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When you’re 90 and need someone to give you a sponge bath, cultural differences don’t matter much. You do get weird stories like Filipino nurses treating elder

When you’re 90 and need someone to give you a sponge bath, cultural differences don’t matter much. You do get weird stories like Filipino nurses treating elderly WW2 era Japanese soldiers. I’m sure it’s only awkward for a moment. You could have said the same thing about any new immigrants anywhere. How will the Irish fit in Boston? How will Ukrainians make it in Chicago?

somenameforme 1y ago
I think the Irish are a great example. We often think it was some huge migration because they had a really tough time integrating in spite of being near to completely culturally compatible. But the interesting thing is that that migration was negligible in size. The largest impact probably came after the Great Hunger in Ireland after which about a million migrants came to the US. [1] So that's a million migrants in a population of 31 million - 3.2%. In fact for all the talk about the US being a nation of migrants we never had a foreign born population exceeding 14.8%. [1] And that was in 1890 after which a large number of anti-migration bills began being passed, culminating in a low of 4.7% in 1970. It's now up to 14.3% and once again issues are emerging at almost the exact same threshold. Go figure. --- So now let's consider your idea. South Korea is trending towards a scenario where they will eventually be losing 62% of their population every 20 years. And obviously that is exponential - it's not like it slows down, not unless they start having babies again. To maintain this decline with immigration would require literally just replacing just about the entire former population of South Korea with migrants. You're talking about migration on a scale unimaginably larger than anything before, with what by necessity would be an extremely low quality of migrant, simply owing the massive numbers needed. So the idea of using immigration to "solve" this is essentially just proposing populating an 'abandoned' land with whoever wants to come. And of course that's possible, but obviously this is not a solution to anything by any reasonable meaning of the word 'solution.' [1] - https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Collections/Folklife-Collections-List-%281%29/Other/Emigration/Irish-Emigration-to-America https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Co... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Extent_and_destinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...
- 999900000999 1y ago
  The idea is the immigrates start having kids and reverse the decline. You'll see more multicultural marriages. This has already started. https://e.vnexpress.net/news/trend/marriages-between-vietnamese-men-and-south-korean-women-triple-over-a-decade-4726758.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/trend/marriages-between-vietnam...
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    Your article seems to be describing citizenship scams. Quoting it: "In 2022, out of the 792 South Korean women who entered into marriage with Vietnamese men, 556 were remarriages. Among these, 482, or 86.7%, were women who originally came from Vietnam and had become naturalized South Korean citizens. They acquired South Korean nationality through their first marriage with local men, then divorced, and later remarried Vietnamese men." Beyond this, many/most places in Asia have a culture that views previously married women, or single women over a certain age, very negatively. In China the term is 'leftover women.' That can make it difficult for these women to marry a local, and make it very easy for a foreigner to find a wife that may be more desirable than one he might be able to find in his own country. But it's not doing much of anything for fertility. --- But more generally, what you're implying here is that fertility is a cultural problem and not necessarily an e.g. economic one. And I completely agree with you on that. But you're essentially aiming to change the culture by simply bringing in an inconceivably large bunch of new people (relative to previous migrations) and assuming things will turn out okay. But wouldn't it be rather less extreme to simply push for sustainable cultural values to begin with? Most Western nations are still fairly close to sustainable levels.
    - 999900000999 1y ago
      >But wouldn't it be rather less extreme to simply push for sustainable cultural values to begin with? Completely change a culture that's developed over hundreds of years to make life too stressful to raise a family ? The moment people(women) had the agency to opt out they did. >Most Western nations are still fairly close to sustainable levels. >Summary: U.S. population growth is projected to decline, and the population will become much older over time. Preventing these outcomes will require faster immigration by several multiples of its current rate. https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/3/22/us-demographic-projections-with-and-without-immigration https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/3/22/us-de... Immigration is holding up the populations of many western nations. Honestly it might just be time for a economic system that doesn't demand infinite growth. Who are we to tell a 25 year old to settle down and have 2.1 kids. This is really a triumph of individual freedom over anything else. 100 years ago you'd be 20, pressured to marry someone you don't really like, and expected to have kids even if you'd rather do something else. The current generation is largely saying no. It's not just an economic issue, most negative population growth countries are relatively wealthy. It's a matter of individual autonomy.

