tests, sperm counts, etc.

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

#358

Post by kupopuffs »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #319
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. Unfortunately many people who are not properly equipped to raise children (financially, temperamentally or otherwise) have lots of children and don't make it work. The result is a permanent underclass and a serious crime problem in many of our major cities.

I think we can find some middle ground between "I won't have kids until I can afford to send them to Harvard" and "I'll have 7 kids while being addicted to drugs and having no family to support me".

Agreed. And unfortunately it's the dwindling middle class

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

#359

Post by mavhc »

lettergram wrote: post #268
Thorrez wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pharmaceutic…

But allowing people to decide when to have children via birth control doesn't reduce the population, it just means the children have better lives as their parents can afford them and don't need to rely on welfare.

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

#360

Post by imtringued »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #295
Dalewyn wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the wider context of population decline due to low birth rates, both are bad because both lead to population decline anyway. 2 kids is a hard minimum for maintaining population count, 3 or more kids for increasing population. As for what decafninja (or any individual for that matter) decides upon in the bedroom, that's for him to decide and his business alone. I'm not going to comment because it's none of my b…

Why do we need to maintain our population count? Why is it a problem if it declines?

Because the longtermists are betting on 10^58 humans being alive one day. If you don't have children and population growth isn't exponential anymore their whole ideology comes crashing down.

If people voluntarily self limit the size of the population that is a good thing because it means we won't need to shoot each other if it turns out we are straining the earth too much.

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