Korea shatters its own record for world’s lowest fertility rate • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by creakingstairs » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:00 AM UTC

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but this does not surprise me in the least. The life in Korea is way too competitive and stressful. The hellscape begins in pre-school and primary school where parents make kids go to private school AFTER school, often till late evenings. This progressively gets worse and worse until university.

In my father's generation, people could relax after getting into university. They could party around, barely pass and still get decent jobs. Nowadays, that's definitely not the case. Getting a good job is insanely hard. You need to take care of your GPA. English certs like TOFLE/TOEIC are pretty much mandatory and you'd probably want other cert/ extra curricular experience.

Okay. So you've went through all that and you've got yourself a good job. Now that's all done, can you finally start to relax and enjoy life? Haha, no. 52-hour weekly working limit has only recently been introduced, and the current president wants to get rid of that. Even if you work your ass off, it is _very_ unlikely that you can ever afford an apartment in Seoul.

In the end, you have tired and jaded people without a fun childhood, who can't even buy their own house. I certainly would not choose to have children in these circumstances.

I've "escaped" and live a decent life outside of Korea now. But I have many friends in Korea who have "given up" (in various ways) in light of all this . There are some friends who are married and have kids, but they all have rich parents or studied/hustled really hard. In spite of all this, I miss Korea so much. But I don't think I'll be going back.

This is only one reason in declining fertility rate. There are many more (some mentioned in other comments) but this comment is already getting too ranty.

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EDIT: This comment got much more attention than I thought it would and I'd like to add some positive stuff too. There are certainly people who enjoy life in Korea by refusing to participate in the rat race and by prioitising building meaningful communities in their lives. Some things are getting better, albeit slowly, with each generation.

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

#312

Post by nunb » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:00 AM UTC

girvo wrote: post #304

nunb wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

adoptee turned to hard drugs (opiods) in his teens. the opinion was: what do you expect, the father was an addict too. at the time I was shocked as I was so firmly in the nurture camp.

Addiction, and specifically OUD is complicated, but there is real evidence that genetics plays a sizeable role in the physiological dependence side of it. However the main risk factor for trying and then abusing opioids, for example, is trauma, typically but not only in childhood. Basically, it’s both nature and nurture, as most things are. Where the percentages lie for both, I don’t think we know yet.

yes, I agree with you. It's just at the time I was unaware that brain chemistry could be genetically dependent; although as you say that's pre-disposition, and the trigger can be trauma, and sometimes knowing you are adopted can be the source of that trauma, thus triggering the behaviour.

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

#313

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

CogitoCogito wrote: post #295

Dalewyn wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the wider context of population decline due to low birth rates, both are bad because both lead to population decline anyway. 2 kids is a hard minimum for maintaining population count, 3 or more kids for increasing population. As for what decafninja (or any individual for that matter) decides upon in the bedroom, that's for him to decide and his business alone. I'm not going to comment because it's none of my b…

Why do we need to maintain our population count? Why is it a problem if it declines?

You're asking the wrong guy; I don't care either way. :P

I'm just pointing out that in a wider discussion of "oh noes population decline oh noes low birth rates", it's not constructive to be talking about having 1 kid when there's a hard minimum of having 2 kids and ideally more.

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

#314

Post by hypertele-Xii » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #218

nxm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much respect to those who adopt, but bloodlines matter

Counterpoint: our species has very little genetic diversity, we’re all pretty closely related. The odds that there’s there’s something unique or special about any one person’s lineage is pretty low.

The more genetically similar we are, the more socially valuable the relative differences become.

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

#315

Post by creakingstairs » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

1sembiyan wrote: post #4

chownie wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you substantiate this point? What do you mean?

I mean I don’t see concerns about fertility rate reflected in the Korean movies/shows I consume. Just a glib observation.

It's absolutely on Korean people's mind. This has been on the news quite a few times now.

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

#316

Post by tcj_phx » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #268

Thorrez wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean intentional? If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures?

