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

#581

Post by rayiner » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #578

missedthecue wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, stay at home mom.

I have not yet found a single planned 3rd child among my colleagues and associates in situations where both husband and wife work full time (without live in help, or at least someone who comes to the house full time to watch the kids before and even a little after the parents come home). Not saying it won't happen that I will eventually find one, but I find it to be the single biggest predictor of having more than 2…

Don’t forget grandparents. That’s how my wife and I had three while both working as corporate lawyers. This is quite common among people I know.

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

#582

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

Sharlin wrote: post #458

searchableguy wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many kids are forced to do these activities to pad their application for colleges and sometimes it is for show and prestige.

Oh. That’s batshit crazy (the college application thing). Why should non-academic achievements make any difference whatsoever when applying to college? Is that a thing anywhere except the US? As for show and prestige, that’s usually what the parents want, so that’s squarely in the "something is wrong" category.

I thought it was a case of everyone apeing the Ivy Leagues when they kept on changing the rules to keep their hardworking minority numbers down to make their New England old money look superior. So the excuse was they are going for "well rounded with extracurriculars" students, back when there were too many Jews for their liking. Then repeat the same thing with Asians once exams and extracurriculars are optimized for.

Blind unthinking mimicry drives the educational system. I was in early elementary school when analogies were removed from the SATs. They went from "very important" to disappearing off the face of the earth, only occassionally showing up in two questions at most per standardized test.

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

#583

Post by mullingitover » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:45 PM UTC

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #314

mullingitover wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The more genetically similar we are, the more socially valuable the relative differences become.

It depends on the difference, because genetic differences aren't always beneficial. The Hapsburg Dynasty's Charles II famously had an inherited birth defect due to the heavy inbreeding[1] among the ruling class, for example. It was of no value to anyone.

The true reason for valuing lineages is more about social rank/class protectionism.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/distinctive-habsbu...

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

#584

Post by rr888 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 8:07 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #22

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…

There's just a lump in the population vs. age graph and you're fixating on the back side of the lump as if it's inevitably going towards zero. After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. Wanna guess what h…

> After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see

... millions of Pakistanis, Egyptians and Nigerians moving there to escape their overheated, overcrowded countries.

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

#585

Post by ars » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 8:17 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #533

Gatsky wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing age of women at attempted conception probably explains most of this I think. SK has the oldest first time mums in the world: https://photius.com/rankings/2020/population/mothers_mean_ag...

its going to keep getting worse everywhere when it takes this long to accumulate assets for a house, car and financial cusion.

You don't actually have to do that before having a child, you can do that while having a child.

If you are not wasteful (constant new things, fancy vacations etc), young children are not expensive. It really only gets expensive when you have to pay tuition.

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

#586

Post by FLT8 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #585

collegeburner wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its going to keep getting worse everywhere when it takes this long to accumulate assets for a house, car and financial cusion.

You don't actually have to do that before having a child, you can do that while having a child. If you are not wasteful (constant new things, fancy vacations etc), young children are not expensive. It really only gets expensive when you have to pay tuition.

Anecdata point: my wife and I chose not to have kids for the reasons outlined in the GP post (and more). Mortgages are so large these days that for people lucky enough to even be able to own a home, becoming comfortable enough with ones financial position that you feel you could give a child the kind of upbringing that you'd want for them (equivalent to your own, for example), takes long enough that the window of fertility is past. Plus, honestly, the world seems pretty bleak at the moment to myself and a lot of my smart friends. It's raining PF[AO]S, the climate is an unsolvable disaster, microplastics are everywhere, we're on the brink of war, inflation is rampant, housing is completely unaffordable, politics is a polarised mess, who'd want to bring a kid into a world like that without at least some kind of solid financial certainty? (There are positives, the world has it's amazing moments too, but hoo boy there are a lot of challenges to be solved).

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

#587

Post by irrational » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #338

irrational wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... why? Most women I know are fine and even happy with the pregnancy part. Why would they want to outsource that part? They love the attention. The birth part? Not so much, but that part is difficult to outsource.

Google "perineal tear birth" for a visceral taste of the issues that come along with pregnancy and childbirth. It's a grueling process.

I’ve witnessed 7 births in person (cesarean, vaginal natural, and vaginal with epidural). Though I haven’t experienced it myself, I’m fairly familiar with childbirth.

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

#588

Post by dirtyid » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #107

My interest lies in how many zeros of population are required to support certain technology strata. E.g. about a million workers are required to build and maintain aircraft. How many for nuclear power (counting everyone from teachers to healthcare etc.)

Fraction of labour force that is has STEM degrees and relevant vocational fields. My guestimate is much less than most would think. Like Samsung has ~300k employees and has vertical in almost every SKR strategic industry.

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

#589

Post by tptacek » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #305

nunb wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you really think genetics don't matter? Depending on the study, IQ heritability is between 60-80%.

This isn't even wrong.

Is the number of human toes genetic? How heritable is the number of toes on a human being?

Is wearing a dress genetic? How heritable is whether or not you wear a dress?

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

#590

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 10:04 PM UTC

collegeburner wrote: post #522

Sharlin wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. That’s batshit crazy (the college application thing). Why should non-academic achievements make any difference whatsoever when applying to college? Is that a thing anywhere except the US? As for show and prestige, that’s usually what the parents want, so that’s squarely in the "something is wrong" category.

colleges have decided they want balanced students who have some of everything (except free time, because lmao they dont need that). so its karate or swimming oe soccer or football or baseball for athleticism, usually 2 during childhood. its piano or violin. its starting extra language study early. boy scouts or national honor society for leadership. speech and debate, model un or working for a campaign to show politi…

> it is also not mentioning that "academic excellence" in high school has moved from straight As to 6-8 AP exams in a single year, i shit you not.

That is because even when I attended high school 15 to 20 years ago, letter grades/points were extremely inflated. AP exam scores (and SAT/ACT) are the only objective academic measures.

As an example, I am pretty sure a C was the lowest grade possible to get (translated to a 2 on the point scale). Then a B was a 3, and A was 4. For a class, there was a final numerical score (arbitrarily determined), and an A was something like 93 to 100, B was 85 to 92, and so on.

But that was for the “regular classes”. If you were in an honors class, you got +5 added to your final number grade for the course. And AP class added +10. So if you ended up with 93, you actually got 103 in the class. And so you had an A, but the grade point average was calculated from 103/100*4 = 4.12. And then this grade point average was used to rank you relative to others in the grade for purposes of determining valedictorian.

In any case, as you can see, the whole thing was a joke and anyone who attended class got a C, and anyone who put in half an ounce of effort got an A, and the higher achievers had GPAs higher than 4 on a 4 point scale.

Obviously, colleges are not dumb, so they know the whole grade inflation ruse, and it also continues in many classes. After all, at many colleges, their customers are paying them $30k to $70k per year for that grade.