7 ms·

> Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world at 0.9 births per woman on average. This data, while making Korea seem like the most rapidly growing populat

by pigsty 4y ago

> Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world at 0.9 births per woman on average. This data, while making Korea seem like the most rapidly growing population disaster on earth, is actually better than the latest data. Korea is now at 0.78 and falling. [1] I really have to wonder what the lower limit is and when (or if) it’ll ever trend up within our lifetimes. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-22/south-korea-fertility-rate-falls-again-adding-to-economic-risks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-22/south-kor...

raspberry1337 4y ago
What does a a nation do in this situation. "I guess we will just disappear from the earth, goodbye!" Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula.
- the_omegist 4y ago
  > Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula. Why? Because they are the "bad" ones?
  - twelve40 4y ago
    It's bizarre because presumably a very rich, progressive, westernized society that enjoys a very high standard of living suddenly decided to go the way of the dodo bird, while their frequently ridiculed and otherwise shat-upon neighbors are still trying to hang in there. Although they will probably follow as well, just not there yet.
    - the_omegist 4y ago
      From what i know from south korean society (just from testimonies & movies : I am aware this is limited) : people are pressured at work and consummerism and shallow "westernized" culture is the norm... Not what I would call a paradise. Living in a brand new mall is not what humans strive for : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
- implements 4y ago
  Alternatively, populations fall until the pressures causing suppressed reproduction ease - and people start having more children. Wouldn’t it be better for a country like the UK to have a population of about 30 million? More space for everyone, self sufficient in food and renewable energy, less pollution and resource depletion, … Why not order society to maximise average quality of life instead of GDP?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > populations fall until the pressures causing suppressed reproduction ease The problem is a falling population exacerbates those stresses. The economy crunches, anti-immigrant and right-wing forces gain power; the older population won’t vote to nix their benefits in favour of younger people, so either the system veers towards collapse or someone takes away their votes.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Why would anti-immigrant voices gain power with a falling population?
      - kivle 4y ago
        When the economy is crashing and more and more of society destabilizes, a huge amount of people will always look for politicians that will sell them "an easy way out". Being the politician that talks about inconvenient truths, the need for more immigrants, the need to keep high taxes as people are getting poorer and has a message of "hang in there" generally does not win people over. Right wing anti-immigration parties sell an enemy (immigrants) as cause of all problems (they are stealing all our jobs!). In addition they sell tax breaks which also sound very appealing to people that struggle to get by on their current income. Of course all history shows that these "solutions" are lies, but history tend to repeat itself. The problem in a democracy is that the solutions that political parties present does not always have to be grounded in reality to be popular. Especially in these modern times with disinformation and conspiratorial thinking running rampant online (it's all Soros fault!).
      - 4y ago
- twelve40 4y ago
  Probably, just like the Scythians or the Phoenicians... can't really recall a peaceful precedent like that though. > Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula. It is indeed. They seem to be doing slightly better by the numbers but not looking too promising either.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    The world has been in a bit of a weird state for the last 70 years or so, with US allies basically un-attackable. I guess if a country had steep enough population loss by low fertility rates, eventually a neighbor would notice and start grabbing bits before the declining country’s economy totally collapsed or the population just vanished. People become less useful in a sword fight way before retirement age, after all. Plus, declining population doesn’t inherently provide a big dramatic marker to put in the history books like a natural disaster or battle.
- corbulo 4y ago
  It has to start embracing practical religious protocols surrounding fertility. Thats what they were made for. Underpop is an old problem with relatively easy solutions if your population base is large enough.
jossclimb 4y ago
I wonder what will transpire for Korea and Japan. Xenophobia and Racism is commonplace and so they don't make it easy for migrants to assimilate.
- pigsty 4y ago
  This stereotype about 170 million people is pretty overplayed.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Perhaps but by any objective ranking it's much harder to get a permanent Visa to work in Japan that your average developed nation. I assume south Korea's similar. I don't see either nation has any choice but to accept more migrants as their native populations age.
    - pigsty 4y ago
