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

bloomberg.com

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

#611

Post by erulabs »

DocTomoe wrote: post #422
Ekaros wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other issue is that the productivity in care work is still rather low. So we have to put quite large part of work force to something that is for general economy unproductive.

Let's name the elephant in the room: No government is going to make a significant part of the workforce work in (unproductive) elderly care. Societies will eventually start to just get rid of their old, first encouraging life-ending treatment, and eventually enforcing it if there are not enough takers.

The counter to this argument is that time begets wealth - thus the oldest folks are the most likely to have capital. Those with capital impact economic decision making: thus the real trap is that we will all eventually spend all of our time taking care of the elderly - it will be the last job in town - as the elderly will have the last wealth at the last moment. Government policy of today certainly favors the old and wealthy - why should that not continue?

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

#612

Post by grapeskin »

Elinvynia wrote: post #554
grapeskin wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are men morally supposed to do when women simply do not want kids? It’s not an issue of financial struggle since the trend is most pronounced in wealthy countries, especially in those with small wealth divisions.

Respect them. Their body, their choice. Even if it means the end of humanity.

Hence the point. If women don’t want kids, then that’s that.

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

#613

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

grapeskin wrote: post #431
makeitdouble wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What are men morally supposed to do when women simply do not want kids? It’s not an issue of financial struggle since the trend is most pronounced in wealthy countries, especially in those with small wealth divisions.

Create embryos from their own stem cells and bring them to term in human-compatible pig surrogates?

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

#614

Post by midoridensha »

croes wrote: post #350
mirzap wrote: post #346

People are worried that over-population is problem, some idiots even decide not to have children. But real problem is the opposite - population collapse. How do you plan to retire if there's not enough young people to sustain ever growing older population. Rough times are ahead of us, something we haven't yet experienced.

>How do you plan to retire if there's not enough young people to sustain ever growing older population. Higher efficiency, higher wages especially in social security jobs, and of course a universal social security system How do you plan to solve the problems of a growing population? The consequences of things climate change will hit harder.

>Higher efficiency, higher wages especially in social security jobs, and of course a universal social security system

Greater social security benefits and higher wages in social security jobs means raising taxes a lot, because there's far more old people than there are younger working people to support them. This will drive all the workers out of the country to other countries with lower taxes, creating a feedback loop and collapse.

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

#615

Post by nunb »

lagadu wrote: post #445
ck425 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by male feminisation? I get the impression from context that you're referring to biological differences but that could easily be interpreted as "man aren't real men these days and that's why they can't conceive".

I think they mean feminization in the biological sense: It's the reason fat men usually have visible breasts: the body has a pathway for converting cholesterol into estradiol[0], excessive cholesterol causes some feminization due to that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estradiol#Biosynthesis

This is exactly what I meant. Particularly visible in richer social strata in SEA, especially in the Philippines and to a lesser extent in Malaysia & Singapore. The amount of sucrose consumed in that first country beggars belief. Everything at breakfast is full of sucrose, even the pork & of course, bacon.

Also, I appreciate your use of the singular "they" :-)

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

#616

Post by konart »

piaste wrote: post #537
konart wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are not hobbies in this case though. I've been attending music school (violin) for 7 years (7-14 y.o.) and only by the time I hit 30 I reasised the problem with the whole system. Teachers (and to some point parents) expect you to invest as much in this music school as you invest (at least expected to) in your regular school. And I never though about it this way. For me this was always a place to escape most of…

This is one of those problems that goes away when you're an adult. I studied piano as a boy and there was always some friction with my Polish teacher for whom piano was her life's work, and try as she might she couldn't quite get her head around a student who didn't want much more than play Bohemian Rhapsody at parties. Tried to get me to love Chopin as much as she genuinely loved him, but it never caught up and I to…

>This is one of those problems that goes away when you're an adult.

True, I'm still grateful to my teachers and mother who persueded me to finish the school. I bought a violin at 24 and a guitar around 30 and now can practice both at my own pace whenever I have time.

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

#617

Post by jxramos »

citrusybread wrote: post #567
jxramos wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah I could see that. Opposite sexes commingling during the strength of youth required for military duties and which also happens to coincide with peak fertility. I’m convinced that peak fertility and sexual urges during our 20s is no coincidence—-it’s our bodies screaming a large signal at us that this is the time. That strength and ability to pull all nighters sure comes in handy caring for a newborn. Taking on suc…

something unfortunate to keep in mind is your emotional intelligence at that age. it's clear an 18 year old is not as mentally prepared as even a 28 year old, let alone 30+ when your brain development has really hit its peak. it's all fine and dandy to think people should be parents in their early 20s, but think about where you were at 20. did you stay with the same person? I think if you ran surveys in the west, you…

The culture I came from in 20th century America somehow established this significant period of prolonged adolescence as it’s been called. So I think there is some growing up to do society wise so that folks are equipped to be in optimal biological alignment at the appropriate age and not waste time dilly dallying with 20 years of unproductive living. I don’t think this was always so in past centuries and certainly not intrinsic to the 20s demographic.

Maybe our newfound prologued lifespan gave the illusion we could shift fertility out into the suboptimal band of years indefinitely. But if our economy is structured in a way that demands this shift I have to think it comes at a long term cost where we become too top heavy so to speak and have increasingly diminished returns on how much reproduction we can sustain at those biologically suboptimal band of years with whatever guarantees that may come from deferring reproduction to that better time that may never actually come.

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

#618

Post by loldk »

TwoFerMaggie wrote: post #496
creakingstairs wrote: post #311

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 univers…

> you have tired and jaded people without a fun childhood Man this hits really hard because I spent my first 20 years growing up in China... Good thing is that now I'm in a much less authoritarian place with a job that has decent work-life balance. Have been trying to cultivate some hobbies in the past few years, feels like I've been trying to reclaim the childhood I never had.

No post body was provided.

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

#619

Post by loldk »

creakingstairs wrote: post #311

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 univers…

No post body was provided.

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

#620

Post by Auracle »

klipt wrote: post #192
grog454 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There's a scary implication. If having to support more elderly causes one to produce less offspring, we have a positive feedback loop resulting in population collapse.

Or the young people will just decide to abandon their elderly to cheap low quality nursing homes. Isn't that how it works in many countries?

I don’t know about other countries, but they certainly aren’t cheap in the United States.
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