[HN Gopher] South Korea has the lowest fertility rate, with less...
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South Korea has the lowest fertility rate, with lessons for us all
Author : oldschoolib
Score : 41 points
Date : 2023-03-20 22:01 UTC (59 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| belter wrote:
| North Korea Fertility Rate: 1.82 births per woman (2020)
|
| South Korea Fertility Rate: 0.84 births per woman (2020)
| _-david-_ wrote:
| How accurate are NK statistics?
| swsieber wrote:
| Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35233008
|
| 35 points, 84 comments, 6 hrs ago.
| omot wrote:
| I think America/Europe would've gone through a similar phenomenon
| were it not for immigration. Immigration presents a significant
| challenge to the culture, but it's a necessity to keep evolving
| the economy and make sure your population/ideas don't stagnate.
|
| I'm from Japan, and I think Japan would've potentially kept it's
| second place in GDP ranking if they were more aggressive with
| opening up the country to immigrants and creating a narrative for
| what it means to be Japanese outside of blood and heritage.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Why care about nominal GDP though? More important how the
| economy does per capita and Japan seems to have held its wealth
| over time, there's almost no change1 since the 90s.
| Economically and development wise, Japan has done remarkably
| well.
|
| Mass immigration is a big gamble, with problems societies might
| not foresee and that only manifest many years later. It worked
| more or less well in a place like Canada, but for a counter
| example look at Western Europe, they messed it up.
|
| 1
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
| NovaDudely wrote:
| Australia's birth rate would have fallen below 2.1 back in
| 1976. Thanks to immigration our population is still growing.
| [deleted]
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Interestingly, the gender ratio of immigrants to America from
| South Korea isn't 50-50 as one would expect but closer to 60%
| women. For Japan, another state struggling with fertility, this
| ratio is about 75%.
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| thrwaway2348 wrote:
| This is not particularly surprising in the light of the fact
| that Japan and South Korea are two of the most misogynistic
| societies in the developed world.
|
| It's essentially impossible to be both a wife and mother as
| well as have a thriving career in both those countries. Can
| anyone blame them for opting out?
| NovaDudely wrote:
| What seems like bad news for the growth based human world, is
| great news for the biocentric view of the world. Yes, it is a
| rough road ahead but long term this is not a bad thing.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Governments around the world are asleep while young people are
| struggling everywhere on every major developed country in the
| world to do simple things like find a place to live and have
| children.
|
| I wonder what type of BS the G7 talk about instead of this. What
| could be more pressing?
| shadowtree wrote:
| It's a sign of wealth and abundance if fertility rates are
| falling. See Africa and it's still very high rates and every
| single historic trend line as evidence.
|
| Strongest causation factors are urbanization and female
| education/employment.
|
| East Asia urbanized faster then the US, also has little to no
| immigration ... hence populations will shrink quite
| drastically. China will halve in what, the next 5 decades?
| xupybd wrote:
| The one child policy played a big role as well
| jeffbee wrote:
| Between countries, fertility is associated with poverty. But
| within countries, it's the opposite. Higher fertility comes
| along with wealth and well-being. So if the rich, educated
| people in your advanced society are not reproducing, that's a
| bad indication.
| trefoiled wrote:
| If it's a sign of fertility and abundance that fertility
| rates are falling, how do you explain that fertility rates
| are falling in the poorest areas of Africa, too?[1]
|
| [1]. https://www.afd.fr/en/actualites/dramatic-drop-
| fertility-acr...
| cjensen wrote:
| Why would they talk about this? The solution is obvious, and
| the US has practiced the solution for a very long time now:
| immigration at a sufficient rate to make up for the decline in
| population.
|
| This is really mostly a problem for Japan and Korea where they
| don't play sufficiently well with immigrants.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| At least as far as the US is concerned the government is
| beholden to the ultra wealthy, who need no change because they
| are thriving. The government will make small adjustments along
| the edges but won't truly threaten the status quo.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| Wages are set by a baseline of the cost of living. Young
| single workers might tolerate having essentially no savings
| for a few years but eventually they will find a better job or
| a cheaper cost of living area.
|
| This has a direct impact on what kinds of businesses can
| operate in high cost of living areas. Businesses need high
| enough volume or margin to pay the rent and wages of their
| workers. So far outsourcing has localized the negative
| impacts of failing low-margin businesses in wealthy nations.