      It’s incredibly easy to get a permanent residence visa in non-authoritarian East Asian countries, especially compared to anywhere in the west. Asia just isn’t as popular of a destination because of 1) huge language barriers, 2) wages are lower than the west, and 3) visas are contingent upon stable employment, and gaps in employment plus zero tolerance policies towards visa overstays/illegal immigration make that risky to a large proportion of people. But if you stay at a company or only job hop with offers in-hand, East Asia as a whole is insanely easy to move to, get permanent residence, or even citizenship. Anyone who’s gone through the process, doubly so those who’ve dealt with processes in the west, can readily verify this. The conditions for Japan are literally just: college degree or 10 years experience, job offer, no criminal record. Then stay a few years, don’t have a major criminal record, and you can get citizenship in as little as 5 years with a 95% acceptance rate. Permanent residence is a similar process. I felt zero obstacles the entire way. It felt like renewing an ID card and nothing more.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Sure, I was including the language barriers and the challenges of getting job offers and maintaining stable employment. I wouldn't consider Australia a country it's particularly easy to get a PR Visa for but if you have any experience at all in high-demand industries (esp. Health care) I gather it's pretty straightforward. My partner moved from Japan exactly on that basis (she didn't have a college degree that was recognized here, and had to do one while she was here, including learning English to a sufficiently proficient level) and seems to think it was far easier than for someone trying to go the other way.
ryandrake 4y ago
Isn’t a low birth rate considered good? It’s one of the defining attributes of a developed nation. Not to mention the ecological footprint of each human, contributing to pollution, climate change, and overpopulation? Humanity should be striving to flatten and eventually reverse population growth, so achieving a low rate like this should be admirable. Maybe it’s bad for our current economic systems, but as we reduce birth rates we also need to be looking for economic systems that don’t simply rely on an ever-increasing population of worker bees.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > we also need to be looking for economic systems that don’t simply rely on an ever-increasing population of worker bees Apart from a robotic class of workers, forcing older people to produce, or forcing down living standards, this isn’t a problem different economic systems can solve. It’s fundamental to input/output. Also, stable populations aren’t super problematic. 0.78 is way below replacement, however.
- jack_pp 4y ago
  It is debatable whether we really have an overpopulation problem or not. Pollution in general is caused by industry not individuals. You could argue big industry is the result of a large population but it's still a systems problem imo. Reversing population growth means having an ever increasing population of elderly people and increased burden on the young to support those elderly. It's hard to see solutions to this that aren't dystopian and downright cruel.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Bringing in younger migrants from countries still growing in population to help look after our elderly is probably the only realistic one (we already do that pretty heavily in Australia despite population growth). At least there's not a problem of space/infrastructure to solve.
    - jack_pp 4y ago
      That's a good solution for english/latin speaking countries since there's a large pool of migrants to choose from which already know the language but for a country like Japan with its niche language and specific customs.. it's much tougher unless they wish to change their culture which they probably don't and having migrants assimilate into their culture isn't an easy ask either.
no_butterscotch 4y ago
Holy shit. There government should be in full on emergency road. Anyone that has more than 1 kid should get a reverse tax rate, the government gives them money. They should get a 10% discount on all things. Cars. Houses. Hotel rates. Anything. In seriousness though what are the economic incentives (I assume) that could be done as a carrot to encourage the rate to go up?
- rospaya 4y ago
  > In seriousness though what are the economic incentives (I assume) that could be done as a carrot to encourage the rate to go up? Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure there is no way to increase fertility. Cash and better care only work so far.
aylmao 4y ago
There's a Korean influencer who became huge in Mexico. She was a Korean teacher at a Mexican university, but became famous sharing funny videos about cultural shock. She has also openly talked about how she moved there to heal after suffering from acute burnout in Korea, to the point of wishing death [1]. Through her and some Korean friends, I've got a glimpse at the level of stress around all aspects of life in Korea. Education and work are obvious ones, but there seems to be a lot of stress about many other aspects of life, like money, prestige, and personal appearance. Interestingly though, I think it's not difficult to see why this is all the case from a macro-economic and geographic standpoint. Korea is effectively an island surrounded on all three sides by relatively unfriendly countries. It's so small, and quite devoid of important resources. It's biggest asset is by far its population and what they managed to build and sell abroad; phones, cars, chips, appliances, music, TV— if Korea's economy wasn't super-charged like it is now it's easy to imagine it getting lost in the sphere of influence of China, Japan, or finding more trouble via North Korea. I can only assume all this stress and pressures in life has to do with the low birth rates. Pushing themselves this hard is not without their consequences, it seems. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9c54xbQCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9c54xbQCU

by pigsty 4y ago

raspberry1337 4y ago

What does a a nation do in this situation. "I guess we will just disappear from the earth, goodbye!" Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula.

