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South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, government says
- mytailorisrich 3y agoWhich still means 80% more than in 1950, so still an increase of about 80% over a century (1950-2050). The takeaway for me is that South Korea's population really exploded after the Korean War.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- milesvp 3y agoI wonder how much of this was the result of food scraps from US bases? I've been told a number of Korean dishes use ingredients that were begged from American GIs during and after the war. Things like hotdogs and american cheese that then got used creatively. I know other species will see a huge birth spike from discovered food sources. But I don't know if human's are smart enough, or have expensive enough pregnancies and child rearing to avoid this potential trap.
- wizofaus 3y agoIt was the period of the most rapid population growth globally. And the period during which antibiotics became widely available.
- Ancalagon 3y agoDid anyone else find the note regarding North Korean fertility extremely surprising? I guess I have no idea what daily life is like in NK - but I was under the impression under-educated women often had more children (not supporting this, just stating what I though was commonly understood). Does NK have a better education system for women and better internet access than I thought?
- mytailorisrich 3y agoNorth Korea is relatively poor but that does not mean they are a "third world country". School is compulsory and everyone attends school, and I expect good equality of schooling between genders (one good thing with socialist regimes).
- orwin 3y agoAnd it has a strong (but relatively poor) middle class.
- prng2021 3y agoPlease stop spreading this kind of information around the internet as if it’s anywhere remotely close to an ok place to live. I’ve actually stayed overnight there. I saw tons of what I initially thought were elementary or middle school kids but found out they were all tremendously malnourished high schoolers. When I tried passing out food and candy to one of them, another one yelled at him for acting like a beggar. All lights, even at my hotel, were shut off shortly after sunset. Paper was in huge shortage so when I asked for additional napkins at dinner, I got 1 single-ply square. It was a super depressing experience. Pyongyang is better but North Korea isn’t just that 1 city. I was exploring other areas in the northwest.
- matrix87 3y agoThey allow you outside of Pyongyang? How did you manage to do that, were you under some kind of govt supervision?
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoIt doesn't sound like you observed gender disparity in education... Did you? If so, you should say so, because that's what the GP was commenting on. Do you have other thoughts regarding their fertility rate?
- prng2021 3y ago“Stereotyped gender roles begin in childhood. Girls learn they are not equal to boys and cannot resist mistreatment and abuse, and that they should feel shame if they become targets of abuse by men, whether in the home or in public spaces” https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/21/submission-rights-women-and-girls-north-korea-special-rapporteurs-report-52nd-human https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/21/submission-rights-women-... My own time there was limited but I watched music and dance performances comprised almost entirely of young girls. In contrast, I saw tons of people in military uniform or in training, clearly of widely varying ages, but 100% male. If “gender disparity in education” is as shallow as, do girls and boys both learn algebra, then the answer is probably no. But I observed what looked like complete brainwashing of expected gender roles and your future contribution to society, starting at a very young age. Regarding fertility rate there, I never trust any specific numbers they publish like the 1.8 mentioned. Literally 1 person there has control over what stats the rest of the world sees, balancing his imagination/vision with what the rest of the world will actually believe.
- gumby 3y agoNice to see an article that does't use words like "disaster" (though the word "timebomb" does occur up front. > Countries like South Korea, Japan and China, however, have shied away from mass immigration to solve their working age population issues. As Herb Stein famously said, "if it can’t go on forever it will stop". In fact, South Korea embraced foreign brides many years ago, at least by farmers who are particularly low status in the marriage market.
- huytersd 3y agoKind of is a disaster. It’s not a lower, but stable, birth rate. It’s precipitously dropping.
- gumby 3y agoI guess I don’t consider it disastrous. There is no shortage of babies being born.
- huytersd 3y agoThe rate is 0.72. Every 20 years you lose 20% of your population or a percent a year. That would give South Korea 100 years of existence at this point. It’s dire.
- wizofaus 3y agoPretty sure your maths is off - even if it did steadily fall by 20% every 20 years, it'd still have a population of 16 to 17 million in 100 years' time. So no, not especially dire.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 3y agoExcept it will be small and old instead of small and young.
- jankyxenon 3y agoCurious how all these advanced economies will deal with structural deflation when there is decreasing customer demand and consumption for most types of goods. Example - do house prices start falling?
