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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

#401

Post by mensetmanusman »

kredd wrote: post #150
nonethewiser wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its called sacrifice. Enduring inconvenience or discomfort in favor of some greater cause. That’s not to say everyone should have kids or feel this way. But it’s ridiculous to suggest some people just like video games, or traveling, and others like missing work deadlines to care for their sick child (or everything else that goes with raising kids).

Sacrifice is a choice in this scenario. I think, I agree with the OP above, that one chooses to not to make that sacrifice (e.g. lifestyle change). Just the value of the sacrifice has been getting lower and lower every year for younger people.

The value of the sacrifice hasn’t changed, just the perceived value.

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

#402

Post by intrasight »

RestlessMind wrote: post #342
intrasight wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 governmen…

Immigration and automation

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

#403

Post by RestlessMind »

intrasight wrote: post #402
RestlessMind wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 governmen…

Immigration and automation

Question was - "who benefits from population growth"

You know that immigrants don't grow on trees or in labs, right? They are also part of "population growth", just somewhere else. And bringing too many of them en mass is already destabilizing infertile societies (see: European ones).

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

#404

Post by andrewjl »

1-6 wrote: post #277
ChumpGPT wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the Gov subsidized the young with generous programs, perhaps a monthly fee for each child where at some level (2-3 children), one parent could stay home to raise them and collect a modest salary. Otherwise most young folks can't afford it.

The government is already subsidizing families with children. 700,000 won ($528) per month up to age of one, and 350,000 won ($264) per month up to the age of two. It's certainly a nice to have but not enough.

> It's certainly a nice to have but not enough.

Agree, it sounds like peanuts. Probably still better than nothing on net but substantially raising this subsidy is the first thing to do if making a serious attempt to improve things for families.

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

#405

Post by andrewjl »

remarkEon wrote: post #165
kredd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But doesn't raising kids also provide a big set of exciting experiences you are trading-of against? Maybe for you, but the value proposition isn’t there for me. There’s no indication that the world is willing to fix its global problems (climate change, housing problems and etc.), why would I also subscribe my child to this “fun”? It is weird to write that sentence, as I am generally a fairly optimistic person. But…

>Maybe for you, but the value proposition isn’t there for me. There’s no indication that the world is willing to fix its global problems (climate change, housing problems and etc.), why would I also subscribe my child to this “fun”? It is weird to write that sentence, as I am generally a fairly optimistic person. But “let me sacrifice a ton, for a decent chance of misery of myself and my offspring” doesn’t sound righ…

> Whenever I see your sentiment - that you are choosing to not have kids because the world sucks and you don't see us solving anything - my immediate reaction is that you deserve no voice whatsoever in how the rest of us decide to solve those problems. No voting, no representation, nothing. Having kids, in a sense, is a bet that we'll figure things out one way or another.

What an odd perspective. Are children the only way to have skin in the game when it comes to the future?

One consequence of doing something like this would be an almost complete removal of people who through no fault of their own cannot have children as well as some religious practitioners from public life.

Having just read the FDA announcement on artificial wombs, how would those fit into this?

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

#406

Post by mensetmanusman »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #381
jimbokun wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't.

How did we end up at a point where the popular perception of parenting among the younger generaron is that it's a grueling thankless slog?

Birth control making the decision a choice instead of a natural consequence.

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

#407

Post by mensetmanusman »

stormfather wrote: post #385
seneca wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that having children is a joyless burden is very modern, and very specific to certain subcultures. "Great joy" is the default position.

This is perpetually self correcting. The societies which don't take joy in having children die out and are replaced by those that do. Surely this has been happening for millennia, and the reason that we see most societies as being pro-natal is survivorship bias.

Yep. Western secular society is dying and we are just reading the tea leaves as it tries to find out where it went wrong.

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

#408

Post by mensetmanusman »

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?

Yes, a military force present that helped them relax and spend more on growth versus negative growth defense spending.

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

#409

Post by mensetmanusman »

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…

It’s only possible to happen now due to birth control, so it is the first time. In the past after great deaths the mostly young population had a bunch of kids.

That’s impossible now, because the people left behind after the collapse are mostly old.

Birth control is probably a great filter.

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

#410

Post by jjcon »

Contusion3532 wrote: post #397
jjcon wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the whole point that is being made… we’re talking about humanity - Yeah lots of individuals will die due to climate change, particularly in 3rd world countries but humanity will be just fine overall, just as it was with all those disasters.

Humanity may survive, but not the modern civilization and the quality of life that we enjoy.

North America and Europe are unlikely to be particularly impacted even in the worst case ipcc projections so not sure where you get that from
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