7 ms·

South Korea Again Smashes Own Record for World’s Lowest Fertility Rate in 2022

43 points by langitbiru 4y ago

stuckinhell 4y ago
I find it fascinating that South Korea bans pornography and is very religious. I thought pornography was supposed to lower fertility and religion was supposed to raise it.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > I find it fascinating that South Korea [..] is very religious. I thought [..] religion was supposed to raise [fertility]. South Korea: 1.1 fertility rate, 56% no religion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea USA: 1.8 fertility rate, 29% no religion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States Mexico: 2.1 fertility rate, 15% no religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico Niger: 6.6 fertility rate, 0.1% no religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger Granted these are randomly chosen countries. If you want to invest the effort and plot fertility rate vs. religion for all countries where data are available to see what correlation (!= causation) emerges, be my guest. Source for fertility rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
sc68cal 4y ago
Hyper capitalism in S. Korea has successfully destroyed the means of social replication that are required to preserve capitalism in the first place.
hunglee2 4y ago
Multi-decadal anti-natalist campaign might have permanently shifted the culture against having kids. Be interesting to see whether Republic of Korea can change this; interestingly DPRK is outpacing the south on fertility and may end up demographic winners of the Korean conflict
senttoschool 4y ago
If the goal of human life is to pass on genes to the next generation, modern developed societies are failing pretty hard.
- nhchris 4y ago
  More than a goal, it is a prerequisite. Without it, a society sustains itself only as much as the robin sustains its family after a cuckoo kicks out her eggs, but the nest remains the same.
- gretch 4y ago
  It’s definitely not the goal of human life. It that was all we cared about, e.g. we’d allow rape. It’s _some_ peoples goals (respectable), and I imagine they also have others they balance. The beautiful thing about humanity is that we are no longer bound by some of our basic biological drives. Sure they play a factor, but they don’t dominate.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    It that was all we cared about, e.g. we’d allow rape. No. That's not how it works. Rape isn't actually the best way to pass on your genes. Society has determined that marriage is. Hence, rape is universally rejected by all cultures.
    - noodleman 4y ago
      Universally rejected by all cultures is false. For example, India's penal code makes exceptions for men who rape their wives. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_laws_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_laws_by_country Lets not get into a debate over how legal abstractions cover up the reality of rape and sexual abuse, but keep in mind that rape is staggeringly underreported.
      - senttoschool 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example
mbustamanter 4y ago
I wonder how different countries will react to this exceptional context in the next two decades. To give an idea of the novel nature of this demographic crisis: 1. Some demographers say that for the first time in recorded history the total fertility rate of the world will be just under replacement this year (2022 TFR=2.24, world replacement level being 2.23, as opposed to ~2.1 for first world countries). 2. Middle income countries are en-masse entering a stage of low fertility, a phenomenon that 50 years ago was only observed in few high-income countries. Even some poor countries have a rapidly declining fertility with few of them under replacement, and a bit more poor countries are expected to join this under-replacement stage. This means that immigration as we know it will change in demographics and magnitude, since the source countries will have their own problems as well. 3. Aging developed countries will perhaps have to change their approach to immigration: Canada is the poster child on what not to do and is being observed by several researchers around the world to have a glimpse of what's to come. A vicious cycle is born: Their native youth has not a broad margin by which to start families, so to compensate they take in high levels of immigrants relative to their population (Century initiative, as called by their government), little jobs or housing is added (for a variety of reasons, not all of them political) and home prices go up while wages in several professions are depressed, back to square one. This is particularly pernicious in Canada given their welfare system for elderly citizens, their immigrants aren't having enough children to compensate and in some regions their TFR is actually lower than that of the native population. The bane of a generous pension system is an inverted population pyramid, this is only exacerbating the problem. To ensure non-collapse either migrants have to put a lot more than they give or they take increasingly more immigration. It seems Canada already choose, and has a window of a couple decades given what I just said in point 2. 4. How will other developed countries react? Will they become high-tax gerontocracies like future Italy where the youth has to escape from for professional and entreprenurial aspirations? Or will they battle for high-quality immigration instead and make their economies more competitive and dynamic? Will they rely on their diaspora in Latin-America to compensate (such as german, spanish, japanese, croatian, italian, portuguese) like Spain and Italy are already doing, in the style of a great recalling? Will they, like Canada, start recalling mennonite communities from Mexico? In the US, will the amish carry the bulk of births in rural counties and Hasidic jews offset the birth crisis in urban areas (they both have a falling TFR, but still greatly above replacement)? Israel's TFR is solid and their population pyramid is actually a pyramid, do we look at them on what to do? Many african cities are on the brink of having sub-replacement TFR, will they have internal migration within the same continent instead of external movements?
