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Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Before, society grew w

Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. 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. Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertility is a tragedy of the commons? If everyone chooses to act in their own interest, society is worse off than collectively pressuring to have more kids? Ideally, that would look like major subsidies and benefits to parents to account for the extra work they are doing for society. I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off the planet, and the traditionally oppressive-to-women societies will evolutionarily outlast us. At this rate, there will only be 3m South Koreans in 3 generations. I don't see how you expect a country to survive that decline. In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future.

jackling 4y ago
"our future", last time I check, Pakistan wasn't invading any foreign territory, aside from some normal border disputes it's problems are usually within it's own borders. This seems like paranoia that the "others" will come and ruin our civilization. If Pakistan, and other countries like India and China, continues to modernize, eventually the population should stable out and historically that comes with better rights for all.
- tarakat 4y ago
- steve76 4y ago
- tstrimple 4y ago
  > eventually the population should stable out and historically that comes with better rights for all. I'm not convinced you don't have those two reversed. Intuitively, to me, population stability comes after better rights for all.
throwayyy479087 4y ago
That comparison rings backwards to me? Pakistan is a deeply troubled, dangerous, and poorly run country. Korea is one of the best places to live on Earth.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure Korea has pretty shit work/life balance. And if you lose your job you're also SoL. There's still a substantial amount of instability and psychic stressors that could lead to someone not wanting kids, on top of constantly fearing war with NK
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Yet it is still among the best places to live on earth.
    - decafninja 4y ago
      Depends. Versus some third world or developing country? Of course. Versus other developed countries? South Korea has its pros and cons just like any other.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - chitowneats 4y ago
        According to your framing, "third world or developing countries" are wholly and obviously less desirable ("of course"), than developed countries. I don't agree with that statement, but let's follow the logic. Most countries are not developed. Therefore, by your own definition, South Korea is one of the best places to live on Earth.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      Wealth is bad in capitalism because it makes capitalists redundant.
nonameiguess 4y ago
Genetic Koreans are not necessarily staying in Korea, so a low birth-rate in country doesn't mean their genes will be wiped off the planet. Korea is a pretty serious exporter of people. Obviously, the greatest thing that changed over those last 60 years is they're no longer recovering from a war that killed a pretty hefty amount of their population. While I'm sure it didn't need to decline quite so much, fertility rate was never going to stay what it was in the late 50s. You can see a pretty obvious recovery spike here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/media/File:Live_births,_deaths_of_South_Korea_(1925-2019).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/m.... It was only in the past 20 years that they declined below 1920s level. It's also worth remembering that being oppressive to women is (definitely at least probably) not a genetically tranmissible trait. If the 22nd Century really does end up being dominated by Pakistanis, you can't just automatically assume they'll stay culturally identical to what they are today. Presumably, the Korea of the 19 century was a lot more oppressive to women than the Korea of today.
pengaru 4y ago
There's just a lump in the population vs. age graph and you're fixating on the back side of the lump as if it's inevitably going towards zero. After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. Wanna guess what happens in that welcoming environment? My guess is people feel inclined to make some babies. I don't understand why people tend to treat these low fertility rates as some kind of invariable biological dysfunction. These aren't infertile masses of people; they're perfectly capable of multiplying like rabbits. The planet has shitloads of people, maybe we're finally reeling things in from an overshoot and are on the inevitably pendulum-like path towards population stability. There's no reason to panic unless you've got substantial evidence these people are physically incapable of having children. Edit: How about some DATA: go to https://population.io https://population.io, select Rep. of Korea, plug in some age/gender b.s. and scroll down to "Age Distribution" at the left column. Now look to the left of ~20yo (younger than 20), it's a nearly horizontal line. What does that tell you? There's a uniform rate of Korean babies per year under 20 years old. To the right of this, there's a massive lump of elderly people with a slightly smaller lump of middle-aged people. There's no reason to believe this horizontal line left of 20yo won't just continue into the future; it looks quite stable for the last ~20 years.
- rednerrus 4y ago
  It'll be too late by then. You need to make these choices 35 years ago in order for their population to continue.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    > It'll be too late by then. You need to make these choices 35 years ago in order for their population to continue. Well look at the bright side of your unrealistic South Korea extinction scenario; no more DMZ and North Koreans will spread southward! Of course this will never happen, there is no likely scenario for South Korea to have zero inhabitants. Y'all are High-larious.
  - 4y ago
rowanajmarshall 4y ago
> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Industrialisation. The UK began industrialising in the mid-to-late 1700s. Western Europe and North America got going in the early 1800s. Central Europe and Japan followed along, while Russia didn't really industrialise until the Soviet Union. China and Korea, by contrast, just started in the 1950s-70s, easily within a human life time. Their societies made the leap from subsistence farming to CPU design _so_ much faster than most of the developed world, it's unreal.
- brnt 4y ago
  Nitpick: industrialisation started in Belgium.
  - wil421 4y ago
    Pretty much everything I can find says it started in Britain with textiles. Everything from Wikipedia, National Geographic, to Encyclopedia Britannica all say the same thing.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      You are citing a British-US founder's product, an US magazine, and Encyclopedia Britannica to assert it all started in Britain. I'd wager we need a bit more geographically/culturally varied sources to have a fair guess at the truth.
      - zamfi 4y ago
        This kind of dangerous logic is how you end up with anti-vax conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and mind control, about how one could trust Pfizer’s Phase 3 vaccine trial data they submitted for approval, etc. On the one hand, yes of course: sources matter and you need to consider whether anyone has a motive to mislead, or even merely a motive to not dig too deeply into a claim they might wish to believe. But on the other hand, a company merely merely being founded decades ago by a someone of a particular nationality does not on its own constitute strong evidence that any claims about that country are tainted or self-motivated. That connection is just too weak — you need to bring other evidence!
brnt 4y ago
As usual, society is not preparing itself for new economic realities (many I speak to do not understand this particular one at all), but, has it occurred to you that this is very good news in terms of livability on planet earth and our continued existence? Sure, humans will adapt but only when it's too late, as usual, but at least this is a change in positive direction. Forever growth is nonsensical, and this isn't the worst way it could end.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  The only way your hypothesis is plausible (ignoring everything else that’s weird and troubling about it) is if everyone on the planet decides to go along with it. Not every society has this problem of low fertility, and those who own the future are the ones who show up.
  - brnt 4y ago
    Fertily reduction correlates strongly with increased prosperity worldwide. Policy making and cultural attitudes play a role too, but the correlation is uncontested and rather evident.
    - jxramos 4y ago
