How South Korea’s birth rate dropped below Japan’s • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by CrackerNews » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

sapa777 wrote: post #215

gottorf wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add some color: South Korea is somewhere between the size of Kentucky and Indiana (the 37th and 38th largest states), yet has over 51 million people, almost 15 million more than California, the most populous state. It has very few natural resources to speak of, and is roughly two-thirds mountainous, meaning most of the population is condensed in the few flat areas. In some ways, it's natural that the fertility rat…

As impressive as it sounds to say South Korea developed successfully on its own, did it? Did the US play any hand in its development? I mean obviously South Korea would not exist had it not been for the US' help in the war. But even afterwards, is there an sort of advantage South Korea had by having the US (the leading super power at the time) help?

It's arguable that Japan helped South Korea industrialize by offloading industries it could no longer afford due to rising wages.

This article is about analyzing the comparison raised between South Korea and Ukraine, but it is largely about analyzing how South Korea industrialized from Japan's assistance.

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/the-ukraine-south-kor...

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

#342

Post by RestlessMind » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #260

1-6 wrote: post #199

South Korea is hostile for new families. Unless you were born to rich parents, have a decent education with a good job (that's with a Multi-national or a Chaebol), own property in Seoul, find a partner, and survive the probability of divorce, having a child is impossible--let alone having two to meet the population replacement rate. What's the solution?

The solution is fewer people - which is the direction they are headed. S.Korea has twice the population density of Germany for instance. So cutting in to half the current number seems about right. Honest question: who benefits from population growth besides developers?

> Honest question: who benefits from population growth besides developers?

Honest answer: next generation of retirees / older people. They need young people in multiple ways - 1. to sustain welfare (which is pay-as-you-go universally), 2. production of food / entertainment / stuff, 3. services

If you think automation is going to solve that, just look at who were "essential service workers"[1] in Covid where governments had to make exceptions even in the early days of pandemic when things were at their scariest. All those are essential functions for the society. Who is going to handle all of that when each next generation is only 35% of the previous generation's size (with a TFR of 0.7)?

[1] One example: https://covid19.ca.gov/essential-workforce/

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

#343

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

amrocha wrote: post #333

willcipriano wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick they pull on you guys is having you think someone with a pair of mass produced Nike sneakers is rich. Crabs in a bucket.

Not really, the degree of flaunting just changes. People with a little bit of money have Nikes, people with a bit more have designer clothing, people with a lot more have lavish houses and yachts, and the people with the most have "foundations".

[deleted]

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

#344

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79

orochimaaru wrote: post #46

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 ju…

> they just don't provide any concrete solutions Childcare subsidies.

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by jm__87 » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

Auracle wrote: post #311

Are we sure that there's nothing else going on with fertility rates? It seems odd to me that one of the primary drives of humanity has fallen off of a cliff so quickly. Sure, it mostly manifests as a drive to have sex and we can get around that with birth control, but that's not the only thing it does to us. There's a reason the concept of the "biological clock ticking" is a thing. We know testosterone levels are dro…

Weird to be wondering if men are to blame here when women are typically the ones who have the final say as to when and with whom they decide to settle down and have kids with. Personally I think it is a combination of couples not wanting to have kids for a variety of reasons (not wanting to sacrifice their quality of life, lack of economic security, anxieties about the future), women delaying childbirth for longer to focus on education and career (and possibly waiting too long and not being able to have children by the time they are ready), women becoming pickier with who they choose to date and marry with the reality of hypergamy (women with higher educational and career attainment typically want to date men who are at least as successful as they are, and women are increasingly outperforming men in education and career these days). I'm sure men have some blame in this too, but most single men I know would prefer to not be single, but can't seem to find anyone interested.

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

#346

Post by ars » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

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…

What's your plan when you get old enough to need daily care?

I can tell you right now that elderly in nursing homes who don't have constant family visits are utterly miserable.

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

#347

Post by tatrajim » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

Some historical context that might be of use to one or two lonely grad students reading this comment :) As a US peace corps volunteer working in a very rural health center in South Korea (one paved road in a large county, many villages still without electricity), it was impossible not to notice the huge push the Park Chung Hee government was making into birth control. Pres. Park was convinced that Korea's very high birth rate was an anchor around his plans for economic development and so devoted substantial government resources toward reducing it. Many families had 5-8 children, especially in the first four were daughters, as at the time there was an overwhelming preference for sons. This preference generally changed to daughters sometime in the 1990s.

In practice Park's birth control program meant that every township (면, about 10,000 in population) outside the cities had a special nurse devoted to birth control (가족계획요원) operating out of the local township center. My job involved tuberculosis control out in the villages, so I came to know these nurses well. In practice they provided information on birth control to all married women and were tasked with keeping track of the menstrual cycles of all married women, a fact I found extraordinary at the time and still do in memory. Additionally, the government encouraged vasectomies financially (esp. for government employees) and there were often long lines of anxious-looking men outside our health center awaiting the procedure. There are many reasons for the low birth rate in contemporary South Korea, but the inflection point came in the 1970s and the now long-forgotten family planning nurses were at the forefront of this change.

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

#348

Post by nemothekid » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 7:24 PM UTC

tivert wrote: post #328

nemothekid wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be fair to assume that you are relatively upperclass tech worker; I think your perceptions of what people can do is colored by your social circle. For many people they aren't worried about kids going to a private school, it's whether they can afford to feed someone else . I'm surprised none of your expectations include basic child care - food, shelter, care. If you are just scraping by on two incomes how do…

> For many people they aren't worried about kids going to a private school, it's whether they can afford to feed someone else. In a developed country? Even the US (hardly a socialist paradise) has extensive programs to keep children fed. I think that issue is pretty well covered.

Speaking of the US alone, which already has an incredibly stigma on relying on handouts, those programs can be tricky to qualify for. A couple with one child can only qualify for WIC with an household income under 45k in California.

But stepping back, I think you are missing the forest for the trees here. I don't think people are actively abstaining from having children like the OP is, but I don't think you are treating people as capable of making responsible, informed decisions. How do you arrive at the calculus that, in the US, someone would desperately desire children so much that they would opt to go on government assistance? Who is that person to you?

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

#349

Post by thriftwy » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #310

gizmo686 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. However bullwhip effects are real as well. An undamped population explosion/collapse cycle is natural and stable, however it is far from ideal. A 0.7 fertility rate is tiny. Keep in mind that fertility rate is measured per-female. So the per-capita rate is .35. If this holds, it means that the next generation will be 65% smaller than the current. This will inevitably lead to an overcorrection followed by a peri…

To my knowledge there's no historic precedent for what's happening. Times of regrowth in the past after catastrophic decline (such as major war) was generally already in the context of extremely high fertility rates. What we do have is increasing evidence, across multiple nations such as Iran and China, that it's relatively easy to lower fertility rates and extremely difficult to bring them back up. So I don't think…

Not only that, but there would be high fertility subcultures inside the general population that would be highly overrepresented.

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

#350

Post by anthonypasq » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #260

1-6 wrote: post #199

South Korea is hostile for new families. Unless you were born to rich parents, have a decent education with a good job (that's with a Multi-national or a Chaebol), own property in Seoul, find a partner, and survive the probability of divorce, having a child is impossible--let alone having two to meet the population replacement rate. What's the solution?

The solution is fewer people - which is the direction they are headed. S.Korea has twice the population density of Germany for instance. So cutting in to half the current number seems about right. Honest question: who benefits from population growth besides developers?

everyone. more humans = more geniuses = more technology = more everything. The modern world would not have existed with a global population capped at 100k humans or something