0dayz 4y ago
If I were to guess what it could be, I would assume that the biggest reason is due to republic of Korea having a mixture of the worst of two worlds. Essentially its conservative/collectivist culture is counter productive to those who wish to establish themselves and have a family (enforcement of gender norms, restrictive demands towards the individuals of said family, attitudes towards minority families such as lgbt and general view stomping down a liberal individualism). On the the liberal/individualistic side of things, the issue is that the work towards equaility is such low hanging fruit, any change is seen as unfair and threatening by the male population, but also liberal ideals do only tend to want to focus on female issues, in fact it's said it's one reason the current president of South Korea won thanks to the previous government work with feminism while ignoring the male side of issues. And individual expression in this case is essentially only in practice seen as a means to get an edge in the rat race that is get more money or status (social or romantic), which at some point causes young people to see relationship more as a burden (as stated before) and debilitating (essentially the low hanging fruit of dating is gone, thus it fuels a feeling of doubt of how you can date and actually be together). Mind you this is a cultural phenomenon in much of Asia.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  What do you mean that's why the current president won?
  - 0dayz 4y ago
    The current president of South Korea had a very vocal male group vote for him only because he promised to roll back certain "feminist" policies.
nine_zeros 4y ago
What's also not captured in these aggregate birth records: - Urban births are much lower than rural births. If it were not for rural women, the births would trickle down much lower - There are many couples who want to have children but can't because of fertility issues - Becoming a parent and maintaining parenthood is difficult if these things drive you to poverty, especially in a class driven society like S. Korea.
- fendy3002 4y ago
  even if you're economically good, it's logical that urban people don't want kids. - with 8-5, 5 days a week work schedule, there's too little time to do anything. Raising kids are huge commitment and time sink - even with time, if you don't have good standing at the population, it'll risk that your kids will have a hard time in the future - there's too much entertainment and distraction (even travel plans) available nowadays that are too precious to miss just because you need to take care of kids
  - nine_zeros 4y ago
    You are right. To add, the real problem is that a lot of the urban populace also wants to have kids - but later. This is because until the age of 30, people are not settled in any careers that pays well enough. They are burdened with debt. They are also having a hard time finding long-term partners. All of these cause delay in family planning. But the delay is hard on fertility. Women go through years and years of ART (IUI, IVF etc.) to get 1 viable pregnancy. Many women can't even get pregnant. Asking couples to do so much in life and still be able to produce and raise kids is insane.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Urban environments in general are population dense (which goes against wanting to add more people), and resource rich (so lots of other distractions, and ability to suppress fertility through birth control). Thinking ‘I’ll just have them later’ is standard delusional thinking. It’s like someone saying they’ll ‘start eating healthy next week’.
halfjoking 4y ago
[flagged]
- twelve40 4y ago
  SK has been on course for this way before Covid
  - halfjoking 4y ago
    [flagged]
steponlego 4y ago
Just import people, nobody cares about musty old cultures anyway these days.
xyzelement 4y ago
I recently started to view religion as a mental operating system that enables people to do things that are not possible with other operating systems. Having kids is one of those things. For example, in the US a woman who is considered religious based on frequency of services attendance has on average almost one child more than a woman considered nonreligious. ([0] presents one such chart for the United States.) Except for Buddhism. For some reason, Buddhist women have lower fertility than even atheists [1] I find this surprising and don't really understand the reason. So anyways, Korea seems to be doubly affected - it has one of the world's highest rates of non religiosity [2], and out of those few who are religious, most are Buddhist. It seems like if you want to encourage population growth in your country, you want to encourage adherence to an Abrahamic religion or Hinduism. [0] https://ifstudies.org/blog/americas-growing-religious-secular-fertility-divide https://ifstudies.org/blog/americas-growing-religious-secula... [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.worldatlas.com/amp/feature/5-facts-to-know-about-the-future-of-buddhism.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.worldatlas.com/amp/feature/... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion#:~:text=Relative%20to%20its%20own%20populations,Japan%20(64%2D65%25) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig....
- twelve40 4y ago
  > out of those few who are religious, most are Buddhist but... 56.1% No religion 27.6% Christianity 15.5% Korean Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea
- cma 4y ago
  > Having kids is one of those things. For example, in the US a woman who is considered religious based on frequency of services attendance has on average almost one child more than a woman considered nonreligious. Is all of this causitive? Could say similar about daycare, which incidentally churches also often provide.
- noodleman 4y ago
  Your reasoning is speculation and your sources only really show evidence for your claim that religiosity is declining. Another correlation with birthrate is wealth. Wealthy countries have more expensive costs associated with raising children, such as housing and childcare. Given that children can't effectively work for 15-20 years, they are a financial burden. In poor countries, children become another set of hands that can be put to use from only a few years old.