      Sometimes I wonder if it’s a short term trade off. If you carve out of the effort budget that portion allotted for rearing the next generation and swap it out for or bias it strongly toward higher technology development, deeper universities, or whatever, then you cut yourself off the branch you sit on so to speak when the degree of that bias is so out of proportion. Maybe a generation can afford to delay the investments into the demands of population continuation. If the delay prolongs too long and bleeds into the next generation and interferes with how they define fulfillment in terminal non regenerative endeavors then they have effectively made their choices and continuation is not one of them. That phrase the meek shall inherit the earth, I wonder about lately. The meek, the non power searching types who don’t busy themselves with all the variety of non regenerative endeavors that consume all those who chart courses out into deep space and all its loneliness perhaps avoid these population traps and mentalities that lead to the end of a people. The salt of the earth, those who preserve humanity effectively. What a startling pack of implications seem to be packed into that statement so pregnant with meaning.
Gibbon1 4y ago
> 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 a tenancy to forget that 60 years ago one working person would have to support a wife and several children.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  It kinda amazing how we could probably point a point where productivity peaked that is how many people single working person can support. As before that depending on location pretty much everyone worked on one level or an other...
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Productivity has never been higher. We're just consuming more.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      I don’t think that’s OP’s point (plus I’m not convinced we really are more productive). OP’s point appears to me to be something like “a good measure of productivity is how many people a single working person can support”. Today, most families need to have two parents working. This makes a pretty good inference, I think, about how much things have changed.
      - rr808 4y ago
        Most families do not need to have two parents working if they live like people 60 years ago. Ie one car, a 1000 sq ft home, vacations in the local area, home made lunches, hand me down clothes, no AC, no electronics, no braces.
        doliveira 4y ago
        That's a great illustration as to why inequality matters, not just poverty.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Women gained financial freedom and the ability to choose when they get pregnant. Societies will now find out the market price for birthing children (as well as women finding out the price for not birthing children).
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  So to you it can be summed up to "it's all women's fault" ?
  - lamp987 4y ago
    more like the rules of society reward the wrong behaviour (not reproducing).
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      I think our societies are in bad shapes in many ways, and a decent range of people could be not reproducing as a direct reaction to that... Would you see a reward system counteract a psychological perception of their current situation ?
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Not really. One can also frame it as society’s fault for not providing both women and men with sufficient incentive to procreate. Note that the word “fault” typically has a negative connotation, but I am not intending to use it with positive or negative connotation, but simply as a causative factor. The comment I replied to stated something changed, to which I wanted to clarify what I think the biggest variable that changed. Of course, men also may not want to have as many kids as in previous years, but I would still bet this is a much smaller factor than women saying no.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      There's a trend happening in many countries where economical stagnation or downturn push young people and couples to wait for better days to engage in romantic relationships or build families. You could shelve that as "society not providing enough incentives", but to me it looks like a more complex issue than what's covered by carrot/stick mechanisms. Not all issues leading to forgoing procreating are that complex, but putting any of them as "women chose to xxxx" is I think only useful at a micro level, and kinda misses the reasons why they chose to do so, which are usually not in any individual's hand.
incrudible 4y ago
> I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off the planet, and the traditionally oppressive-to-women societies will evolutionarily outlast us. As the standard of living rises, birth rates are dropping precipitously even in those countries that are relatively more oppressive. Absent socioeconomic reasons, there are still females that naturally desire having plenty of children, despite there not being any societal pressure in favor (or even against) that. They will be genetically selected for.
waterlaw 4y ago
Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. This will aid in the reduction of family formation in poorer countries and serve as population control. While ensuring no one country becomes too populated. H.G. Wells pointed out that we cannot have population control in one nation of the world, but not another. It must be worldwide, or it'd result in severe unrest. Julian Huxley, H.G. Wells, Charles Pincus (and many more) made this one of the defining issues of the 20th century. The Pill and IVF were long in the works and heavily funded as a means to avoid the "Population Bomb." They envisioned a new world without war or environmental destruction. Their solution was to reduce the birth rate, through various means. The reduction of family formation being one of them. It's interesting to read through these older works and realize the world they'd envisioned has to some extent come to fruition.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  > Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. So you think women in poorer countries are willing to "pre-sell" their children? That's insanely absurd, and an absolute human rights violation if forced. No. This will not happen.
  - throwaway_4ever 4y ago
    You need to look up what surrogacy means. The surrogate women is doing the "pregnancy" part, with prior agreement and IVF from a different couple.
    - irrational 4y ago
      But... why? Most women I know are fine and even happy with the pregnancy part. Why would they want to outsource that part? They love the attention. The birth part? Not so much, but that part is difficult to outsource.
      - DFHippie 4y ago
ctoth 4y ago
> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years Does the change necessarily have to be societal? > In 1992, a study found a global 50% decline in sperm counts in men over the previous 60 years. Multiple studies over subsequent years confirmed that initial finding, including a 2017 paper showing a 50% to 60% decline in sperm concentration between 1973 and 2011 in men from around the world. These studies, though important, focused on sperm concentration or total sperm count. So in 2019, a team of researchers decided to focus on the more powerful total motile sperm count. They found that the proportion of men with a normal total motile sperm count had declined by approximately 10% over the previous 16 years. The science is consistent: Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility[0]. [0]: https://theconversation.com/male-fertility-is-declining-studies-show-that-environmental-toxins-could-be-a-reason-163795 https://theconversation.com/male-fertility-is-declining-stud...
- shadowofneptune 4y ago
  Infertility is not the leading issue when people are asked, 'why are you not having children?'. Until it is, I don't see how it can be more important than societal barriers.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Lower sperm count and lower desire to have children might have a common cause.
    - akvadrako 4y ago
      Lower desire might even be causing lower sperm counts. Anyway, sperm counts are not outside the normal range. It was just that certain groups had higher than needed levels.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  The same things that cause a higher average life expectation? Maybe the microplastics floating through the atmosphere everywhere? The constant stress about what is happening with the whole world instead of just your neighbor?
amrocha 4y ago
What? Declining birth rates have nothing to do with oppressing women. Worker exploitation, poor social safety net, and wealth disparity are squarely to blame.
- acdha 4y ago
  > Declining birth rates have nothing to do with oppressing women. I think the point was the opposite: countries with limited respect and opportunities for women have higher birth rates because women have less control over whether they have children and if good careers aren’t an option anyway there’s less opportunity cost to staying home with a child.
  - orwin 4y ago
