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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

#291

Post by 1-6 »

deepsun wrote: post #207
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds more like SK is hostile just to middle and lower class families. No that that makes it right but that's the correct interpretation.

I feel like it's the same way in California.

As someone who's lived in both areas, California still had opportunities for advancement during my career if one was willing to work hard. In SK, you can work hard all your life but as opportunities are limited, you'll get stuck in toil.

When tourists look at S. Korea and say, "Hey, it's real nice here!" They don't see the hundreds of low-paid workers who are working behinds the scenes. There are plenty of low paying jobs but nothing that can help one build generational wealth.

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

#292

Post by googlryas »

malauxyeux wrote: post #273
Hitton wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry to much about climate change, humanity overcame bigger problems. And if your in-laws want children so much, just tell them your concerns, they might be willing to chip in financially.

For me, the question isn't "Will humanity overcome?" I don't have a doubt about that. Instead it's "What are the chances my kid – the individual – will lead a relatively peaceful, fulfilling life for the next 70-90 years?" I don't know the answer.

It seems like now, more than any time in recorded history, the answer is "yes".

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

#293

Post by jwells89 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #231
neom wrote: post #202

My wife and I have opted not to have children for reasons* and it's really sad how the conversation with the in-laws has moved from "you should have children because children" to "you need to have children because korea needs you to have children", and it's not just a passing comment here and there, the campaign to get us to single handedly re-populate SK is intense and sustained. I wonder if other couples are experi…

I'm not arguing your decision to not have children. I've made the same decision myself, but the 'can't afford to have children' has always confused me. Even after the point where contraception became readily available, people were having children with far fewer resources than anyone alive today. What I hear when people say 'We can't afford to have children' is an additional '...and maintain our current standard of li…

Well, kids can technically be raised on almost nothing but that doesn’t mean they should be, because there are consequences for doing that which will stay with the adults those children become for the rest of their lives. Probably, the ideal point is somewhere in the middle, as it is with most things.

Even so, kids are a large sustained expense that can’t be opted out of once they exist and are one of the most common strains on relationships both financially and emotionally — even just one kid can take a couple from thriving to struggling depending on their circumstances. In short, kids are risky, and it’s easy to see why many couples don’t particularly care to take that risk.

Following that, if governments want more people having kids, they should be throwing all they have into de-risking raising a family.

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

#294

Post by JoeAltmaier »

somenameforme wrote: post #290
grej wrote: post #206

South Korea was among the poorest countries in the world - poorer than many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as recently as the 1960s. Withing a single lifetime they transformed themselves into one of the most advanced developed economies on the planet with a madman (mad men) on their doorstep. It’s natural that that kind of change will have some massive societal implications, many of which they are still sorting out.…

It's easy to illustrate the impact of fertility rates by model, and it's far more rapid/severe than I think most realize. A fertility rate of "N" means that the next younger generation will be N/2 times as large. So, a fertility rate of 2 means no change, while a fertility rate of 4 would result in an exponential doubling. How about 0.7? We can create a population distribution of this easily enough because we know ho…

In other countries automation proceeds at a geometric rate. So the idea of 'working to support' means far, far less.

We can hope that helps in the long run.

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

#295

Post by Auracle »

malauxyeux wrote: post #273
Hitton wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry to much about climate change, humanity overcame bigger problems. And if your in-laws want children so much, just tell them your concerns, they might be willing to chip in financially.

For me, the question isn't "Will humanity overcome?" I don't have a doubt about that. Instead it's "What are the chances my kid – the individual – will lead a relatively peaceful, fulfilling life for the next 70-90 years?" I don't know the answer.

Do you think any parents have ever known that answer? Before climate change was the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation, before that was two major world wars, before that was a string of wars and plagues going back to the beginning of humanity.

If you think climate change is a good reason to not have children you need to stop and reexamine how the media/doomscrolling have affected your thought process.

I see this reason given time and time again and I just don't understand it. We're currently living in what's probably the best time ever to be a human. We get to live in air conditioned houses, many medical issues have been all but eradicated, we have (for the first time ever) too much food, etc.

Otherwise if it's just an excuse - you don't need one to not have children. If you just want to maintain your current lifestyle that's up to you.

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

#296

Post by giantg2 »

biohax2015 wrote: post #276
nradov wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people who have children even though they can't afford it. Most of them muddle through somehow.

Nobody has any desire to muddle through life

Seems like the best option from a limited selection for most of us.

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

#297

Post by thriftwy »

somenameforme wrote: post #290
grej wrote: post #206

South Korea was among the poorest countries in the world - poorer than many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as recently as the 1960s. Withing a single lifetime they transformed themselves into one of the most advanced developed economies on the planet with a madman (mad men) on their doorstep. It’s natural that that kind of change will have some massive societal implications, many of which they are still sorting out.…

It's easy to illustrate the impact of fertility rates by model, and it's far more rapid/severe than I think most realize. A fertility rate of "N" means that the next younger generation will be N/2 times as large. So, a fertility rate of 2 means no change, while a fertility rate of 4 would result in an exponential doubling. How about 0.7? We can create a population distribution of this easily enough because we know ho…

That's true. I ran a simple model a few years back. I expected my population to last for a few centuries at reproduction rate like 1.5, but they all died super quickly after an initial bulge.

Next 30 years are going to be a huge surprise for the population of all developed countries that they has successfully shrugged off till now.

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

#298

Post by dougmwne »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #249
neom wrote: post #202

My wife and I have opted not to have children for reasons* and it's really sad how the conversation with the in-laws has moved from "you should have children because children" to "you need to have children because korea needs you to have children", and it's not just a passing comment here and there, the campaign to get us to single handedly re-populate SK is intense and sustained. I wonder if other couples are experi…

I'm not in SK but in the US. I decided long ago to not have children (I'm a man) along with my wife. Maybe we'll change our mind one day, but more than likely it won't. I honestly just don't think its my responsibility to contribute to some "greater good" of continuing to populate the earth. Humans survived just fine when the population of the Earth was half the size of now. This is extremely selfish and probably not…

I really don’t see why you should have a moral obligation to continue the unsustainable overpopulation of the planet. Every single scrap of science tells us that we have overshot the planet’s carrying capacity along every dimension we care to measure. And yeah, one more person may contribute a tiny bit to a GDP and SP500 number, but those numbers will be irrelevant when the soil no longer yields food.

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

#299

Post by waveBidder »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #231
neom wrote: post #202

My wife and I have opted not to have children for reasons* and it's really sad how the conversation with the in-laws has moved from "you should have children because children" to "you need to have children because korea needs you to have children", and it's not just a passing comment here and there, the campaign to get us to single handedly re-populate SK is intense and sustained. I wonder if other couples are experi…

I'm not arguing your decision to not have children. I've made the same decision myself, but the 'can't afford to have children' has always confused me. Even after the point where contraception became readily available, people were having children with far fewer resources than anyone alive today. What I hear when people say 'We can't afford to have children' is an additional '...and maintain our current standard of li…

children went from around an 8 year burden on resources and then immediate source of labor to approximately 18-24 year drain on resources. what you're describing is the result of getting 1 bet instead of 7. It's unsurprising many in the (downwardly mobile) middle class or upwardly mobile lower class have fewer children in those conditions.

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

#300

Post by fidotron »

thriftwy wrote: post #281
fidotron wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On some level the success of South Korea is the success of Samsung. It is not clear how much you could separate the two.

Why discount LG, Huyndai-Kia and even Daewoo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol

Samsung has been, at times, almost 20% of South Korean GDP. The others are big, but Samsung is enormous. Between them they are ridiculous.
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