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I am by no means an expert but I would classify this as misogyny that is rampant in a lot of asian countries. Especially for a number of the developing countries, including Korea, women are still very much seen as property.
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I wouldn't necessarily call it "fueled by western style feminist politics", when it is fueled as much (or even moreso) by "western style incel politics". Furthermore, while it most certainly is an issue over there, it's not so widespread it contributes meaningfully to this particular statistic.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-04-11/in-seo...
The article has curiously little about what koreans actually want, vs what the author thinks is stopping them (despite their burning desire) to have kids. After all, as the article says the birthrate went way down a long time ago thus it's likely that people would know by now what is stopping them from having more kids
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be precise the issue is that capitalism will always optimize for "most profit" and little else, simply due to the design of the capitalist "machine". Koreans are simply very very good at capitalism, and the result is a society where most will barely scrape by, constantly working, while those at the top reap massive profits. If you've been paying attention, you can see the same exact thing here in America, with a l…
The other thing is that Japan and Korea have heavily state sponsored capitalism; bank capital and other resources are overwhelmingly allocated to large conglomerates as an industrial policy, which strangles small and medium size businesses that actually employ most people and thus reduces wages across the economy. Samsung Group is 20.3% of South Korean GDP, and that’s just one of the chaebol.
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And ah yes that global bastion of unfettered capitalism: China. All your "in the US" examples aren't capitalism, they're barely even free markets (and several aren't at all). High regulations, high barriers to entry, massive government subsidies for established players and massive government regulation preventing new players from entering the market. Capitalism has its downsides for sure, but pointing out education a…
The only thing they left out in the article is what the effect of pollutants like BPA have on the birthrate. Currently, BPA, an artificial estrogen, is nearly everywhere from food, receipts, and now even clothing. PFAS, BPS, and a host of other pollutants are almost as widespread in many countries that experienced any decent amount of industrialization
This explanation may make sense if people were complaining about an inability to have kids despite wanting them. But physical infertility is not alleged here.
Our brains and hormones are poorly understood.
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> Capitalism. The problem is capitalism. Not capitalism but the unfettered capitalism without protection for workers. In a system where humans are treated as "input" for the big machine without income security, said humans will not produce more burden unto themselves. If having a kid increases the risk of destitution, the rational human will choose to not have them (or at least not have more than 1).
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