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Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

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131–140 of 643 posts

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why adoption instead of IVF?

Watching her friends and my friends' wives go through it, we've been scared off. Add to that, the usual HN phenomenon that we're observing how the world and our countries (USA & Korea) seem be going down the toilet, and that makes us feel hesitant to bring a new human being into the world, especially when there are kids already here that could use a loving family.

Why not one kid and try to use the excess parenting bandwidth to equip him/her to face the new world and maybe even fix it a bit?

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#132
post #129

I have no evidence for this beyond my own anecdotal experience but my guess is the biggest factor is lack of affordable housing. The average price of an apartment in Soul is 1.18 billion won (883k usd). It’s very difficult to buy a home and live off a single income as a young Korean, this is forcing people to start families later or not at all. One compounding factor could be the extension of childhood, which has bee…

If "buying a home" just means buying a shoebox apartment, why is it important in the first place for starting a family? Doesn't that mean you're just as well off renting?

buying your own place gives you permanence you can plan around. you know where you will live, you know where your kids will go to school, you know your neighbors and neighborhood your kids will grow up in, and probably most important, you know how much it will cost each month, and you won't get thrown out on your butt because land lord wants to liquidate or have nephew Timmy live there next year.

this type of stability is an important factor for family planning

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#133
post #63

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years Does the change necessarily have to be societal? > In 1992, a study found a global 50% decline in sperm counts in men over the previous 60 years. Multiple studies over subsequent years confirmed that initial finding, including a 2017 paper showing a 50% to 60% decline in sperm concentration between 1973 and 2011 in m…

Infertility is not the leading issue when people are asked, 'why are you not having children?'. Until it is, I don't see how it can be more important than societal barriers.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#134

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

Talking about “developed countries” here, not SK specifically. Is declining fertility really such a societal and evolutionary danger when we’re talking 1.4-1.5? If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting…

No the poorest countries don’t have the human capital potential to make scientific and engineering advancements.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#135

My wife and I are Korean-American, albeit with many ties to our country of origin. Something I've noticed is that many couples that do want a child have a very difficult time conceiving. People are having kids at a later age on average, but even younger couples seem to have a hard time. Various gynecological disorders seem to be very common too - fibroids, endometriosis, adenomyosis, amongst others, all of which affe…

Regarding twins, doctors like to implant two embryos to give a better chance of successful insemination per procedure.

I was told by an OB that this was no longer done in the US since the Octo mom spectacle.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#136

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew with the average working age person only needing to half support an elderly retiree. Now, that same working age person will need to support more than 2 elderly retirees themselves, over 4 times the resources. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertili…

Usually, the story told here is South Korea copying Pakistan’s five year economic plan in the early 60s.

Also you should specify whether you mean West or East (presumably West) Pakistan’s population numbers. The western half had 51m people in 1960.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#137
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just a lump in the population vs. age graph and you're fixating on the back side of the lump as if it's inevitably going towards zero. After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. Wanna guess what h…

> After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. It will take 90 years for this lump to pass, and another 20 years for the newborns to grow up... you're talking about a recovery that will take a century... A…

> It will take 90 years for this lump to pass, and another 20 years for the newborns to grow up... you're talking about a recovery that will take a century...

More like ~53 years for all the current lumps to pass given a life expectancy of ~86.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Women gained financial freedom and the ability to choose when they get pregnant. Societies will now find out the market price for birthing children (as well as women finding out the price for not birthing children).

So to you it can be summed up to "it's all women's fault" ?

more like the rules of society reward the wrong behaviour (not reproducing).

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding twins, doctors like to implant two embryos to give a better chance of successful insemination per procedure.

I was told by an OB that this was no longer done in the US since the Octo mom spectacle.

This could be true.

I know for a fact that at least some of our friends here in the US have gone to Korea to have the procedure done, not in the US, due to cost reasons. And obviously our friends still in Korea would have had it done in Korea.

That could also explain why I don't notice the prevalence of twins amongst our friends of other nationalities here.

Re: Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look up what surrogacy means. The surrogate women is doing the "pregnancy" part, with prior agreement and IVF from a different couple.

But... why? Most women I know are fine and even happy with the pregnancy part. Why would they want to outsource that part? They love the attention. The birth part? Not so much, but that part is difficult to outsource.

> Most women I know are fine and even happy with the pregnancy part. Why would they want to outsource that part? They love the attention.

Hmmm... Well, we know different women.

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