pigtailgirl 4y ago
-- its normal conversation here - usually we put the reason on - 헬조선: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Joseon http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Joseon - also - there is a big problem with a gender clash - women are learning about modern feminism - rejecting traditional system - young men are not accept it - it causing a lot of tension - more women tell me - i prefer to die alone than have traditional Korean husband - many of my Ewha ("feminist university") friend won't wear school brand clothes for fear of assault - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaenam https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaenam --
- i_am_jl 4y ago
  What's a "traditional Korean husband"?
  - pigtailgirl 4y ago
    -- complicated - patriarchal - more intense than many cultures - its common to hear a Korean man say - the woman needs to be in her place - or - i own my wife as i own my car -- https://www.koreasociety.org/images/pdf/KoreanStudies/Monographs_GeneralReading/GettingtoKnowKorea/GTKK%206%20Boo%20Jin%20Park%20Patriarchy%20In%20Korean%20Society.pdf https://www.koreasociety.org/images/pdf/KoreanStudies/Monogr... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_South_Korea https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_South_Korea https://asiasociety.org/education/womens-role-contemporary-korea https://asiasociety.org/education/womens-role-contemporary-k... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-women-hit-back-old-gender-roles-return-n1254704 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-women-hit-ba...
    - i_am_jl 4y ago
      Thank you!
    - anthk 4y ago
      Are South Korea and Japan similar?
- stuckinhell 4y ago
radicality 4y ago
https://archive.ph/KPqRe https://archive.ph/KPqRe
fallingfrog 4y ago
I'm fairly certain I can tell you exactly what is happening. In societies where the women were staying home, they weren't doing nothing. They were providing child care, maintaining the social networks that bind society together, doing all the at home work that makes it possible for the other partner to work a full time job. 40+ hours a week really requires a second person to do all the other stuff to be sustainable. It was never supposed to be the case that you have two people both working full time and then trying to do all the other stuff on weekends and evenings. That's insane! Especially since men seem to not be doing their fair share of that other work- why would any woman want to take on a full time job and do all the rest? If you want to have gender equality- and you absolutely should want that- then as a society, you need to reduce work weeks to 20 hours. Otherwise you are just running the whole thing into the ground. I see a lot of people pointing towards religious beliefs as the proximate cause here- but have you considered that the places that are the most religious are also the places where there is a single breadwinner? Are you sure it's the religion and not the extra social slack that is responsible? Because there is a clear and plausible mechanism for the extra slack of a single breadwinner being relevant, but for religion by itself, it's a much more tenuous connection. You could probably make things work with a somewhat longer work week- say, 30 hours- if you also supplied families of young children with 100% free child care and subsidized housing. Otherwise, your civilization is eating its young.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  You got downvoted - maybe people read you as arguing for a return to the old ways and days - but I find your basic argument that two people working 40+ hours can have a very hard time fitting the infant years of child-rearing into their time table quite compelling. Doing a good job as a parent requires time. If you don't have any it can be hard to reconcile it with your conscience. Korean work culture is particularly demanding (I've lived there) and unforgiving when it comes to private matters interfering with work performance. I'll grant you it's a factor. Few couples manage to pull this off without one partner stopping to work (and it's usually the woman). Increasingly few people want to do so. If we want this to be different, I think we do have to change the time equation society-wide. Korean society today places virtually no importance on giving adults the time they need to have and raise kids. Koreans themselves will more often cite economic reasons, but this is basically by proxy - the economics don't work out if you don't put the hours into work, etc. The success machine is feeding itself.
toyg 4y ago
Korea is simply on the same trajectory as Japan, offset 20-30 years or so (because of the civil war). They hate it if you tell them, but they developed on the same blueprint Japan popularized across the area.
swexbe 4y ago
It's a classic commons dilemma. Having a child is very very costly on a personal level and the profits (future pensions) are mostly all societal.
noobermin 4y ago
So, on the one hand, people who fear malthusian predictions often are presented with the concept of "peak child" which will occur at some point once much of the world is developed and the rest of the world naturally reaches a low fertility rate. On the other hand, under the current system we have (and I'm not sure if there really is any other stable system), we rely on a growing population to provide for everyone and keep the wheels turning. I just felt like there is this clear cognitive dissonance here, either a growing population is good or it is bad. I do get the sense that "certain groups" growing is "bad" for some people whereas "other groups" (often their own) growing is good and them stagnating is bad...so there clearly are a lot of discussions around this happening in bad faith. Still, even the good faith discussion seems to have this contradiction here that I haven't really seen anyone resolve. I suppose one argument is "no, we really will grow forever and it will be okay." And while we are probably nowhere near the growth limit yet, I'm not sure I have seen an argument that convinces me of this either.