> If people are intentionally trying to limit births, why would that lead to a large amount of fertility procedures? Those fertility procedures are not the desired way to go about having a baby. The vast majority of the time it's a procedure of last resort (i.e. can't get pregnant another way). These procedures are expensive and often don't work. It could be intentional that a government, organization or pharmaceutic…

> Similarly, a concern I have is purposefully downplaying the risks of long-term birth control via "the pill".

Depo-provera - the monthly injection of medroxyprogesterone - was temporally associated with my friend's first psychotic break. Medroxyprogesterone causes cortisol deficiency; psychosis is associated with an inability to produce cortisol...

"The pill" uses fake hormones to shut down ovulation. But the doctors are trained to tell women their hormonal cycles are being 'regulated' with 'hormones, so that's what women get told. Tragic.

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

#317

Post by s5300 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

moomoo11 wrote: post #267

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #12

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…

As an American (immigrant) I'm honestly really alarmed by seeing the high birth rates in countries that are well, to put it bluntly, kinda backwards (I'm from one of them btw). One of the reasons we moved to a country like the US is to be away from a backwards minded, theocratic af, corrupt society. To see that these types of countries are actually booming while highly progressed ones are depressing is super depressi…

I’m sorry, but if you thought the US fit the criteria you’ve just described, you’re sorely mistaken…

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

#318

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

decafninja wrote: post #282

nunb wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard the most bizarre & unexpected opinion first-hand from an obgyn. Prior to this I was firmly in the nurture camp of nature/nurture, but this obgyn's opinion on adoptions shocked me out of my complacency. I am hoping Sapolsky's latest book may shed some light on the subject without the Wade/Murray "bell curve" implications.

Curious as to what you mean. I think you're implying that the personality makeup of the adopted child that comes from his/her biological parents is not to be underestimated? Is that really a questionable or controversial topic though? The thought has occurred to me. I would describe both my wife and I as being stable mannered and not prone to rash decisions. Odds are a biological child of ours might resemble that per…

> At the same time, I don't believe that just because the child's biological parents might have been wild and crazy, the child is doomed to the same fate even with our care

Tell me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers without telling me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers :).

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

#319

Post by DharmaPolice » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:09 AM UTC

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #289

somenameforme wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the latter point, but I want to also point something out on the former. Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. So the issue is not one of finances, but priorities. Winning an IPO lottery being the baseline where you feel comfortable for having children doesn't mean that such is the i…

>Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. Unfortunately many people who are not properly equipped to raise children (financially, temperamentally or otherwise) have lots of children and don't make it work. The result is a permanent underclass and a serious crime problem in many of our major cities.

I think we can find some middle ground between "I won't have kids until I can afford to send them to Harvard" and "I'll have 7 kids while being addicted to drugs and having no family to support me".

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

#320

Post by jxramos » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:14 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #68

brnt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, society is not preparing itself for new economic realities (many I speak to do not understand this particular one at all), but, has it occurred to you that this is very good news in terms of livability on planet earth and our continued existence? Sure, humans will adapt but only when it's too late, as usual, but at least this is a change in positive direction. Forever growth is nonsensical, and this isn't t…

The only way your hypothesis is plausible (ignoring everything else that’s weird and troubling about it) is if everyone on the planet decides to go along with it. Not every society has this problem of low fertility, and those who own the future are the ones who show up.

That slogan has caught my eye too—the future belongs to those who show up. I’ve been thinking about these things in terms of generational investment. To pour time and resources etc into oneself is an investment in generation 0 with respect to the individual. If our societies don’t encourage investment in generations beyond 0 (ie in our children) then they effectively vote their genetics and those of their ancestors to be not worthy of continuing. They exit the cosmic stream of existence.

I’ve often pondered seeing in my own children the echoes and higher order harmonics of combinations of traits and proclivities of their living ancestors which show up in their unique combinations of their being. I daydream about perhaps catching glimpses of non-living ancestors whom I never met and what things we inherit from them. That thought translates to other family lines and I wonder about that vast set of traits and peculiarities I will never experience once they’ve departed this life.