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How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

nippon.com

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Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#41

Post by ae_throw »

Having read the article and somewhat followed the SK troubles, the only sensible conclusion I can draw is that the culture itself has become poor and unable to prosper, and is on a downward trajectory. A small % of people will obviously succeed but this doesn’t really make a culture. You having children today doesn’t guarantee the circumstances for your children, no matter how much of a financial or otherwise buffer you put in place - because your neighbours are in the same situation and nobody wants to take action to divert from the current course. This is another society that’s on track for extinction.

You just can’t play along and hope for the best. It doesn’t work that way and it never did. Forcing your kids to stay up until 4 am to study while you get yourself into debt is not a recipe for success no matter what the rest of the country is doing. It’s just terrible from a societal perspective.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#42

Post by Tade0 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #24

I see little emphasis in this article on real estate or rents. Sure, the issues they raise are contributors, but housing issues are foundational for many of the other problems they spend a lot of time on in the article. SK is more land-constrained than Japan. We're seeing family formation being negatively impacted in many areas of the world now due to high real estate prices. It's particularly acute in SK: https://ww…

It's there. Relevant fragment:

> Another economic factor in the falling birthrate is the rising price of real estate and a resulting increase in unmarried or late-marrying people. The tradition in Korea is for men to prepare a family home before marrying, and the rising cost of housing in recent years has thereby triggered a decline in marriage rates.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#43

Post by davidktr »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #24

I see little emphasis in this article on real estate or rents. Sure, the issues they raise are contributors, but housing issues are foundational for many of the other problems they spend a lot of time on in the article. SK is more land-constrained than Japan. We're seeing family formation being negatively impacted in many areas of the world now due to high real estate prices. It's particularly acute in SK: https://ww…

ctrl+f "real estate"

"Another economic factor in the falling birthrate is the rising price of real estate and a resulting increase in unmarried or late-marrying people. The tradition in Korea is for men to prepare a family home before marrying, and the rising cost of housing in recent years has thereby triggered a decline in marriage rates."

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#44

Post by sho_hn »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #24

I see little emphasis in this article on real estate or rents. Sure, the issues they raise are contributors, but housing issues are foundational for many of the other problems they spend a lot of time on in the article. SK is more land-constrained than Japan. We're seeing family formation being negatively impacted in many areas of the world now due to high real estate prices. It's particularly acute in SK: https://ww…

Yes, housing is a pretty big factor.

The textbook life you're supposed to lead in South Korea (and while South Korea is a very dynamic country that is always changing fast, for the moment, the expectation to adhere to norms and aspire to what your folks did is still a bit higher than you're perhaps used to) is to get married, move into a marriage home you bought - more on this in a moment - a couple of months to weeks before the ceremony to start co-habitation, and get busy having children.

"Buying a home" in South Korea means either outright buying, or very commonly, living rent-free for the duration of a one- or multi-year contract after putting down a deposit that is usually 75% or more of the property value. This system is considered good and desirable, called Jeonse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse

For numerous reasons, the Jeonse system is slowly getting dismantled. Monthly rent schemes are slowly becoming more and more prevalent. This is causing a big squeeze/run on the now-fewer good Jeonse apartments available, and giving many South Koreans the feeling that it's harder than ever to find a home to have, which is so intrinsically linked to this life milestone that for some, it puts getting married out of question.

In addition to the above issue, which is meant as perceptual, it's also actually become economically more difficult to afford good housing. Some of this is very real and beyond the control of individuals, others is peer pressure to allocate money to e.g. luxury goods. Overall it's become tough on couples to afford housing and kids without both parents working very hard, which in turns makes child-rearing difficult to pull off; Korean employers and co-workers are still very hostile to workers with children (don't bring private issues to work, etc.).

(I'm not Korean, but I've lived there for some years, can communicate in the language and read the news, and am married to a South Korean citizen with a child on the way; the latter is one of the reasons we moved away.)

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#45

Post by wsc981 »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #6
jmyeet wrote: post #4

[flagged]

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…

Northern Europe and Canada as well. Perhaps all of the “Western” world.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#46

Post by orochimaaru »

I think all these studies skirt very gingerly around a big problem. Stressful work culture, lack of support for families (includes high real-estate costs, long commute times, lack of sick leave, etc.) and most importantly a path for women (and men - but its mostly women) who drop out of the workforce and want to get back in once the children are older and more independent.

Child rearing takes a group of people not just a nuclear family where both parents work long hours. Cost of living and work culture is forcing people to work long hours and women don't find a good enough reason to give up their freedom, and keep in mind it's what childbirth is in most Asian cultures, a woman giving up what she wants to do until the child is independent. I see no reason why women would ever want children. What's society providing them that they need to make this sacrifice ?

All studies mention these, they just don't provide any concrete solutions. It's typically around creating some committee or forum that is looking to change this. Nothing will change, not until the corporations start running out of people to hire or the country runs out of soldiers for defense.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#47

Post by Enginerrrd »

markus_zhang wrote: post #27
pc86 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can't just point the flavors you don't like and say Ah that's not Capitalism.

But regulatory capture isn't capitalism.

The tendency to produce monopolies and pseudomonopolies IS, but that is a very well known market failure, that was once addressed quite well in democratic societies while maintaining (classically) liberal economic policies.

The problem we have now isn't capitalism... It's plutocracy.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#48

Post by munk-a »

woodruffw wrote: post #33
jamiek88 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those hormones could very well affect the desire to have kids too. Our brains and hormones are poorly understood.

"We don't understand it" is the absence of an argument, not positive evidence that these chemicals make people not want to have children.

I agree that it's a frustrating counter argument since it is so vague and poorly understood but we really don't know a lot about how hormones effect decision making outside of a few very crude ones.

It is a mostly non-existent argument but it's still something that's important to consider.

Re: How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s

#49

Post by [deleted] »

woodruffw wrote: post #33
jamiek88 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those hormones could very well affect the desire to have kids too. Our brains and hormones are poorly understood.

"We don't understand it" is the absence of an argument, not positive evidence that these chemicals make people not want to have children.

[deleted]
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