- sn0wf1re 3y agoTypically Japan is used as an example. Rural houses there are extremely cheap these days. Urban housing is still expensive.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoTo expand on this, housing in first-tier cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka is quite expensive (although not bonkers like it's gotten in Canada/Australia/etc). Housing in smaller second- and third-tier cities is very affordable, while still maintaining access to good hospitals, public transit, jobs, and so on. Rural housing is practically free aside from the cost of renovation.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoHousing everywhere in Japan is basically free aside from the cost of renovation + the cost of the land. Houses are considered to be disposable there, you're expected to tear it down and build a new one when you buy one, so they are priced accordingly. The difference is that land in Tokyo etc is expensive.
- huytersd 3y agoBut why would you? It seems like most young people with no money could just stay for free.
- chaostheory 3y agoBecause it’s the (outdated) law due to earthquakes. Building and materials have gotten much better since the original laws were passed.
- matrix87 3y agoThis makes me wonder: if the north goes to war with the south all of a sudden and enough people die, the corresponding demographic collapse could be enough to leave the south empty within a generation
- mock-possum 3y agoTen years ago I would’ve scoffed and said the rest of the world wouldn’t let it happen Now, having seen what Russia and Israel are being allowed to get away with, I guess you can just invade and commit war crimes whenever you feel like it. Maybe some people will send you some arms, but otherwise, South Korea will be on their own.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]
- yhavr 3y agoA democratic nation with powerful economy and complex social rules. Parents push kids to study hard in school. Kids learn a lot, so they pass exams, create smarphones, robots, yet unable to create an environment where people would be motivated to bring their kids and wouldn't be as stressed or suicidal. South Koreans on HN, any ideas why? ;-) For me personally, South Korea is a great example, how entire nations of homo sapiens can be unconsciously cognitively trapped, and in how technological progress, science and ability to solve differential equations !== wellbeing.
- pixl97 3y agoIt is my thinking that successful religions are built on at least one tenant of "have kids and teach them the religion" otherwise as social complexity grows we tend to forget the have kids point and the society falters, and this has been an issue with humans for much more than the modern age. I'm not saying religions are right or closer to some ground truth here, but evolution does hing on the point of requiring reproduction of some type.
- yhavr 3y agoFrom my knowledge, religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents. "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. However, there is a problem. The way religious community organised at least empirically somehow matches human biology. E.g. small tribes, support, shared ideals. However, it turns out, modern humans have around-zero practical knowledge how to build a "modern" successful state for millions of individualists that would adequately respond to all changes/challenges. Yes, there are countries that were lucky to get a ~d20 roll~ stable democratic govt at some point. But if you look closer, even in these "developed" countries feedback loops are often extremely slow and clumsy.
- feoren 3y ago> religious communities not only "brainwash into having kids", but they also provide a support network for them and their parents Really? Is daycare cheaper for Christians? Are Christian families (causally) less likely to have two parents working full-time? Because it seems to me that slogging your ass to church every Sunday to be told you're not Godly enough and should vote Republican just seems like Yet Another Fucking Thing that working parents have to do each week, on top of everything else. Do you have any, y'know, evidence at all, that religious parents have more of a support network around them than non-religious? (And that this difference is due to religion, not confounding factors like socioeconomics?) > "Atheists" in "modern age" try to achieve more individual freedom by replacing the local community by a state. Another hot take, eh? Any evidence for this one either? This is an unbelievably over-simplistic take. I guarantee whatever trend you think you're seeing here is just as prevalent among the highly religious. If you want to know why individual communities are breaking down, you'd be much better off looking at car dependence, the abundance of suburbs, and zoning laws than just deciding it must be the godlessness of those heathens causing all the problems.
- iancmceachern 3y agoCheck out Peter Zeihan on YouTube for more info on this kind of stuff globally.
- chaostheory 3y agoGermany, China, Italy, Japan and really every country except for the ones in Central Africa are also affected by birth rates below replenishment levels. What makes North America more resilient than other places is that we're accustomed to immigration and we're very good at assimilating immigrants. Immigrants to the US and Canada become (i.e. consider themselves) Americans and Canadians within a generation. To my knowledge, this doesn't happen anywhere else. As for Mexico, integration is easy given most of their immigration comes from Central and South America where the cultures are very similar with the same language. Of course, anti-immigration populists in both the US & Canada and consisting of both conservatives and liberals, could hamper or weaken this giant advantage