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> What I'm saying applies once the population actually drops by a large amount Oh but this is exactly what I'm trying to explore with the South Korea specific

> What I'm saying applies once the population actually drops by a large amount Oh but this is exactly what I'm trying to explore with the South Korea specific example. By 2100 they are predicted by the UN* to have 1/2 of their current population. This remaining bunch will be mostly very old people, the fertile/working age fraction will be like 20% supporting 80% people too old to work or reproduce. This is already a never seen before situation (in peaceful times, at least), which you describe as "numbers tend to move back up, or at least stabilize", like we've seen this many times before, but we've never seen anything like that. Also, I'm having a very difficult time imagining a half-a-century long, continuing freefall in fertility suddenly reversing in another 5-8 decades and them all of a sudden starting to breed like rabbits in 2100, after they lose half their population. Even just to stop the freefall they would have to double the current fertility rate just to not go completely extinct around year 2150. * https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191010-south-koreas-population-paradox https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191010-south-koreas-p...

oblio 5y ago
With so few people I see no way except for mass migration, for housing stock to remain expensive. And that's one of the biggest barriers to having kids these days, housing being the main expense during a person's lifetime. When your main home + a vacation home cost half of what your main home would have costed 3 decades ago, and you can afford them when you're 25, that's a huge relief right there. The big question mark to that is that the entire economy doesn't collapse and also takes down salaries with it. But South Korea is quite export oriented so they're better positioned than some other countries.

2 ms·

> What I'm saying applies once the population actually drops by a large amount Oh but this is exactly what I'm trying to explore with the South Korea specific

by twelve40 5y ago

oblio 5y ago
With so few people I see no way except for mass migration, for housing stock to remain expensive. And that's one of the biggest barriers to having kids these days, housing being the main expense during a person's lifetime. When your main home + a vacation home cost half of what your main home would have costed 3 decades ago, and you can afford them when you're 25, that's a huge relief right there. The big question mark to that is that the entire economy doesn't collapse and also takes down salaries with it. But South Korea is quite export oriented so they're better positioned than some other countries.