43 points by langitbiru 4y ago

I find it fascinating that South Korea bans pornography and is very religious. I thought pornography was supposed to lower fertility and religion was supposed to raise it.

nhchris 4y ago
> I find it fascinating that South Korea [..] is very religious. I thought [..] religion was supposed to raise [fertility]. South Korea: 1.1 fertility rate, 56% no religion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea USA: 1.8 fertility rate, 29% no religion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States Mexico: 2.1 fertility rate, 15% no religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico Niger: 6.6 fertility rate, 0.1% no religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger Granted these are randomly chosen countries. If you want to invest the effort and plot fertility rate vs. religion for all countries where data are available to see what correlation (!= causation) emerges, be my guest. Source for fertility rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

sc68cal 4y ago

Hyper capitalism in S. Korea has successfully destroyed the means of social replication that are required to preserve capitalism in the first place.

hunglee2 4y ago

Multi-decadal anti-natalist campaign might have permanently shifted the culture against having kids. Be interesting to see whether Republic of Korea can change this; interestingly DPRK is outpacing the south on fertility and may end up demographic winners of the Korean conflict

senttoschool 4y ago

If the goal of human life is to pass on genes to the next generation, modern developed societies are failing pretty hard.

nhchris 4y ago
More than a goal, it is a prerequisite. Without it, a society sustains itself only as much as the robin sustains its family after a cuckoo kicks out her eggs, but the nest remains the same.
gretch 4y ago
It’s definitely not the goal of human life. It that was all we cared about, e.g. we’d allow rape. It’s _some_ peoples goals (respectable), and I imagine they also have others they balance. The beautiful thing about humanity is that we are no longer bound by some of our basic biological drives. Sure they play a factor, but they don’t dominate.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  It that was all we cared about, e.g. we’d allow rape. No. That's not how it works. Rape isn't actually the best way to pass on your genes. Society has determined that marriage is. Hence, rape is universally rejected by all cultures.
  - noodleman 4y ago
    Universally rejected by all cultures is false. For example, India's penal code makes exceptions for men who rape their wives. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_laws_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_laws_by_country Lets not get into a debate over how legal abstractions cover up the reality of rape and sexual abuse, but keep in mind that rape is staggeringly underreported.
    - senttoschool 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example

