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For many young South Koreans, dating is too expensive, or too dangerous
- blfr 7y agoWhen we keep animals in zoos and they refuse to breed, we consider this proof that their conditions are poor or even unacceptable. When TFRs plummet across the developed world, young people stop having sex, many consider this good because of overpopulation. It's not good. Our civilization is quickly becoming inhospitable to humans.
- mathieubordere 7y agoTrue, this is a very disturbing development.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoMaybe, but IMHO in the grand scheme of things priority should be to stop population growth and thus nothing should be done to encourage births.
- lucidguppy 7y agoI think it's a good thing to both manage population as well as improve well being for individuals.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoIndeed. In fact the aim of controlling population is also to improve well being. But realistically currently controlling population is the aspect that is most important so improving well being should be done in a way that does not result in a higher birth rate.
- pvaldes 7y agoAnd TFR means...
- Rainymood 7y agoOne single Google search would have revealed that TFR means Total Fertility Rate.
- pvaldes 7y agoI did this of course, lets say: Transferrin receptor, Temporary Fly restriction, Terrain Following Radar, Time Frequency Representation And a Truck in Thailand is named TFR also...
- _Microft 7y agoActual problem is that writing "TFR" or "Total Fertility Rate" takes a constant time (independent from the number of readers) while everyone looking it up is function of the number of readers. Your parent comment is right in pointing out that it is not a familiar abbreviation.
- oh_sigh 7y agoI suspect people use obscure acronyms like this as a signal that they're familiar with the problem domain and that you should listen to them.
- pirocks 7y agoTotal fertility rate
- pabloem 7y agoNot obvious to me, but it means Total Fertility Rate. From wikipedia, TFR of a population is basically the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime.
- _Microft 7y agoTFR (total fertility rate) plummets because it used to be necessary that it was way higher when the child mortality rate was higher - and indeed a decreased in fertility rate follows a decrease in child mortality with a few years of delay. Having a child used to be a random experiment and you needed to make sure that one makes it through to care for you when you will be old or sick. Pensions, health and welfare systems and much better child mortality rates make it unnecessary to have many children. A replacement fertility rate of slightly over 2.0-2.1 is/would be fine in developed countries.
- duchenne 7y agoBut, in South Korea, the replacement fertility rate is already lower than 1, and it keeps decreasing every year.
- _Microft 7y agoBy the way: if someone wants to look up (total) fertility rates, Our World In Data has you covered, of course: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab=chart&time=1950..2015&country=IRN+OWID_WRL+KOR+DEU+GBR+USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab... (You can change the countries displayed by clicking the (+) sign on the right hand side of the graph. I preselected UK, US, Germany, Iran and South Korea here.)
- blattimwind 7y ago> A replacement fertility rate of slightly over 2.0-2.1 is/would be fine in developed countries. Yeah, but that's now what we're having. My country sits at 1.4, and the only subpopulations with above replacement rate TFR are non-indigenous, so to speak. South Korea has a TFR of below 1. Japan has a TFR of ~1.4. Most European countries are somewhere between 1.4 and ~1.7. The US is below 2. The West is dying out, and has been for a while.
- luckylion 7y ago> A replacement fertility rate of slightly over 2.0-2.1 is/would be fine in developed countries. And many developed countries are far below that. That's what I read the parent to write about, not the shift from pre-industrial to industrial times.
- Santosh83 7y agoBecoming inhospitable to humans because of overpopulation in certain areas and skewed economic, political and ecological practices in all areas. This won't be fixed by forcing people to reproduce more. Each region's problems must be tackled differently. For example in India's case it would be madness to encourage even more fertility. This may not be the case in other areas. As a whole the planet has quite enough humans at 7 billion. We don't need so many unless we're planning on settling other worlds which is still more than a century away.
- luckylion 7y ago> This won't be fixed by forcing people to reproduce more. I don't think that was the idea, rather: fix the circumstances and the people will do the rest themselves. > For example in India's case it would be madness to encourage even more fertility. And fertility rates there haven't dropped as they did in the developed world, so it's really not the same issue.
- leereeves 7y agoIt's well established that people (nations and groups within nations) have fewer children as their circumstances improve. Fixing circumstances will lead to fewer children, not more.
- barry-cotter 7y agoThis has only been true generally in the West since ~1800 or so. Charles Darwin had fewer grandchildren than children. It’s also not universally true even in the West. Sub populations with higher fertility for the wealthy exist, Mormons and Hasidim for two. Culture beats biology, see Hutterites and the Amish in the US.