| But that's also coming into question with national security
| concerns.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| > I wonder what type of BS the G7 talk about instead of this.
| What could be more pressing?
|
| They talk about GDP and growth - which can only come from
| squeezing each worker more and more.
|
| In America, I don't see any legislation for paid maternity and
| paternity leave. People are expected to lose their jobs, drop
| their careers and pay more for insurance when they are dropped
| from their jobs.
|
| Without security of income but with constantly rising expenses,
| people are spending their entire lives precariously, just to
| increase some bullshit GDP number. How the fuck is a woman
| supposed to carry another human, safely, in her body for 9
| months and raise it for another 2 months at least?
| q845712 wrote:
| > and raise it for another 2 months at least
|
| most of us get raised for about two decades, right? I mean
| acknowledging that 240 months is at least 2 months in the
| most literal sense but even if we think that it's reasonable
| for the mother of a 2-month old infant to be working full
| time surely there's still almost 2 full decades of potential
| precarity around food, housing, healthcare, general
| wellness...
| [deleted]
| christophilus wrote:
| Not to be snarky, but how did humans ever do this in the past
| without all of those things? I think paternity leave and
| maternity leave are great ideas, but they're a bandaid.
|
| The real problem is that society has changed to be hostile to
| healthy human existence. You need a car to live in most of
| the USA. Extended families and support are spread out across
| the nation. Rather than cooking together in your kitchen and
| playing together on a whim, everything has to be planned
| around commutes and-- often-- long distance travel. Societal
| expectations are that families are small. Nothing is built
| for large families. The list goes on and on, but over all, I
| think it's a long list of things-- with economics being one--
| that underpins this.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| There are many things society and government can do to
| improve this situation. We aren't getting rid of cars
| easily. We aren't getting rid of distant suburbia easily.
| We aren't getting rid of employers who WANT to see people
| in office.
|
| Maternity and paternity are the easiest of them all. If
| there was ever to be an UBI, it would be for maternity and
| paternity. For 2 years, the government (or employer) covers
| you. Go get pregnant.
| ralph84 wrote:
| The elites have decided they don't need a middle class anymore.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| This makes me wonder about science fiction stories. As
| automation in labor force increases, there is less demand for
| labor. Governments will also be able survive with fewer tax
| payers.
|
| Eventually, reproducing without license and training will be
| illegal. Then completely banned. And then there will be more
| machines and fewer humans.
|
| And primitive societies will continue to reproduce but
| eventually be conquered.
|
| And then machines will slowly gain enough intelligence and
| self awareness that they will overthrow human masters.
|
| And eventually it will be just machines debating meaning of
| life.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The problem is that governments keep pushing for population
| growth when this is the root cause of most of our environmental
| problems...
|
| Low fertility rates at the moment are only an issue in that we
| need to adapt to them.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Adapting to them is one way of putting it. The main problem
| is that our socialist programs such as social security and
| Medicare can't survive when the population isn't growing the
| right way ie working adults must drastically outnumber
| retired seniors
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| An aging population is unavoidable just by the simple fact
| that population growth has to stop at some point. The huge
| population growth we've seen is unique in history and we'll
| go back to a more stable population (it's already starting)
| BUT with low birth rate/high life expectancy instead of
| high birth rate/low life expectancy as before.
|
| Socialised (not necessarily socialist) systems are the best
| bet to cope but there must be an epiphany that this
| requires drastic changes, one of them being to go all in to
| maximise productivity.
| chaostheory wrote:
| If the population trends are correct, the housing problem will
| fix itself. The data in Japan supports that view.
| amelius wrote:
| The housing problem may be fixed but what about the care for
| the elderly?
| shuckles wrote:
| The housing problem in Japan's big cities did not fix itself
| with a shrinking population (they're growing) but instead
| with nationalization of land use laws.
| batmaniam wrote:
| Same story in every country sadly. Income inequality grows,
| people work longer and harder to make ends meet, no savings to
| start a family or buy a home. And politicians funneling public
| money into a blackhole they say is gonna fix the problem, but it
| ends up nowhere near its stated purpose. Remember PPP, everyone?
|
| For South Korea though, the tone deafness is just astounding
| here. Like they're still at war, aren't they? They're just in a
| cease-fire right now. They're gonna need a steady supply of
| troops, and having low birthrates is gonna put them in a
| disadvantage when war breaks out. It's a real national security
| concern, yet stealing public money is more important to those in
| power. Just wow.
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