    You mean countries like France ? Just implement a repartition retirement system and small incentive per child which diminish after the third, boom, 2.1 fertility rate for most of the 21rst century. At least for now, the destruction of our retirement system and our current trend towards capitalization is already killing our fertility rate, and the idiots pushing this will once again realize this too late, because this is what they do.
    - 988747 4y ago
      > boom, 2.1 fertility rate for most of the 21rst century. This has nothing to do with the policies you mention. It has everything to do with the fact that the most popular name for newly born boys is now "Muhammed" (or some other spelling variant of it).
      - acdha 4y ago
        It's not that simple: France appears to have higher birth rates even if you exclude the children of immigrants, which does suggest that other policies factor into it: https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-and-societies-2019-7-page-1.htm https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-and-societies-...
    - 4y ago
faeriechangling 4y ago
Talking about “developed countries” here, not SK specifically. Is declining fertility really such a societal and evolutionary danger when we’re talking 1.4-1.5? If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting the carrying capacity of the planet to preserve the 0.001% of genes that give us sparkling blue eyes? The whole contention that it’s terrible that high birthrate countries are so much more feminist than low birthrate ones, well I mean just because the genetics of feminist counties might wane, that doesn’t mean their cultures will. Memetics is just as powerful as genetics, do rich countries really have to be the world’s stud? Can’t we see the poorer countries investing in people and the wealthier countries investing in things as teamwork?
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  > If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility It is not a few corners of the world. It is currently "developed countries", but we have no reason to believe that the non-"developed countries" will do any better. > is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting the carrying capacity of the planet to preserve the 0.001% of genes that give us sparkling blue eyes? Putting to a side for now the blase attitude to several societies slowly disappearing due to lack of births: 1. Much of society is built around the implicit assumption of there being more people in the future. 2. The carrying capacity of the world is only of interest to us as long as we are around for it. All of humanity suddenly disappearing tomorrow would also do wonders for the world's carrying capacity.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    Regarding the idea I’m taking a blase Attitude. My arguments allow for two separate defences against this argument. Both that humans are not very genetically different so a change in genetics should hardly affect culture, and that culture isn’t dependent on genetics. How blase can I be while preparing two different defences against your allegations? Regarding argument 1, I will say there is no problem with the supply of people, global population is growing. It doesn’t need to grow everywhere simultaniously, insisting that it must will inevitably lead to a bias towards population growth. The population HAS to shrink somewhere for things to stay stable, since it will invariably grow in a few places, and at this point the growing countries outweigh the shrinking ones sharply. With 2, I’ll expand on this argument. Unrestrained pollution will lead to a future where the earth warms which can rapidly leading to famine and population decline after an era of sharp population growth. You are worried about a decline in children in a set of countries, but that problem is a lot less of a problem when it’s happening in a few countries, than when it’s happening in every country at the same time. Then things go worse for every individual country involved, as immigration is not an option.
selimthegrim 4y ago
Usually, the story told here is South Korea copying Pakistan’s five year economic plan in the early 60s. Also you should specify whether you mean West or East (presumably West) Pakistan’s population numbers. The western half had 51m people in 1960.
- rajup 4y ago
  There is no East Pakistan AFAIK, or atleast not for more than 50 years.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    In 1960 there was.
grog454 4y ago
> 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.
- klipt 4y ago
  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?
  - Auracle 4y ago
    I don’t know about other countries, but they certainly aren’t cheap in the United States.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  Yes, and immigration almost always brings tension because of cultural clash. I think a lot of people in developed countries voluntarily or involuntarily adopt a psychological willingness to not have kids and let their culture collapse because the emotional distress of a life in a post-growth world. A world where your freedoms, privacy, and economic opportunities are shrinking, to extract temporary value and stability for the upper class, out of you and your labour/compliance. The only worldly way out of it is to basically step on the others while going up to implement these changes, which feels horrible to a naturally empathic creature like man. It's a cursed state of being.
FBISurveillance 4y ago
Apologies for ranting but this topic resonates too much. Housing prices are 9x salary vs 4.5x salary in the 70s and it takes a while to save up. Personal data point: it took me winning an IPO lottery to start thinking about having kids for real. Having kids while earning minimal wage? Terrifying, especially in the US where getting yourself or your kid sick could bankrupt you in the blink of an eye - and if you want multiple kids you increase the risk. So we think we have to have it all before we start trying having kids and have no sense of community whatsoever. Societal focus on hedonism and career leaves little to no time to raise kids. And at the end of the day you end up having no support from the society that slowly but surely ages.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  I agree with you on the latter point, but I want to also point something out on the former. Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. So the issue is not one of finances, but priorities. Winning an IPO lottery being the baseline where you feel comfortable for having children doesn't mean that such is the inherent baseline, but that you simply prioritize comfort and wealth over raising a family. And that is okay. This nuance is important; it emphasizes the real issue is not economics, but culture! We've created a society that values the pursuit of wealth and comfort more than family, and it's likely this system is not sustainable. Not everybody can be wealthy, because wealth is relative and mediated by what exists. If 30% of people want something and there's only enough for 3%, then it doesn't matter what the relative wealth is among these people: 90% of people won't be able to "afford" it, and that will never change. A post-scarcity society will never exist alongside consumerism; we'll simply take what we can have for granted and lust over the new scarcities.
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    >Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. Unfortunately many people who are not properly equipped to raise children (financially, temperamentally or otherwise) have lots of children and don't make it work. The result is a permanent underclass and a serious crime problem in many of our major cities.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
> Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertility is a tragedy of the commons? If everyone chooses to act in their own interest, society is worse off than collectively pressuring to have more kids? Of course. Malthusianism, eugenics.
ryanSrich 4y ago
We’re lucky enough to afford childcare and healthcare, but I can’t imagine how anyone making significantly less can do it. Healthcare costs are ongoing, and obscene. Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that will force you to hit your deductible in the first two quarters of the year ($10k per child in our case). In most tier 2/3 cities in the US you can expect daycare to cost $1,000-$1,800 per child per month. In any tier 1 city, especially west coast cities like Seattle and SF, expect to pay at least $2,000/child per month. On top of that, you’ll have a mortgage. With median housing prices around $1.2-$1.6m and rates in the mid 5% you’re looking at anywhere from $6,500-$8,000/month for a mortgage depending on taxes. So right out of the gate, you’re at $10k of post tax income just going to daycare costs and a mortgage. You likely have other costs that equal at least $1,000/month. And that’s for 1 kid. Add another kid and you’re easily approaching $15k per month. If you do the math, you’ll need to make at least $250k if you have one kid considering at least 40% is going straight to taxes (aka military funds since we get nothing in this country for the insane amount of taxes we pay).