the_omegist 4y ago
> Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula. Why? Because they are the "bad" ones?
- twelve40 4y ago
  It's bizarre because presumably a very rich, progressive, westernized society that enjoys a very high standard of living suddenly decided to go the way of the dodo bird, while their frequently ridiculed and otherwise shat-upon neighbors are still trying to hang in there. Although they will probably follow as well, just not there yet.
  - the_omegist 4y ago
    From what i know from south korean society (just from testimonies & movies : I am aware this is limited) : people are pressured at work and consummerism and shallow "westernized" culture is the norm... Not what I would call a paradise. Living in a brand new mall is not what humans strive for : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
implements 4y ago
Alternatively, populations fall until the pressures causing suppressed reproduction ease - and people start having more children. Wouldn’t it be better for a country like the UK to have a population of about 30 million? More space for everyone, self sufficient in food and renewable energy, less pollution and resource depletion, … Why not order society to maximise average quality of life instead of GDP?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > populations fall until the pressures causing suppressed reproduction ease The problem is a falling population exacerbates those stresses. The economy crunches, anti-immigrant and right-wing forces gain power; the older population won’t vote to nix their benefits in favour of younger people, so either the system veers towards collapse or someone takes away their votes.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Why would anti-immigrant voices gain power with a falling population?
    - kivle 4y ago
      When the economy is crashing and more and more of society destabilizes, a huge amount of people will always look for politicians that will sell them "an easy way out". Being the politician that talks about inconvenient truths, the need for more immigrants, the need to keep high taxes as people are getting poorer and has a message of "hang in there" generally does not win people over. Right wing anti-immigration parties sell an enemy (immigrants) as cause of all problems (they are stealing all our jobs!). In addition they sell tax breaks which also sound very appealing to people that struggle to get by on their current income. Of course all history shows that these "solutions" are lies, but history tend to repeat itself. The problem in a democracy is that the solutions that political parties present does not always have to be grounded in reality to be popular. Especially in these modern times with disinformation and conspiratorial thinking running rampant online (it's all Soros fault!).
    - 4y ago
twelve40 4y ago
Probably, just like the Scythians or the Phoenicians... can't really recall a peaceful precedent like that though. > Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula. It is indeed. They seem to be doing slightly better by the numbers but not looking too promising either.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  The world has been in a bit of a weird state for the last 70 years or so, with US allies basically un-attackable. I guess if a country had steep enough population loss by low fertility rates, eventually a neighbor would notice and start grabbing bits before the declining country’s economy totally collapsed or the population just vanished. People become less useful in a sword fight way before retirement age, after all. Plus, declining population doesn’t inherently provide a big dramatic marker to put in the history books like a natural disaster or battle.
corbulo 4y ago
It has to start embracing practical religious protocols surrounding fertility. Thats what they were made for. Underpop is an old problem with relatively easy solutions if your population base is large enough.

jossclimb 4y ago

I wonder what will transpire for Korea and Japan. Xenophobia and Racism is commonplace and so they don't make it easy for migrants to assimilate.