mbustamanter 4y ago

I wonder how different countries will react to this exceptional context in the next two decades. To give an idea of the novel nature of this demographic crisis: 1. Some demographers say that for the first time in recorded history the total fertility rate of the world will be just under replacement this year (2022 TFR=2.24, world replacement level being 2.23, as opposed to ~2.1 for first world countries). 2. Middle income countries are en-masse entering a stage of low fertility, a phenomenon that 50 years ago was only observed in few high-income countries. Even some poor countries have a rapidly declining fertility with few of them under replacement, and a bit more poor countries are expected to join this under-replacement stage. This means that immigration as we know it will change in demographics and magnitude, since the source countries will have their own problems as well. 3. Aging developed countries will perhaps have to change their approach to immigration: Canada is the poster child on what not to do and is being observed by several researchers around the world to have a glimpse of what's to come. A vicious cycle is born: Their native youth has not a broad margin by which to start families, so to compensate they take in high levels of immigrants relative to their population (Century initiative, as called by their government), little jobs or housing is added (for a variety of reasons, not all of them political) and home prices go up while wages in several professions are depressed, back to square one. This is particularly pernicious in Canada given their welfare system for elderly citizens, their immigrants aren't having enough children to compensate and in some regions their TFR is actually lower than that of the native population. The bane of a generous pension system is an inverted population pyramid, this is only exacerbating the problem. To ensure non-collapse either migrants have to put a lot more than they give or they take increasingly more immigration. It seems Canada already choose, and has a window of a couple decades given what I just said in point 2. 4. How will other developed countries react? Will they become high-tax gerontocracies like future Italy where the youth has to escape from for professional and entreprenurial aspirations? Or will they battle for high-quality immigration instead and make their economies more competitive and dynamic? Will they rely on their diaspora in Latin-America to compensate (such as german, spanish, japanese, croatian, italian, portuguese) like Spain and Italy are already doing, in the style of a great recalling? Will they, like Canada, start recalling mennonite communities from Mexico? In the US, will the amish carry the bulk of births in rural counties and Hasidic jews offset the birth crisis in urban areas (they both have a falling TFR, but still greatly above replacement)? Israel's TFR is solid and their population pyramid is actually a pyramid, do we look at them on what to do? Many african cities are on the brink of having sub-replacement TFR, will they have internal migration within the same continent instead of external movements?

0dayz 4y ago

If I were to guess what it could be, I would assume that the biggest reason is due to republic of Korea having a mixture of the worst of two worlds. Essentially its conservative/collectivist culture is counter productive to those who wish to establish themselves and have a family (enforcement of gender norms, restrictive demands towards the individuals of said family, attitudes towards minority families such as lgbt and general view stomping down a liberal individualism). On the the liberal/individualistic side of things, the issue is that the work towards equaility is such low hanging fruit, any change is seen as unfair and threatening by the male population, but also liberal ideals do only tend to want to focus on female issues, in fact it's said it's one reason the current president of South Korea won thanks to the previous government work with feminism while ignoring the male side of issues. And individual expression in this case is essentially only in practice seen as a means to get an edge in the rat race that is get more money or status (social or romantic), which at some point causes young people to see relationship more as a burden (as stated before) and debilitating (essentially the low hanging fruit of dating is gone, thus it fuels a feeling of doubt of how you can date and actually be together). Mind you this is a cultural phenomenon in much of Asia.

stuckinhell 4y ago
What do you mean that's why the current president won?
- 0dayz 4y ago
  The current president of South Korea had a very vocal male group vote for him only because he promised to roll back certain "feminist" policies.

nine_zeros 4y ago

What's also not captured in these aggregate birth records: - Urban births are much lower than rural births. If it were not for rural women, the births would trickle down much lower - There are many couples who want to have children but can't because of fertility issues - Becoming a parent and maintaining parenthood is difficult if these things drive you to poverty, especially in a class driven society like S. Korea.