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Per ACA, all routine newborn care (including vaccines and routine blood draw) is 100% paid by insurance company. The specifics are all listed in the links below. https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-children/ https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-children/ https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits/ https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits... >Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that will force you to hit your deductible in the first two quarters of the year ($10k per child in our case). This is not true for the US. The maximum out of pocket legal limit for 2022 is $17.4k for a family. If you have a half decent employer, deductibles are far lower (in the $3k to $5k range), and so are out of pocket maximums (in the $5k to $10k range at most). https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/ https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li... https://www.healthcare.gov/high-deductible-health-plan/ https://www.healthcare.gov/high-deductible-health-plan/ I would budget at least 2 years of out of pocket maximums to have on hand. In our case, we hit out of pocket maximums of ~$5k and ~$7k during the year of birth, otherwise it costs $150 to $250 for a regular pink eye/ear infection consult and $400 to $500 for a specialist consult. This is in a very high cost of living area.
kamaal 4y ago
>>In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future. Social factors are not considered enough. As societies get more materialistic, and socio-economically advanced, there seems to be more individualistic, privacy[in the wrong way, escalating to extreme isolationism], lack of social interaction and bonding etc. I myself felt odd during the time I stayed in the US, the whole concept of individualism and privacy was taken too far, and everybody felt lonely in their own way. People moved around in fixed schedules and paths, almost like an open air prison. Given limited social interaction outside work[where you can't even sneeze without offending some one]. This really felt like passion and purpose in life was slowly fading away. I can imagine how a society with this sort of a lifestyle could fare on the longer run. People would want lesser and lesser people around them, and interact with them even lesser as time would proceed. Countries like India and Pakistan definitely have third world infrastructure, but the social infrastructure is very strong and likely to remain, this is due to socio-religious reasons. For this reason, people get married and have 2+ kids.
collegeburner 4y ago
OR we could say "you had 65 years to save up, no way in hell are we going to keep crippling the economic prospects of our youth to fund your retirement"
- Psychoshy_bc1q 4y ago
moomoo11 4y ago
As an American (immigrant) I'm honestly really alarmed by seeing the high birth rates in countries that are well, to put it bluntly, kinda backwards (I'm from one of them btw). One of the reasons we moved to a country like the US is to be away from a backwards minded, theocratic af, corrupt society. To see that these types of countries are actually booming while highly progressed ones are depressing is super depressing.
- s5300 4y ago
  I’m sorry, but if you thought the US fit the criteria you’ve just described, you’re sorely mistaken…
  - moomoo11 4y ago
    Last I checked the government isn’t lynching people. Do we have crazies? Duh. But to compare the “crazy” in US to some of these places is either privileged ignorance or willful ignorance. There’s a reason we moved here, even with the issues present here. They’re magnitudes less.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Try to bribe a police officer in the US next time you get pulled over at a traffic stop. Try to bribe the immigration officer at any US airport. My congressman's office didn't even let me give him a small non-cash thank you gift basket when he resolved a very sensitive and urgent administrative matter with my visa.
    - sidewndr46 4y ago
      I'm more concerned that a congressman was able to "fix" an issue with a visa than I am with someone taking bribes. Bribes implies quid pro quo. Someone who can "fix" some implies an exclusive network of favors traded with no record.
      - missedthecue 4y ago
        Basically what happened was that the USPS lost my passport in the mail a few days before I was supposed to move overseas. I called his office and they were able to lean on the The Department of State to have a new one printed up and issued to me within 48 hours. How he did it, I don't know, but I assume getting a call from a sitting congressman lights the proverbial fire under the ass of paper pushers at the Department of State. I had never met, spoken with, or donated to my congressman before this took place.
carrolldunham 4y ago
I suspect having children is similar to keeping slaves, in the sense that we realized that slavery is unethical even though it was "just what we do" since time immemorial, and was necessary for our lifestyle levels. People will realize that it's unethical to create beings, burdening them with the struggle to maintain the life they've been attached to, in order to (explicitly, in your case) 'benefit society'. Society is made up of people but those people, ever more, should each suffer for society's sake? come on
- jxramos 4y ago
  Love multiplies
  - carrolldunham 4y ago
    I read around, I can't find any explanation of what that means. It seems irrelevant. Sure, life can be enjoyable, and people love each other - but when you read >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. and the proposition is to Shangai people into being, with no say in it, to meet this onerous workload, how is that defensible? You could say they aren't going to be forced to labor, but they are because otherwise they will starve and suffer.
CogitoCogito 4y ago
> Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertility is a tragedy of the commons? If everyone chooses to act in their own interest, society is worse off than collectively pressuring to have more kids? Ideally, that would look like major subsidies and benefits to parents to account for the extra work they are doing for society. Or maybe the tragedy of the commons was having 6 children per family within living memory? Maybe now by dropping our population we are doing much better for the world society as a whole. It all depends on your perspective I guess. I fail to see the problem with a drop in world population. > At this rate, there will only be 3m South Koreans in 3 generations. I don't see how you expect a country to survive that decline. In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future. Maybe South Korea won't survive in its current form. The world will keep revolving the sun nonetheless.
igorkraw 4y ago
Before we start talking about tragedy of the commons with fertility, how about we fix the surrounding factors that cause people to have babies later in life or only one (subsidies are a good start, but they need to be massive if the surrounding systems and culture don't change)? And if we are worried about "dysgenically wiping ourselves of the earth" (a phrasing which I observe, with no implications intended, to jvery close to those used in the great replacement and white genocide conspiracy theories), how about we start massive immigration-and-integration programs? And stop doing business with the most oppressive ones...personally know a Qatari woman trying to escape that country but she can't leave without a male guardian signing off on it.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
I really see no way out of this unless our economic models change drastically. For the population to actually grow, some people will need to make three kids. I just don't see that happening at scale at all. Most won't even make two kids, forget about three.
imtringued 4y ago
Or maybe it means we had too many children and are now trying to go back to an optimal population size.
tsss 4y ago
If anything, it is the parents who destroy the commons by conceiving more polluters. You postulate that "fertility" is a good thing but that's far from indisputable. The earth is already vastly overpopulated. It's high time that other people follow the Korean example and give nature some respite.
seydor 4y ago
urbanization The resources of korea and their technology will not go away, they will now be at the hands of fewer people, so more wealth / person. Historically it was small states that dominated the world, the populous ones were ravaged by poverty and famine. People are calculating (correctly) that our future technology does not need a lot of hands, and that is true. Look at the tech sector , which employs a tiny percentage of the population but has enormous output. As for the egoist act of genetic heritage/perpetuation, well let's be honest, in 10 years people will be modifying their genes and removing our clunky and faulty dna so there goes our glory. As for wars/security, those are already fought with drones > I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off The trend will not continue forever To me , this all highlights that we need to ramp up anti-aging technology fast and hard. It s much higher priority than sending humans to mars