- luckylion 7y ago> Better circumstances are responsible for low fertility rates, not bad circumstances. That depends on the definition of "better". In purely material terms, the developed world is the best there ever was. Yet depression, drug abuse, loneliness etc are rising, so maybe humans require more than just material things. For animals, living in a zoo is the best thing to do. Steady meals, a doctor on call and they'll even bring you mates to reproduce. Yet somehow, many animals in captivity don't want to breed, maybe it's similar for humans.
- rusty__ 7y agoExactly this, but it's also why, whilst we should all be conscious of what we're doing to the planet, I'm not so despondent about our future and population endlessly spiraling out of control. It's been shown that once a country achieves a GDP of somewhere around $6-7k they begin to take a bigger interest in issues like climate change, more efficient energy sources and population control more seriously (China is about there now; India, Indonesia, Thailand and other large population Asian countries are getting there pretty quickly). As a planet with finite resources in terms of food and energy we can support a global population of about 10-11 billion. If it's becoming such that once societies advance to a level of development we see in places like S Korea and Japan that population begins to balance out or even slightly decrease, is that such a bad thing?
- pharke 7y agoThe issue here isn't a slight decrease in population. Japan is facing a projected decline of 1/4 of their population by 2050. A change of that magnitude will mean severe consequences for their economy and overall culture. Even China has abandoned their one child policy and now has a birth rate of 1.6. We're sailing into uncharted territory where our only comparable previous experiences are famines or plagues.
- distant_hat 7y agoThe problem isn't just that the total population is declining. It is that the dependent population relative to working population is increasing. This leads to all sorts of distortions to how things are supposed to be.
- zeristor 7y agoThis is when evolution kicks in. Those that can pair up and have children are more likely to be selected for in future generations Medicine has improved such that it is far less of an evolutionary pressure. I imagine psychological well being, and wealth are more of an issue. It would be interesting to look at the correlation between mental health and wealth, or if there’s a key point between them. Or there could be a selection pressure for more social groups of humans, a eusocial society, I can’t remember who suggested that.
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- rossenberg79 7y agoNo, civilization is not becoming inhospitable to humans, this is literally the best time in history to be alive, civilization has never been more hospitable than it is today. We really do not need more humans, we are not an endangered species. The only reason we think we do is because many societies have essentially created Ponzi schemes where the welfare of the elderly generation relies on ever increasing numbers of younger generations, which will inevitably become unsustainable.
- dqybh 7y ago>No, civilization is not becoming inhospitable to humans, this is literally the best time in history to be alive, civilization has never been more hospitable than it is today. According to the dictionary "inhospitable" means "Unfavorable to life or growth", and it's much harder for me to have one children than it was for my grandparents to have five.
- wolfgke 7y agoJust a consideration: for many centuries (at least in Germany), arranged marriages were quite a success story, while love marriage are a quite modern invention. Perhaps if dating is too time-intensive for these people, they should (somewhat) go back to arranged marriages. Also, if one otherwise has to go on many dates, arranged dates/marriages are probably less expensive. Finally, this should also increase the safety aspects that, according to the article, many young people fear.
- deng 7y ago> for many centuries (at least in Germany), arranged marriages were quite a success story For men, yes.
- wyoh 7y agoWhy "for men". You think men are happier than women in arranged marriages?!
- deng 7y ago> Why "for men". You think men are happier than women in arranged marriages?! As long as they have all the money and can have lovers, how is that even a question?
- scarmig 7y agoBeing responsible for making the money is different from having the agency to spend the money. It's fairly common for cultures to grant that role to the woman of the household. Not sure if that's the case in historic Germanic regions, but it's a crutch to take the principle "women are universally oppressed by men" and believe that's all you need in order to make any statement about gender across all of time and space.
- deng 7y ago> Not sure if that's the case in historic Germanic regions It wasn't (aside from food and other common needs). > it's a crutch to take the principle "women are universally oppressed by men" I did not say that. The OP spoke of centuries where arranged marriages were common in Germany, and there's no doubt that women did not have equal rights during that time. The crutch here is to define "success of marriages" through fertility rates and number of divorces.
- dillonmckay 7y agoIt is interesting that the majority of these young adults’ spare time is spent looking for better jobs and certificate training, with no time to pursue romantic relationships.