pigsty 4y ago
This stereotype about 170 million people is pretty overplayed.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Perhaps but by any objective ranking it's much harder to get a permanent Visa to work in Japan that your average developed nation. I assume south Korea's similar. I don't see either nation has any choice but to accept more migrants as their native populations age.
  - pigsty 4y ago
    It’s incredibly easy to get a permanent residence visa in non-authoritarian East Asian countries, especially compared to anywhere in the west. Asia just isn’t as popular of a destination because of 1) huge language barriers, 2) wages are lower than the west, and 3) visas are contingent upon stable employment, and gaps in employment plus zero tolerance policies towards visa overstays/illegal immigration make that risky to a large proportion of people. But if you stay at a company or only job hop with offers in-hand, East Asia as a whole is insanely easy to move to, get permanent residence, or even citizenship. Anyone who’s gone through the process, doubly so those who’ve dealt with processes in the west, can readily verify this. The conditions for Japan are literally just: college degree or 10 years experience, job offer, no criminal record. Then stay a few years, don’t have a major criminal record, and you can get citizenship in as little as 5 years with a 95% acceptance rate. Permanent residence is a similar process. I felt zero obstacles the entire way. It felt like renewing an ID card and nothing more.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Sure, I was including the language barriers and the challenges of getting job offers and maintaining stable employment. I wouldn't consider Australia a country it's particularly easy to get a PR Visa for but if you have any experience at all in high-demand industries (esp. Health care) I gather it's pretty straightforward. My partner moved from Japan exactly on that basis (she didn't have a college degree that was recognized here, and had to do one while she was here, including learning English to a sufficiently proficient level) and seems to think it was far easier than for someone trying to go the other way.

ryandrake 4y ago

Isn’t a low birth rate considered good? It’s one of the defining attributes of a developed nation. Not to mention the ecological footprint of each human, contributing to pollution, climate change, and overpopulation? Humanity should be striving to flatten and eventually reverse population growth, so achieving a low rate like this should be admirable. Maybe it’s bad for our current economic systems, but as we reduce birth rates we also need to be looking for economic systems that don’t simply rely on an ever-increasing population of worker bees.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> we also need to be looking for economic systems that don’t simply rely on an ever-increasing population of worker bees Apart from a robotic class of workers, forcing older people to produce, or forcing down living standards, this isn’t a problem different economic systems can solve. It’s fundamental to input/output. Also, stable populations aren’t super problematic. 0.78 is way below replacement, however.
jack_pp 4y ago
It is debatable whether we really have an overpopulation problem or not. Pollution in general is caused by industry not individuals. You could argue big industry is the result of a large population but it's still a systems problem imo. Reversing population growth means having an ever increasing population of elderly people and increased burden on the young to support those elderly. It's hard to see solutions to this that aren't dystopian and downright cruel.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Bringing in younger migrants from countries still growing in population to help look after our elderly is probably the only realistic one (we already do that pretty heavily in Australia despite population growth). At least there's not a problem of space/infrastructure to solve.
  - jack_pp 4y ago
    That's a good solution for english/latin speaking countries since there's a large pool of migrants to choose from which already know the language but for a country like Japan with its niche language and specific customs.. it's much tougher unless they wish to change their culture which they probably don't and having migrants assimilate into their culture isn't an easy ask either.

no_butterscotch 4y ago

Holy shit. There government should be in full on emergency road. Anyone that has more than 1 kid should get a reverse tax rate, the government gives them money. They should get a 10% discount on all things. Cars. Houses. Hotel rates. Anything. In seriousness though what are the economic incentives (I assume) that could be done as a carrot to encourage the rate to go up?

rospaya 4y ago
> In seriousness though what are the economic incentives (I assume) that could be done as a carrot to encourage the rate to go up? Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure there is no way to increase fertility. Cash and better care only work so far.

aylmao 4y ago

There's a Korean influencer who became huge in Mexico. She was a Korean teacher at a Mexican university, but became famous sharing funny videos about cultural shock. She has also openly talked about how she moved there to heal after suffering from acute burnout in Korea, to the point of wishing death [1]. Through her and some Korean friends, I've got a glimpse at the level of stress around all aspects of life in Korea. Education and work are obvious ones, but there seems to be a lot of stress about many other aspects of life, like money, prestige, and personal appearance. Interestingly though, I think it's not difficult to see why this is all the case from a macro-economic and geographic standpoint. Korea is effectively an island surrounded on all three sides by relatively unfriendly countries. It's so small, and quite devoid of important resources. It's biggest asset is by far its population and what they managed to build and sell abroad; phones, cars, chips, appliances, music, TV— if Korea's economy wasn't super-charged like it is now it's easy to imagine it getting lost in the sphere of influence of China, Japan, or finding more trouble via North Korea. I can only assume all this stress and pressures in life has to do with the low birth rates. Pushing themselves this hard is not without their consequences, it seems. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9c54xbQCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9c54xbQCU