jackling 4y ago

"our future", last time I check, Pakistan wasn't invading any foreign territory, aside from some normal border disputes it's problems are usually within it's own borders. This seems like paranoia that the "others" will come and ruin our civilization. If Pakistan, and other countries like India and China, continues to modernize, eventually the population should stable out and historically that comes with better rights for all.

tarakat 4y ago
steve76 4y ago
tstrimple 4y ago
> eventually the population should stable out and historically that comes with better rights for all. I'm not convinced you don't have those two reversed. Intuitively, to me, population stability comes after better rights for all.

throwayyy479087 4y ago

That comparison rings backwards to me? Pakistan is a deeply troubled, dangerous, and poorly run country. Korea is one of the best places to live on Earth.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
I'm pretty sure Korea has pretty shit work/life balance. And if you lose your job you're also SoL. There's still a substantial amount of instability and psychic stressors that could lead to someone not wanting kids, on top of constantly fearing war with NK
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Yet it is still among the best places to live on earth.
  - decafninja 4y ago
    Depends. Versus some third world or developing country? Of course. Versus other developed countries? South Korea has its pros and cons just like any other.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      According to your framing, "third world or developing countries" are wholly and obviously less desirable ("of course"), than developed countries. I don't agree with that statement, but let's follow the logic. Most countries are not developed. Therefore, by your own definition, South Korea is one of the best places to live on Earth.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Wealth is bad in capitalism because it makes capitalists redundant.

nonameiguess 4y ago

Genetic Koreans are not necessarily staying in Korea, so a low birth-rate in country doesn't mean their genes will be wiped off the planet. Korea is a pretty serious exporter of people. Obviously, the greatest thing that changed over those last 60 years is they're no longer recovering from a war that killed a pretty hefty amount of their population. While I'm sure it didn't need to decline quite so much, fertility rate was never going to stay what it was in the late 50s. You can see a pretty obvious recovery spike here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/media/File:Live_births,_deaths_of_South_Korea_(1925-2019).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea#/m.... It was only in the past 20 years that they declined below 1920s level. It's also worth remembering that being oppressive to women is (definitely at least probably) not a genetically tranmissible trait. If the 22nd Century really does end up being dominated by Pakistanis, you can't just automatically assume they'll stay culturally identical to what they are today. Presumably, the Korea of the 19 century was a lot more oppressive to women than the Korea of today.

pengaru 4y ago

There's just a lump in the population vs. age graph and you're fixating on the back side of the lump as if it's inevitably going towards zero. After the lump passes through South Koreans will look around and see a lack of traffic congestion, abundance of housing, lack of competitors for their now abundant resources, and lack of disproportionately large population of unproductive elderly dependents. Wanna guess what happens in that welcoming environment? My guess is people feel inclined to make some babies. I don't understand why people tend to treat these low fertility rates as some kind of invariable biological dysfunction. These aren't infertile masses of people; they're perfectly capable of multiplying like rabbits. The planet has shitloads of people, maybe we're finally reeling things in from an overshoot and are on the inevitably pendulum-like path towards population stability. There's no reason to panic unless you've got substantial evidence these people are physically incapable of having children. Edit: How about some DATA: go to https://population.io https://population.io, select Rep. of Korea, plug in some age/gender b.s. and scroll down to "Age Distribution" at the left column. Now look to the left of ~20yo (younger than 20), it's a nearly horizontal line. What does that tell you? There's a uniform rate of Korean babies per year under 20 years old. To the right of this, there's a massive lump of elderly people with a slightly smaller lump of middle-aged people. There's no reason to believe this horizontal line left of 20yo won't just continue into the future; it looks quite stable for the last ~20 years.

rednerrus 4y ago
It'll be too late by then. You need to make these choices 35 years ago in order for their population to continue.
- pengaru 4y ago
  > It'll be too late by then. You need to make these choices 35 years ago in order for their population to continue. Well look at the bright side of your unrealistic South Korea extinction scenario; no more DMZ and North Koreans will spread southward! Of course this will never happen, there is no likely scenario for South Korea to have zero inhabitants. Y'all are High-larious.
- 4y ago

rowanajmarshall 4y ago

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Industrialisation. The UK began industrialising in the mid-to-late 1700s. Western Europe and North America got going in the early 1800s. Central Europe and Japan followed along, while Russia didn't really industrialise until the Soviet Union. China and Korea, by contrast, just started in the 1950s-70s, easily within a human life time. Their societies made the leap from subsistence farming to CPU design _so_ much faster than most of the developed world, it's unreal.

brnt 4y ago
Nitpick: industrialisation started in Belgium.
- wil421 4y ago
  Pretty much everything I can find says it started in Britain with textiles. Everything from Wikipedia, National Geographic, to Encyclopedia Britannica all say the same thing.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    You are citing a British-US founder's product, an US magazine, and Encyclopedia Britannica to assert it all started in Britain. I'd wager we need a bit more geographically/culturally varied sources to have a fair guess at the truth.
    - zamfi 4y ago
      This kind of dangerous logic is how you end up with anti-vax conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and mind control, about how one could trust Pfizer’s Phase 3 vaccine trial data they submitted for approval, etc. On the one hand, yes of course: sources matter and you need to consider whether anyone has a motive to mislead, or even merely a motive to not dig too deeply into a claim they might wish to believe. But on the other hand, a company merely merely being founded decades ago by a someone of a particular nationality does not on its own constitute strong evidence that any claims about that country are tainted or self-motivated. That connection is just too weak — you need to bring other evidence!

brnt 4y ago

As usual, society is not preparing itself for new economic realities (many I speak to do not understand this particular one at all), but, has it occurred to you that this is very good news in terms of livability on planet earth and our continued existence? Sure, humans will adapt but only when it's too late, as usual, but at least this is a change in positive direction. Forever growth is nonsensical, and this isn't the worst way it could end.

remarkEon 4y ago
The only way your hypothesis is plausible (ignoring everything else that’s weird and troubling about it) is if everyone on the planet decides to go along with it. Not every society has this problem of low fertility, and those who own the future are the ones who show up.
- brnt 4y ago
  Fertily reduction correlates strongly with increased prosperity worldwide. Policy making and cultural attitudes play a role too, but the correlation is uncontested and rather evident.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    Sometimes I wonder if it’s a short term trade off. If you carve out of the effort budget that portion allotted for rearing the next generation and swap it out for or bias it strongly toward higher technology development, deeper universities, or whatever, then you cut yourself off the branch you sit on so to speak when the degree of that bias is so out of proportion. Maybe a generation can afford to delay the investments into the demands of population continuation. If the delay prolongs too long and bleeds into the next generation and interferes with how they define fulfillment in terminal non regenerative endeavors then they have effectively made their choices and continuation is not one of them. That phrase the meek shall inherit the earth, I wonder about lately. The meek, the non power searching types who don’t busy themselves with all the variety of non regenerative endeavors that consume all those who chart courses out into deep space and all its loneliness perhaps avoid these population traps and mentalities that lead to the end of a people. The salt of the earth, those who preserve humanity effectively. What a startling pack of implications seem to be packed into that statement so pregnant with meaning.