somenameforme 1y ago

I think the Irish are a great example. We often think it was some huge migration because they had a really tough time integrating in spite of being near to completely culturally compatible. But the interesting thing is that that migration was negligible in size. The largest impact probably came after the Great Hunger in Ireland after which about a million migrants came to the US. [1] So that's a million migrants in a population of 31 million - 3.2%. In fact for all the talk about the US being a nation of migrants we never had a foreign born population exceeding 14.8%. [1] And that was in 1890 after which a large number of anti-migration bills began being passed, culminating in a low of 4.7% in 1970. It's now up to 14.3% and once again issues are emerging at almost the exact same threshold. Go figure. --- So now let's consider your idea. South Korea is trending towards a scenario where they will eventually be losing 62% of their population every 20 years. And obviously that is exponential - it's not like it slows down, not unless they start having babies again. To maintain this decline with immigration would require literally just replacing just about the entire former population of South Korea with migrants. You're talking about migration on a scale unimaginably larger than anything before, with what by necessity would be an extremely low quality of migrant, simply owing the massive numbers needed. So the idea of using immigration to "solve" this is essentially just proposing populating an 'abandoned' land with whoever wants to come. And of course that's possible, but obviously this is not a solution to anything by any reasonable meaning of the word 'solution.' [1] - https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Collections/Folklife-Collections-List-%281%29/Other/Emigration/Irish-Emigration-to-America https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Co... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Extent_and_destinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

999900000999 1y ago
The idea is the immigrates start having kids and reverse the decline. You'll see more multicultural marriages. This has already started. https://e.vnexpress.net/news/trend/marriages-between-vietnamese-men-and-south-korean-women-triple-over-a-decade-4726758.html https://e.vnexpress.net/news/trend/marriages-between-vietnam...
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Your article seems to be describing citizenship scams. Quoting it: "In 2022, out of the 792 South Korean women who entered into marriage with Vietnamese men, 556 were remarriages. Among these, 482, or 86.7%, were women who originally came from Vietnam and had become naturalized South Korean citizens. They acquired South Korean nationality through their first marriage with local men, then divorced, and later remarried Vietnamese men." Beyond this, many/most places in Asia have a culture that views previously married women, or single women over a certain age, very negatively. In China the term is 'leftover women.' That can make it difficult for these women to marry a local, and make it very easy for a foreigner to find a wife that may be more desirable than one he might be able to find in his own country. But it's not doing much of anything for fertility. --- But more generally, what you're implying here is that fertility is a cultural problem and not necessarily an e.g. economic one. And I completely agree with you on that. But you're essentially aiming to change the culture by simply bringing in an inconceivably large bunch of new people (relative to previous migrations) and assuming things will turn out okay. But wouldn't it be rather less extreme to simply push for sustainable cultural values to begin with? Most Western nations are still fairly close to sustainable levels.
  - 999900000999 1y ago
    >But wouldn't it be rather less extreme to simply push for sustainable cultural values to begin with? Completely change a culture that's developed over hundreds of years to make life too stressful to raise a family ? The moment people(women) had the agency to opt out they did. >Most Western nations are still fairly close to sustainable levels. >Summary: U.S. population growth is projected to decline, and the population will become much older over time. Preventing these outcomes will require faster immigration by several multiples of its current rate. https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/3/22/us-demographic-projections-with-and-without-immigration https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/3/22/us-de... Immigration is holding up the populations of many western nations. Honestly it might just be time for a economic system that doesn't demand infinite growth. Who are we to tell a 25 year old to settle down and have 2.1 kids. This is really a triumph of individual freedom over anything else. 100 years ago you'd be 20, pressured to marry someone you don't really like, and expected to have kids even if you'd rather do something else. The current generation is largely saying no. It's not just an economic issue, most negative population growth countries are relatively wealthy. It's a matter of individual autonomy.