Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why South Korean women aren't having babies

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#11

Post by spiderxxxx »

justrealist wrote: post #6
mataug wrote: post #5

This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to 1. Cost of living and child care 2. Work, stress and lack of free time 3. Little to no support from society and community. The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born. There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people w…

Sorry, but you have a very cursory understanding of the issue. Please read the article. South Korea has a TFR of .7. France is 1.6. Those aren't the same, and the difference isn't immigration, or easily explained by money. There are huge cultural issues in South Korea.

The culture exacerbates the issues, but they're the same issues that's affecting families everywhere. If I'm making minimum wage, or close to it, and I don't have stability in my job, then I'm not having kids. The only less wealthy people left having kids are those that don't use birth control and don't condone abortion. I had decided that the time was right to have a child after I'd been employed for 6 years in a decent paying job and I wasn't concerned about being laid off. Employers now are preferring younger candidates, those fresh out of college, ones who don't have kids that they have to pick up / drop off from school. They want you connected 100% of the time, checking your email/chat on your time off. That leaves people with offspring feeling like they don't belong. Until that changes, there's going to be less births.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#12

Post by neom »

theogravity wrote: post #4

> "Sometimes at the weekends I go and get an IV drip, just to get enough energy to go back to work on Monday," she adds casually, as if this were a fairly normal weekend activity. Wonder what that IV is full of?

I live in Korea. It's common here, vitamin drips, just a concoction of vitamins and amino acids. Here is a Canadian clinic offering the same thing: https://torontofunctionalmedicine.com/the-iv-lounge/

I've had them a few times, to be sure, they make you feel awesome.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#13

Post by phs318u »

justrealist wrote: post #9
PKop wrote: post #2

High population density, like many of the other low birth rate nations. At some point people don't thrive living so close and crowded together. The carrying capacity of civilization has its limits.

People don't like to hear it, but the ultra-dense apartments clearly shred fertility. There's no country with people primarily living in high-rise buildings where TFR is measurably above 1.

That’s a really interesting observation. This would presumably drive a measurable difference within the same country between the high-density cities and the rural areas. I wonder if stats are available on a per-locality basis anywhere?

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#14

Post by I_Am_Nous »

theogravity wrote: post #4

> "Sometimes at the weekends I go and get an IV drip, just to get enough energy to go back to work on Monday," she adds casually, as if this were a fairly normal weekend activity. Wonder what that IV is full of?

I guessed it would just be saline for hydration, but it looks like they do vitamins, minerals, and amino acids via IV in some places[1].

1. https://expatguidekorea.com/seoul/hydration-iv-therapy-seoul

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#15

Post by spiderxxxx »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #8

Probably because that is prohibitively expensive for them in terms of money and time. This more or less translates to many modern countries. The only way to solve this problem probably is to provide everyone with great free child care services covering 90%+ of the hassle.

It's not though, if you have a baby in SK, you get a lot of perks, FTA:

>Couples who have children are showered with cash, from monthly handouts to subsidised housing and free taxis. Hospital bills and even IVF treatments are covered, though only for those who are married.

It's not pay after you have a baby that makes people want to have a baby, it's job stability, decent pay and working hours that makes people want to have children.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#16

Post by mariodiana »

The Korean women want careers, and if they're open to having children, they want husbands who are willing to split the housework and childrearing fifty-fifty. Going by the article, the complaint is that it's hard to find potential husbands open to that arrangement. Also, going by the testimony of one woman quoted in the article, apparently some of them, when they do find a husband agreeable to splitting the housework—in this particularly case, the dish washing—find that the husband doesn't do the housework to their satisfaction.

I don't have a solution for these women, but I notice that the BBC spent a year interviewing Korean women, but no Korean men.

I think a solution for the Korean men who maybe want children and wives who neither want careers of their own nor who insist that the domestic duties be split evenly would be something equivalent to the United States's H1-B Visa: namely, aspiring Korean husbands should be able to sponsor and marry foreign wives when no suitable native born candidates can be found.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#17

Post by theogravity »

neom wrote: post #12
theogravity wrote: post #4

> "Sometimes at the weekends I go and get an IV drip, just to get enough energy to go back to work on Monday," she adds casually, as if this were a fairly normal weekend activity. Wonder what that IV is full of?

I live in Korea. It's common here, vitamin drips, just a concoction of vitamins and amino acids. Here is a Canadian clinic offering the same thing: https://torontofunctionalmedicine.com/the-iv-lounge/ I've had them a few times, to be sure, they make you feel awesome.

TIL. Does it "work"?

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#18

Post by neom »

theogravity wrote: post #17
neom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Korea. It's common here, vitamin drips, just a concoction of vitamins and amino acids. Here is a Canadian clinic offering the same thing: https://torontofunctionalmedicine.com/the-iv-lounge/ I've had them a few times, to be sure, they make you feel awesome.

TIL. Does it "work"?

Feel great after them!!! Def works. Strong recommend from me.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#20

Post by sidiensidnen »

caesil wrote: post #10
mataug wrote: post #5

This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to 1. Cost of living and child care 2. Work, stress and lack of free time 3. Little to no support from society and community. The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born. There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people w…

The problem with this theory is that studies that have looked across countries with different levels of social/economic support find it does very little. When countries get richer, people start having fewer kids, and giving parents money does not offset this (even if that's what people say they want).

Do those studies understand why they’re observing that? I don’t think they’re very strong evidence otherwise.
Post reply on HN