Gibbon1 4y ago

> 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 a tenancy to forget that 60 years ago one working person would have to support a wife and several children.

Ekaros 4y ago
It kinda amazing how we could probably point a point where productivity peaked that is how many people single working person can support. As before that depending on location pretty much everyone worked on one level or an other...
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Productivity has never been higher. We're just consuming more.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    I don’t think that’s OP’s point (plus I’m not convinced we really are more productive). OP’s point appears to me to be something like “a good measure of productivity is how many people a single working person can support”. Today, most families need to have two parents working. This makes a pretty good inference, I think, about how much things have changed.
    - rr808 4y ago
      Most families do not need to have two parents working if they live like people 60 years ago. Ie one car, a 1000 sq ft home, vacations in the local area, home made lunches, hand me down clothes, no AC, no electronics, no braces.
      - doliveira 4y ago
        That's a great illustration as to why inequality matters, not just poverty.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years, the living memory of a single life. Women gained financial freedom and the ability to choose when they get pregnant. Societies will now find out the market price for birthing children (as well as women finding out the price for not birthing children).

makeitdouble 4y ago
So to you it can be summed up to "it's all women's fault" ?
- lamp987 4y ago
  more like the rules of society reward the wrong behaviour (not reproducing).
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    I think our societies are in bad shapes in many ways, and a decent range of people could be not reproducing as a direct reaction to that... Would you see a reward system counteract a psychological perception of their current situation ?
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Not really. One can also frame it as society’s fault for not providing both women and men with sufficient incentive to procreate. Note that the word “fault” typically has a negative connotation, but I am not intending to use it with positive or negative connotation, but simply as a causative factor. The comment I replied to stated something changed, to which I wanted to clarify what I think the biggest variable that changed. Of course, men also may not want to have as many kids as in previous years, but I would still bet this is a much smaller factor than women saying no.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    There's a trend happening in many countries where economical stagnation or downturn push young people and couples to wait for better days to engage in romantic relationships or build families. You could shelve that as "society not providing enough incentives", but to me it looks like a more complex issue than what's covered by carrot/stick mechanisms. Not all issues leading to forgoing procreating are that complex, but putting any of them as "women chose to xxxx" is I think only useful at a micro level, and kinda misses the reasons why they chose to do so, which are usually not in any individual's hand.

incrudible 4y ago

> I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off the planet, and the traditionally oppressive-to-women societies will evolutionarily outlast us. As the standard of living rises, birth rates are dropping precipitously even in those countries that are relatively more oppressive. Absent socioeconomic reasons, there are still females that naturally desire having plenty of children, despite there not being any societal pressure in favor (or even against) that. They will be genetically selected for.

waterlaw 4y ago

Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. This will aid in the reduction of family formation in poorer countries and serve as population control. While ensuring no one country becomes too populated. H.G. Wells pointed out that we cannot have population control in one nation of the world, but not another. It must be worldwide, or it'd result in severe unrest. Julian Huxley, H.G. Wells, Charles Pincus (and many more) made this one of the defining issues of the 20th century. The Pill and IVF were long in the works and heavily funded as a means to avoid the "Population Bomb." They envisioned a new world without war or environmental destruction. Their solution was to reduce the birth rate, through various means. The reduction of family formation being one of them. It's interesting to read through these older works and realize the world they'd envisioned has to some extent come to fruition.

Kon-Peki 4y ago
> Surrogacy will be the next big thing. Women in poorer countries will birth the children for wealthier nations. So you think women in poorer countries are willing to "pre-sell" their children? That's insanely absurd, and an absolute human rights violation if forced. No. This will not happen.
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  You need to look up what surrogacy means. The surrogate women is doing the "pregnancy" part, with prior agreement and IVF from a different couple.
  - irrational 4y ago
    But... why? Most women I know are fine and even happy with the pregnancy part. Why would they want to outsource that part? They love the attention. The birth part? Not so much, but that part is difficult to outsource.
    - DFHippie 4y ago

ctoth 4y ago

> Something has deeply deeply changed in society for a fertility rate to go from 6 to 0.8 in 60 years Does the change necessarily have to be societal? > In 1992, a study found a global 50% decline in sperm counts in men over the previous 60 years. Multiple studies over subsequent years confirmed that initial finding, including a 2017 paper showing a 50% to 60% decline in sperm concentration between 1973 and 2011 in men from around the world. These studies, though important, focused on sperm concentration or total sperm count. So in 2019, a team of researchers decided to focus on the more powerful total motile sperm count. They found that the proportion of men with a normal total motile sperm count had declined by approximately 10% over the previous 16 years. The science is consistent: Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility[0]. [0]: https://theconversation.com/male-fertility-is-declining-studies-show-that-environmental-toxins-could-be-a-reason-163795 https://theconversation.com/male-fertility-is-declining-stud...

shadowofneptune 4y ago
Infertility is not the leading issue when people are asked, 'why are you not having children?'. Until it is, I don't see how it can be more important than societal barriers.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Lower sperm count and lower desire to have children might have a common cause.
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    Lower desire might even be causing lower sperm counts. Anyway, sperm counts are not outside the normal range. It was just that certain groups had higher than needed levels.
Aeolun 4y ago
The same things that cause a higher average life expectation? Maybe the microplastics floating through the atmosphere everywhere? The constant stress about what is happening with the whole world instead of just your neighbor?

amrocha 4y ago

What? Declining birth rates have nothing to do with oppressing women. Worker exploitation, poor social safety net, and wealth disparity are squarely to blame.

acdha 4y ago
> Declining birth rates have nothing to do with oppressing women. I think the point was the opposite: countries with limited respect and opportunities for women have higher birth rates because women have less control over whether they have children and if good careers aren’t an option anyway there’s less opportunity cost to staying home with a child.
- orwin 4y ago
  You mean countries like France ? Just implement a repartition retirement system and small incentive per child which diminish after the third, boom, 2.1 fertility rate for most of the 21rst century. At least for now, the destruction of our retirement system and our current trend towards capitalization is already killing our fertility rate, and the idiots pushing this will once again realize this too late, because this is what they do.
  - 988747 4y ago
    > boom, 2.1 fertility rate for most of the 21rst century. This has nothing to do with the policies you mention. It has everything to do with the fact that the most popular name for newly born boys is now "Muhammed" (or some other spelling variant of it).
    - acdha 4y ago
      It's not that simple: France appears to have higher birth rates even if you exclude the children of immigrants, which does suggest that other policies factor into it: https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-and-societies-2019-7-page-1.htm https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-and-societies-...
  - 4y ago

faeriechangling 4y ago

Talking about “developed countries” here, not SK specifically. Is declining fertility really such a societal and evolutionary danger when we’re talking 1.4-1.5? If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting the carrying capacity of the planet to preserve the 0.001% of genes that give us sparkling blue eyes? The whole contention that it’s terrible that high birthrate countries are so much more feminist than low birthrate ones, well I mean just because the genetics of feminist counties might wane, that doesn’t mean their cultures will. Memetics is just as powerful as genetics, do rich countries really have to be the world’s stud? Can’t we see the poorer countries investing in people and the wealthier countries investing in things as teamwork?

