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Why South Korean women aren't having babies

bbc.com

1–10 of 34 posts

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#5
This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to

1. Cost of living and child care

2. Work, stress and lack of free time

3. Little to no support from society and community.

The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born.

There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people who are already wealthy, so most people don't have the "luxury" of enough disposable income, free time, and support to have children.

This is not women's fault, its society's failing

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#6
post #5

This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to 1. Cost of living and child care 2. Work, stress and lack of free time 3. Little to no support from society and community. The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born. There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people w…

Sorry, but you have a very cursory understanding of the issue. Please read the article.

South Korea has a TFR of .7. France is 1.6. Those aren't the same, and the difference isn't immigration, or easily explained by money. There are huge cultural issues in South Korea.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#8
Probably because that is prohibitively expensive for them in terms of money and time. This more or less translates to many modern countries. The only way to solve this problem probably is to provide everyone with great free child care services covering 90%+ of the hassle.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#9
post #2

High population density, like many of the other low birth rate nations. At some point people don't thrive living so close and crowded together. The carrying capacity of civilization has its limits.

People don't like to hear it, but the ultra-dense apartments clearly shred fertility.

There's no country with people primarily living in high-rise buildings where TFR is measurably above 1.

Re: Why South Korean women aren't having babies

#10
post #5

This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to 1. Cost of living and child care 2. Work, stress and lack of free time 3. Little to no support from society and community. The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born. There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people w…

The problem with this theory is that studies that have looked across countries with different levels of social/economic support find it does very little.

When countries get richer, people start having fewer kids, and giving parents money does not offset this (even if that's what people say they want).

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