- anti_propaganda 7y agoAgain, "toxic masculinity" is dropped in the article. The press is in the hands of women.
- dsr_ 7y ago"It's the economy, stupid." -- Bill Clinton's major campaign slogan. To reiterate from the article: unemployment is high. Wages are low. Prices are high. Improve the economic well-being of the median person, and what will happen? People will be more confident in their futures, have more leisure time, and will be happier. Every school of economics agrees on this. They differ in what they recommend to achieve it.
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- FabHK 7y agoFWIW, the US unemployment rate is quite low at the moment. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE/ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE/
- dsr_ 7y agoI don't see your point. Is the article about the US population not dating, or the South Korean population not dating?
- FabHK 7y agoSorry, I wasn't paying attention. For South Korea, unemployment is quite low at 3.8%, but youth unemployment is over 10%: https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/youth-unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/youth-unemployment-...
- qwerty9876 7y agoThey do want to date alright. When you interview a random person on the street they're lying both to the interviewer and themselves. The problem for men is that the women generally don't think the average man is good enough. The problem for women is that they're mostly lusting after and eventually, in the long run, sharing the same top 20% men. If you're a man, it's a winner takes all market. Either almost all women desire you, or not a single one does. Arranged marriage used to solve this.
- partisan 7y agoI suspect the same is happening here in the US as well. There’s a growing “incel” population who are shunned because they don’t meet standard definitions of beauty or social fitness. The problem compounds as men become less and less confident about their prospects which leads to behavior like the one described in the article.
- voltagex_ 7y agoThe "incel" population also manage to be a self fulfilling prophecy. It's a little dramatic, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0 explains it well.
- qwerty9876 7y agoIt has a lot to do with smartphones and socialization moving online. Firstly, the way you interact with and judge strangers is completely different to the way you behave with your friends who you've known for 10 years. The us vs them tribal mentality is built into our brains. Random people are considered as disposable as you don't have any attachment to them and can effectively never see them again in your life if you choose so. Smartphones allow us to instantly tap into an infinite pool of strangers. Secondly, social media lets us see the lives of the top 0.1% every day. Beforehand you lived in your small filter bubble and didn't know any better. Most people don't look like or hang around with fitness stars or male models in real life. But when you follow a ton of them on Instagram and see their photos daily, your mindset and standards start to change. Third, the amount of choices online is effectively limitless and a "candy store" effect happens. Why would you pick an "ok" candy when there's 100 brands to pick from that taste like heaven in your mouth?
- mschuster91 7y agoITT: people advocating for forced arranged marriages. Jeez, what the hell? Not to dig into such petty stuff as human rights which entirely forbid arranged marriages, that would be too easy, but as if that would even solve the problem that is literally described in the article, people having no time to develop meaningful relationships or interpersonal skill because in a cutthroat environment all that matters is more useless "certifications" and working one's ass off in underpaid crap jobs just to survive, much less afford a date? Fix minimum wages, overtime limits and job supplies, and (young) people will start procreating all on their own!
- deepakkarki 7y agoArranged marriage != forced marrige. Majority of marriages in south east Asia and India are arranged marriages. There's nothing unethical about it.
- mschuster91 7y ago> There's nothing unethical about it. In many countries, the husband has a legal right to demand sex from his wife and rape in a marriage is not a crime either - in fact, even "civilized" countries such as Germany had it until recently, it took us Germans until 1998 to finally make marital rape a crime. One of the politicians in favor of keeping it legal actually ended up being our current Interior Minister but ah well, I digress... point is, the line between arranged and outright forced marriage is thin, very thin.
- deepakkarki 7y agoBut it has nothing to do with arranged marriages. I know Indians in the US who have gotten into an arranged marriage, and obviously the local rules apply. OTOH if marital rape in not a crime in some country, it might as well be committed whether or not it was an arranged marriage.
- awaythrowwwww 7y agoYes, and from experience when South Asian people (especially women) get to experience this free-agency dating thing we have in Europe and America they suddenly become very reluctant to switch back to their arranged spouse. Strange how these things go.
- kerng 7y agoInteresting how illicit filming during intercourse is one of the reasons young people don't want to enter an intimate relationship. There must be quite the horror stories floating around.
- RickJWagner 7y agoDating, crime, housing, education... so much is dependent on a good economic foundation. JFK was right when he said a rising tide lifts all boats. Every politician everywhere should make this a foundation of their platform.