_aavaa_ 4y ago
> If you think of us all as one race, the human race, the fact that a few corners of the world are declining in fertility It is not a few corners of the world. It is currently "developed countries", but we have no reason to believe that the non-"developed countries" will do any better. > is arguably an environmental victory that could soften some crises’s in the future. We are like 99.9% genetically similar, why risk gutting the carrying capacity of the planet to preserve the 0.001% of genes that give us sparkling blue eyes? Putting to a side for now the blase attitude to several societies slowly disappearing due to lack of births: 1. Much of society is built around the implicit assumption of there being more people in the future. 2. The carrying capacity of the world is only of interest to us as long as we are around for it. All of humanity suddenly disappearing tomorrow would also do wonders for the world's carrying capacity.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Regarding the idea I’m taking a blase Attitude. My arguments allow for two separate defences against this argument. Both that humans are not very genetically different so a change in genetics should hardly affect culture, and that culture isn’t dependent on genetics. How blase can I be while preparing two different defences against your allegations? Regarding argument 1, I will say there is no problem with the supply of people, global population is growing. It doesn’t need to grow everywhere simultaniously, insisting that it must will inevitably lead to a bias towards population growth. The population HAS to shrink somewhere for things to stay stable, since it will invariably grow in a few places, and at this point the growing countries outweigh the shrinking ones sharply. With 2, I’ll expand on this argument. Unrestrained pollution will lead to a future where the earth warms which can rapidly leading to famine and population decline after an era of sharp population growth. You are worried about a decline in children in a set of countries, but that problem is a lot less of a problem when it’s happening in a few countries, than when it’s happening in every country at the same time. Then things go worse for every individual country involved, as immigration is not an option.

selimthegrim 4y ago

Usually, the story told here is South Korea copying Pakistan’s five year economic plan in the early 60s. Also you should specify whether you mean West or East (presumably West) Pakistan’s population numbers. The western half had 51m people in 1960.

rajup 4y ago
There is no East Pakistan AFAIK, or atleast not for more than 50 years.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  In 1960 there was.

grog454 4y ago

> 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.

klipt 4y ago
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?
- Auracle 4y ago
  I don’t know about other countries, but they certainly aren’t cheap in the United States.
JetAlone 4y ago
Yes, and immigration almost always brings tension because of cultural clash. I think a lot of people in developed countries voluntarily or involuntarily adopt a psychological willingness to not have kids and let their culture collapse because the emotional distress of a life in a post-growth world. A world where your freedoms, privacy, and economic opportunities are shrinking, to extract temporary value and stability for the upper class, out of you and your labour/compliance. The only worldly way out of it is to basically step on the others while going up to implement these changes, which feels horrible to a naturally empathic creature like man. It's a cursed state of being.

FBISurveillance 4y ago

Apologies for ranting but this topic resonates too much. Housing prices are 9x salary vs 4.5x salary in the 70s and it takes a while to save up. Personal data point: it took me winning an IPO lottery to start thinking about having kids for real. Having kids while earning minimal wage? Terrifying, especially in the US where getting yourself or your kid sick could bankrupt you in the blink of an eye - and if you want multiple kids you increase the risk. So we think we have to have it all before we start trying having kids and have no sense of community whatsoever. Societal focus on hedonism and career leaves little to no time to raise kids. And at the end of the day you end up having no support from the society that slowly but surely ages.

somenameforme 4y ago
I agree with you on the latter point, but I want to also point something out on the former. Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. So the issue is not one of finances, but priorities. Winning an IPO lottery being the baseline where you feel comfortable for having children doesn't mean that such is the inherent baseline, but that you simply prioritize comfort and wealth over raising a family. And that is okay. This nuance is important; it emphasizes the real issue is not economics, but culture! We've created a society that values the pursuit of wealth and comfort more than family, and it's likely this system is not sustainable. Not everybody can be wealthy, because wealth is relative and mediated by what exists. If 30% of people want something and there's only enough for 3%, then it doesn't matter what the relative wealth is among these people: 90% of people won't be able to "afford" it, and that will never change. A post-scarcity society will never exist alongside consumerism; we'll simply take what we can have for granted and lust over the new scarcities.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Many people who are of no "proper" means to do so continue to have children. And they make it work, even if it may be uncomfortable and require sacrifice. Unfortunately many people who are not properly equipped to raise children (financially, temperamentally or otherwise) have lots of children and don't make it work. The result is a permanent underclass and a serious crime problem in many of our major cities.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

ryanSrich 4y ago

We’re lucky enough to afford childcare and healthcare, but I can’t imagine how anyone making significantly less can do it. Healthcare costs are ongoing, and obscene. Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that will force you to hit your deductible in the first two quarters of the year ($10k per child in our case). In most tier 2/3 cities in the US you can expect daycare to cost $1,000-$1,800 per child per month. In any tier 1 city, especially west coast cities like Seattle and SF, expect to pay at least $2,000/child per month. On top of that, you’ll have a mortgage. With median housing prices around $1.2-$1.6m and rates in the mid 5% you’re looking at anywhere from $6,500-$8,000/month for a mortgage depending on taxes. So right out of the gate, you’re at $10k of post tax income just going to daycare costs and a mortgage. You likely have other costs that equal at least $1,000/month. And that’s for 1 kid. Add another kid and you’re easily approaching $15k per month. If you do the math, you’ll need to make at least $250k if you have one kid considering at least 40% is going straight to taxes (aka military funds since we get nothing in this country for the insane amount of taxes we pay).