fendy3002 4y ago
even if you're economically good, it's logical that urban people don't want kids. - with 8-5, 5 days a week work schedule, there's too little time to do anything. Raising kids are huge commitment and time sink - even with time, if you don't have good standing at the population, it'll risk that your kids will have a hard time in the future - there's too much entertainment and distraction (even travel plans) available nowadays that are too precious to miss just because you need to take care of kids
- nine_zeros 4y ago
  You are right. To add, the real problem is that a lot of the urban populace also wants to have kids - but later. This is because until the age of 30, people are not settled in any careers that pays well enough. They are burdened with debt. They are also having a hard time finding long-term partners. All of these cause delay in family planning. But the delay is hard on fertility. Women go through years and years of ART (IUI, IVF etc.) to get 1 viable pregnancy. Many women can't even get pregnant. Asking couples to do so much in life and still be able to produce and raise kids is insane.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Urban environments in general are population dense (which goes against wanting to add more people), and resource rich (so lots of other distractions, and ability to suppress fertility through birth control). Thinking ‘I’ll just have them later’ is standard delusional thinking. It’s like someone saying they’ll ‘start eating healthy next week’.

halfjoking 4y ago

[flagged]

twelve40 4y ago
SK has been on course for this way before Covid
- halfjoking 4y ago
  [flagged]

steponlego 4y ago

Just import people, nobody cares about musty old cultures anyway these days.

xyzelement 4y ago

I recently started to view religion as a mental operating system that enables people to do things that are not possible with other operating systems. Having kids is one of those things. For example, in the US a woman who is considered religious based on frequency of services attendance has on average almost one child more than a woman considered nonreligious. ([0] presents one such chart for the United States.) Except for Buddhism. For some reason, Buddhist women have lower fertility than even atheists [1] I find this surprising and don't really understand the reason. So anyways, Korea seems to be doubly affected - it has one of the world's highest rates of non religiosity [2], and out of those few who are religious, most are Buddhist. It seems like if you want to encourage population growth in your country, you want to encourage adherence to an Abrahamic religion or Hinduism. [0] https://ifstudies.org/blog/americas-growing-religious-secular-fertility-divide https://ifstudies.org/blog/americas-growing-religious-secula... [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.worldatlas.com/amp/feature/5-facts-to-know-about-the-future-of-buddhism.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.worldatlas.com/amp/feature/... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion#:~:text=Relative%20to%20its%20own%20populations,Japan%20(64%2D65%25) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irrelig....

twelve40 4y ago
> out of those few who are religious, most are Buddhist but... 56.1% No religion 27.6% Christianity 15.5% Korean Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea
cma 4y ago
> Having kids is one of those things. For example, in the US a woman who is considered religious based on frequency of services attendance has on average almost one child more than a woman considered nonreligious. Is all of this causitive? Could say similar about daycare, which incidentally churches also often provide.
noodleman 4y ago
Your reasoning is speculation and your sources only really show evidence for your claim that religiosity is declining. Another correlation with birthrate is wealth. Wealthy countries have more expensive costs associated with raising children, such as housing and childcare. Given that children can't effectively work for 15-20 years, they are a financial burden. In poor countries, children become another set of hands that can be put to use from only a few years old.

pigtailgirl 4y ago

-- its normal conversation here - usually we put the reason on - 헬조선: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Joseon http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Joseon - also - there is a big problem with a gender clash - women are learning about modern feminism - rejecting traditional system - young men are not accept it - it causing a lot of tension - more women tell me - i prefer to die alone than have traditional Korean husband - many of my Ewha ("feminist university") friend won't wear school brand clothes for fear of assault - https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaenam https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaenam --

i_am_jl 4y ago
What's a "traditional Korean husband"?
- pigtailgirl 4y ago
  -- complicated - patriarchal - more intense than many cultures - its common to hear a Korean man say - the woman needs to be in her place - or - i own my wife as i own my car -- https://www.koreasociety.org/images/pdf/KoreanStudies/Monographs_GeneralReading/GettingtoKnowKorea/GTKK%206%20Boo%20Jin%20Park%20Patriarchy%20In%20Korean%20Society.pdf https://www.koreasociety.org/images/pdf/KoreanStudies/Monogr... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_South_Korea https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_South_Korea https://asiasociety.org/education/womens-role-contemporary-korea https://asiasociety.org/education/womens-role-contemporary-k... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-women-hit-back-old-gender-roles-return-n1254704 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-women-hit-ba...
  - i_am_jl 4y ago
    Thank you!
  - anthk 4y ago
    Are South Korea and Japan similar?
stuckinhell 4y ago

radicality 4y ago

https://archive.ph/KPqRe https://archive.ph/KPqRe

fallingfrog 4y ago

I'm fairly certain I can tell you exactly what is happening. In societies where the women were staying home, they weren't doing nothing. They were providing child care, maintaining the social networks that bind society together, doing all the at home work that makes it possible for the other partner to work a full time job. 40+ hours a week really requires a second person to do all the other stuff to be sustainable. It was never supposed to be the case that you have two people both working full time and then trying to do all the other stuff on weekends and evenings. That's insane! Especially since men seem to not be doing their fair share of that other work- why would any woman want to take on a full time job and do all the rest? If you want to have gender equality- and you absolutely should want that- then as a society, you need to reduce work weeks to 20 hours. Otherwise you are just running the whole thing into the ground. I see a lot of people pointing towards religious beliefs as the proximate cause here- but have you considered that the places that are the most religious are also the places where there is a single breadwinner? Are you sure it's the religion and not the extra social slack that is responsible? Because there is a clear and plausible mechanism for the extra slack of a single breadwinner being relevant, but for religion by itself, it's a much more tenuous connection. You could probably make things work with a somewhat longer work week- say, 30 hours- if you also supplied families of young children with 100% free child care and subsidized housing. Otherwise, your civilization is eating its young.

sho_hn 4y ago
You got downvoted - maybe people read you as arguing for a return to the old ways and days - but I find your basic argument that two people working 40+ hours can have a very hard time fitting the infant years of child-rearing into their time table quite compelling. Doing a good job as a parent requires time. If you don't have any it can be hard to reconcile it with your conscience. Korean work culture is particularly demanding (I've lived there) and unforgiving when it comes to private matters interfering with work performance. I'll grant you it's a factor. Few couples manage to pull this off without one partner stopping to work (and it's usually the woman). Increasingly few people want to do so. If we want this to be different, I think we do have to change the time equation society-wide. Korean society today places virtually no importance on giving adults the time they need to have and raise kids. Koreans themselves will more often cite economic reasons, but this is basically by proxy - the economics don't work out if you don't put the hours into work, etc. The success machine is feeding itself.

toyg 4y ago

Korea is simply on the same trajectory as Japan, offset 20-30 years or so (because of the civil war). They hate it if you tell them, but they developed on the same blueprint Japan popularized across the area.

swexbe 4y ago

It's a classic commons dilemma. Having a child is very very costly on a personal level and the profits (future pensions) are mostly all societal.

noobermin 4y ago

So, on the one hand, people who fear malthusian predictions often are presented with the concept of "peak child" which will occur at some point once much of the world is developed and the rest of the world naturally reaches a low fertility rate. On the other hand, under the current system we have (and I'm not sure if there really is any other stable system), we rely on a growing population to provide for everyone and keep the wheels turning. I just felt like there is this clear cognitive dissonance here, either a growing population is good or it is bad. I do get the sense that "certain groups" growing is "bad" for some people whereas "other groups" (often their own) growing is good and them stagnating is bad...so there clearly are a lot of discussions around this happening in bad faith. Still, even the good faith discussion seems to have this contradiction here that I haven't really seen anyone resolve. I suppose one argument is "no, we really will grow forever and it will be okay." And while we are probably nowhere near the growth limit yet, I'm not sure I have seen an argument that convinces me of this either.