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Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#51

Post by lasagnaphil »

oblio wrote: post #47
absolutelyrad wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the north have such a low birth rate? I thought this was a phenomena exhibited by women's rights/education and increase in wealth. All of which the north lacks.

Don't women have equal rights in the North? Almost all other Communist states did this right, despite their many other flaws.

On paper (in law) and in national policy, women's rights advanced a lot faster than South Korea (for example, in inheritance and marriage/divorce laws.) In practice, although it is hard to know extensively because of the secrecy of the nation, it's studied that there are still some economical/cultural inequalities (although North Korea's human rights for both sexes isn't isn't really a thing to show off overall...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_North_Korea

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#52

Post by oblio »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #51
oblio wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't women have equal rights in the North? Almost all other Communist states did this right, despite their many other flaws.

On paper (in law) and in national policy, women's rights advanced a lot faster than South Korea (for example, in inheritance and marriage/divorce laws.) In practice, although it is hard to know extensively because of the secrecy of the nation, it's studied that there are still some economical/cultural inequalities (although North Korea's human rights for both sexes isn't isn't really a thing to show off overall...) h…

Well, I wouldn't be completely surprised. In dictatorships there's the official doctrine and there's "do whatever the dictator tells us to do".

Many of the recent advances in human rights are from people protesting, convincing other people that their plight is real, and slowly turning the tide.

In dictatorships this doesn't happen for obvious reasons so social progress can be frozen by 1 person or maybe a 1 group for decade after decade.

Similar story from Romania, where I'm from. Not necessarily with women's rights, but with other kinds of human rights.

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#53

Post by EdwinLarkin »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #5

Birth rates are dropping globally and we’re all living longer. The local answer for counties like South Korea is immigration from areas that have higher birth rates. With climate change likely to affect the habitability of many of our current settlements, as a species we’ll need to support massive migration shifts over the next few hundred years. So the problem kind of solves itself if we manage migration and resourc…

I find comments like this one deeply insulting. Societal problems that countries like Korea face are a no joke and cant be easily solved by "bringing people over".

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#55

Post by ben_w »

yulaow wrote: post #42
ben_w wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners — you could also sort that with a higher retirement age. (Long-Term question I’ve had: how does this compare with UBI, which is kinda like a pension but for everyone?)

Retirement age cannot be pushed higher much longer, we already have too many too much old people doing _badly_ their work because they are not sharp enough / willing enough / energic enough to do any better (so destroying any productivity value for that position + not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations). I am in a country which has the s.k. problem since a decade and since then tried to…

> not allowing access to those well paying jobs to the new generations

False dichotomy.

First: Employers which don’t allow people who are better suited to a role to have better chances to be hired for those roles, don’t grow as fast as those companies which do allow better candidates to get those roles.

This is basically what causes the situation in your 3rd paragraph, and is still more appropriate than relying on eternal population growth.

Second: Unless they are literally destroying value in their work (not merely being cost-ineffective, but actively damaging), then the economy still benefits from having more people working — the more value an economy creates, the more any given currency unit can buy, the more people are available to be customers, the more business can be supported by their spending, in a virtuous cycle.

This is why everyone is encouraged to work in the first place instead of jobs being treated as luxury or status symbols available to only the elite few.

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#56

Post by ben_w »

RobertoG wrote: post #31
ben_w wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners — you could also sort that with a higher retirement age. (Long-Term question I’ve had: how does this compare with UBI, which is kinda like a pension but for everyone?)

>>"Retirement funds don’t strictly requiring that, they just require that there are more workers than pensioners [..]" That's not necessary. They require that the active workers (plus capital) are productive enough to keep life standards for everybody. There is not theoretical limit for how many workers are necessary. In the extreme it could be with one or zero workers.

Until we get fully automated luxury communism, capital can only be productive with workers.

Cows can milk themselves these days, but the cow self-milking machines can’t make themselves yet.

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#57

Post by alkonaut »

In many developed countries, the problem seems to be that it's simply too much to expect of young people to start a family - it's simply a financial risk and you have to choose between a career that takes ever longer to establish, and forming a family.

What is the situation in South Korea when it comes to paid parental leave, employment security for parents that do take parental leave, cost of birth, cost of child care and so on?

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#58

Post by ben_w »

Allenaz wrote: post #49
ben_w wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bright people have a whole world to move to, not just South Korea. For example, I went from the UK to Germany, and my sister-in-law went from the Philippines to the UK.

That's my point, I too went from a 3rd-world country to a developed one, haven't seen many people doing the opposite.

I know at least five people who are either doing that now or have done that for a while in the past.

Rich countries pay a lot, poor countries are growth opportunities — in both the personal and business senses of the phrase.

Re: Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births

#59

Post by sbinthree »

Nition wrote: post #10

I'm a bit sick of every bit of news being framed as negative. Population growth is reported as negative as well. If what we've read about climate change and so on can be considered true, then surely it's better to hurt economically for one generation (as fewer young people support greater numbers of retirees), than to drive the world into disaster potentially forever.

Not having a country anymore could be perceived as a disaster to anyone optimistic. Easily the dumbest climate change measure would be not to have kids.
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