lotsofpulp 4y ago
>Routine newborn vaccines are around $900 per visit even with partial insurance coverage. Per ACA, all routine newborn care (including vaccines and routine blood draw) is 100% paid by insurance company. The specifics are all listed in the links below. https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-children/ https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-children/ https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits/ https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits... >Not to mention any unforeseen hospital visits that will force you to hit your deductible in the first two quarters of the year ($10k per child in our case). This is not true for the US. The maximum out of pocket legal limit for 2022 is $17.4k for a family. If you have a half decent employer, deductibles are far lower (in the $3k to $5k range), and so are out of pocket maximums (in the $5k to $10k range at most). https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit/ https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li... https://www.healthcare.gov/high-deductible-health-plan/ https://www.healthcare.gov/high-deductible-health-plan/ I would budget at least 2 years of out of pocket maximums to have on hand. In our case, we hit out of pocket maximums of ~$5k and ~$7k during the year of birth, otherwise it costs $150 to $250 for a regular pink eye/ear infection consult and $400 to $500 for a specialist consult. This is in a very high cost of living area.

kamaal 4y ago

>>In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future. Social factors are not considered enough. As societies get more materialistic, and socio-economically advanced, there seems to be more individualistic, privacy[in the wrong way, escalating to extreme isolationism], lack of social interaction and bonding etc. I myself felt odd during the time I stayed in the US, the whole concept of individualism and privacy was taken too far, and everybody felt lonely in their own way. People moved around in fixed schedules and paths, almost like an open air prison. Given limited social interaction outside work[where you can't even sneeze without offending some one]. This really felt like passion and purpose in life was slowly fading away. I can imagine how a society with this sort of a lifestyle could fare on the longer run. People would want lesser and lesser people around them, and interact with them even lesser as time would proceed. Countries like India and Pakistan definitely have third world infrastructure, but the social infrastructure is very strong and likely to remain, this is due to socio-religious reasons. For this reason, people get married and have 2+ kids.

collegeburner 4y ago

OR we could say "you had 65 years to save up, no way in hell are we going to keep crippling the economic prospects of our youth to fund your retirement"

Psychoshy_bc1q 4y ago

moomoo11 4y ago

As an American (immigrant) I'm honestly really alarmed by seeing the high birth rates in countries that are well, to put it bluntly, kinda backwards (I'm from one of them btw). One of the reasons we moved to a country like the US is to be away from a backwards minded, theocratic af, corrupt society. To see that these types of countries are actually booming while highly progressed ones are depressing is super depressing.

s5300 4y ago
I’m sorry, but if you thought the US fit the criteria you’ve just described, you’re sorely mistaken…
- moomoo11 4y ago
  Last I checked the government isn’t lynching people. Do we have crazies? Duh. But to compare the “crazy” in US to some of these places is either privileged ignorance or willful ignorance. There’s a reason we moved here, even with the issues present here. They’re magnitudes less.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  Try to bribe a police officer in the US next time you get pulled over at a traffic stop. Try to bribe the immigration officer at any US airport. My congressman's office didn't even let me give him a small non-cash thank you gift basket when he resolved a very sensitive and urgent administrative matter with my visa.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    I'm more concerned that a congressman was able to "fix" an issue with a visa than I am with someone taking bribes. Bribes implies quid pro quo. Someone who can "fix" some implies an exclusive network of favors traded with no record.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      Basically what happened was that the USPS lost my passport in the mail a few days before I was supposed to move overseas. I called his office and they were able to lean on the The Department of State to have a new one printed up and issued to me within 48 hours. How he did it, I don't know, but I assume getting a call from a sitting congressman lights the proverbial fire under the ass of paper pushers at the Department of State. I had never met, spoken with, or donated to my congressman before this took place.

carrolldunham 4y ago

I suspect having children is similar to keeping slaves, in the sense that we realized that slavery is unethical even though it was "just what we do" since time immemorial, and was necessary for our lifestyle levels. People will realize that it's unethical to create beings, burdening them with the struggle to maintain the life they've been attached to, in order to (explicitly, in your case) 'benefit society'. Society is made up of people but those people, ever more, should each suffer for society's sake? come on

jxramos 4y ago
Love multiplies
- carrolldunham 4y ago
  I read around, I can't find any explanation of what that means. It seems irrelevant. Sure, life can be enjoyable, and people love each other - but when you read >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. and the proposition is to Shangai people into being, with no say in it, to meet this onerous workload, how is that defensible? You could say they aren't going to be forced to labor, but they are because otherwise they will starve and suffer.

CogitoCogito 4y ago

> Has it occurred to people that, maybe, modern fertility is a tragedy of the commons? If everyone chooses to act in their own interest, society is worse off than collectively pressuring to have more kids? Ideally, that would look like major subsidies and benefits to parents to account for the extra work they are doing for society. Or maybe the tragedy of the commons was having 6 children per family within living memory? Maybe now by dropping our population we are doing much better for the world society as a whole. It all depends on your perspective I guess. I fail to see the problem with a drop in world population. > At this rate, there will only be 3m South Koreans in 3 generations. I don't see how you expect a country to survive that decline. In 1960, Pakistan had 45m people compared to South Korea's 25m. Now, Pakistan is forecasted to reach 450m in our lifetime as South Korea implodes. That looks like our future. Maybe South Korea won't survive in its current form. The world will keep revolving the sun nonetheless.

igorkraw 4y ago

Before we start talking about tragedy of the commons with fertility, how about we fix the surrounding factors that cause people to have babies later in life or only one (subsidies are a good start, but they need to be massive if the surrounding systems and culture don't change)? And if we are worried about "dysgenically wiping ourselves of the earth" (a phrasing which I observe, with no implications intended, to jvery close to those used in the great replacement and white genocide conspiracy theories), how about we start massive immigration-and-integration programs? And stop doing business with the most oppressive ones...personally know a Qatari woman trying to escape that country but she can't leave without a male guardian signing off on it.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

I really see no way out of this unless our economic models change drastically. For the population to actually grow, some people will need to make three kids. I just don't see that happening at scale at all. Most won't even make two kids, forget about three.

imtringued 4y ago

Or maybe it means we had too many children and are now trying to go back to an optimal population size.

tsss 4y ago

If anything, it is the parents who destroy the commons by conceiving more polluters. You postulate that "fertility" is a good thing but that's far from indisputable. The earth is already vastly overpopulated. It's high time that other people follow the Korean example and give nature some respite.

seydor 4y ago

urbanization The resources of korea and their technology will not go away, they will now be at the hands of fewer people, so more wealth / person. Historically it was small states that dominated the world, the populous ones were ravaged by poverty and famine. People are calculating (correctly) that our future technology does not need a lot of hands, and that is true. Look at the tech sector , which employs a tiny percentage of the population but has enormous output. As for the egoist act of genetic heritage/perpetuation, well let's be honest, in 10 years people will be modifying their genes and removing our clunky and faulty dna so there goes our glory. As for wars/security, those are already fought with drones > I fear if nothing else changes, developed countries are dysgenically wiping themselves off The trend will not continue forever To me , this all highlights that we need to ramp up anti-aging technology fast and hard. It s much higher priority than sending humans to mars