11 ms·

South Korea's military has shrunk by 20% in six years as male population drops

51 points by _t9ow 1y ago

rr808 1y ago
Its always amazing to me that South Korea is economically and politically much more successful and in that result it "won" the cold war of the last 50 years with its Northern counterpart. But its population is going to disappear so not much of a victory.
- fwsgonzo 1y ago
  Yeah, I'm watching people walk around in SK and JP and I really want to visit one day. One day before it's too late. Both countries will evaporate.
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    Japan's population was 44 million in 1900, it is 123 million now. South Korea's population was 25 million in 1960, it is 54 million now. We need to stop going over the top with claims of "population collapse". The 20th century to this day was abnormal at historical scale in that human population exploded like never before, and perhaps like never again and probably for the best considering how we have brought the planet to its knees.
    - derektank 1y ago
      South Korea's birth rate is 0.7, which means for every 100 grandparents there will be only 12 grandchildren if things don't change. At the current pace, the South Korean population will be 32 million in 2075 and 11 million in 2125, and most of the people alive will be old. That's nearly as massive a change in the opposite direction as the drop in childhood mortality in the 20th century.
      - mytailorisrich 1y ago
        Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless. We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population because the explosion that has happened is unsustainable and so are current global population levels. That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment. This does not mean that population should or will collapse to extra low levels...
        nec4b 1y ago
        >> Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless. Its just math showing the trend and it's not worthless as it should give you something to think about. >> We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population Of course, but it will be painful. >> That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment. That simple math, which you deem worthless also tells you this is impossible. There will be a small number of young active people having to support a big group of elderly. They will not have the time to solve world problems. In fact a lot of knowledge will be lost as economy will contract and there will be less people available for specialization.
        mytailorisrich 1y ago
        It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable. Even with a constant population this will happen if people live long. We need to embrace this and use existing and new technologies to cope. We have AI, automation, robots progressing fast, this is exactly what we need in addition to investing in education. The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
        nec4b 1y ago
        >> It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable. Based on history it hasn't happened. How do you know it's going to? >>The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner. That is absolutely not the only alternative. One would be to have a stable population at the current size. Another on would be decreasing population slowly and not as drastically as it will happen in Korea. A third one would be growing it slowly. The fourth one would be oscillating around the current size, etc.
    - thisislife2 1y ago
      You miss the point - a larger population isn't necessarily good if most of them are not economically productive (i.e. don't have skilled working class). Are people supposed to work even in their old age, till they die?
    - notTooFarGone 1y ago
      Please do the math. We will likely see the collapse of SK. There will be less working people than people in their retirement. We don't know how a society can work that way as it's a first time.
    - general1726 1y ago
      Well the problem is people in retirement, caring only about size of their pension outnumbering working age people and effectively creating positive feedback for populist parties to constantly increase pensions despite the constantly shrinking working population and tax revenue. This system can't work. This system is going to collapse. Just matter of time.
    - UncleMeat 1y ago
      Yeah it is baffling to me that people are already on the "we are doomed" phase for this. 50 years ago people were saying "we are doomed" because of overpopulation. We had people saying that the optimal number of humans on the planet was just one billion and that we had to engage in extreme measures of international oppression to force as much of the unavoidable starvation on certain populations and not others. Now we are seeing "the world is doomed" because of underpopulation (despite the fact that the world population is still growing) and we are starting to see the proposed extreme measures of rolling back women's rights in order to address this.
  - xboxnolifes 1y ago
    Neither country will evaporate in your lifetime.
    - dyauspitr 1y ago
      There are people born today that will see it evaporate.
- dijit 1y ago
  If you follow much of the USSR, you’d be aware that the nations surrounding Russia were the most heavily invested in, at least those that were front facing. Estonia for example had quite a lot of investment, you’d be surprised what a regime will invest in to ensure that the optics are positive. Not saying that happened here, but it is something that has happened.
  - rr808 1y ago
    Sorry which regime? You mean the USA put money into Estonia and SK?
    - dijit 1y ago
      Russia put money into Estonia. USA/EU might be putting money into SK. Both to “prove to the other side” that their ideology is the right one.
      - rr808 1y ago
        OK sorry yes that makes sense. Berlin too both side lavished funds to make them look better.
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        The US spends about USD$4.5B per year on US troops and facilities based in South Korea. And funded what looks like ~USD$35B in post-war economic assistance. (Plus other UN funding) For that, South Korea went from being devastated by 2 wars to around the 13th largest economy in the world. Not a bad return. China and Russia were welcome to invest in North Korea...
  - manuel_w 1y ago
    I'm not sure I understand. Estonia invested a lot? In what? Military? So the optics are positive?
    - dijit 1y ago
      Estonia was part of the USSR, and the USSR put a lot of money into Estonia to make communism look like it was working. At the expense of other parts of the USSR.
- MaxHoppersGhost 1y ago
  Same thing is happening to most counties in Europe but they’re “fixing it” with immigrants. But the Germany filled with Germans will be disappearing just as South Korea is.
  - jennyholzer 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - antiimbeciles 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - wincy 1y ago
      If a Nazi says the sky is blue is that something we should also reject outright?
      - justonceokay 1y ago
        No but nazis have a way of presenting facts that are only relevant if you are concerned primarily with racial purity. Is Germany’s population growing because of immigrants, or is germanys “heritage” disappearing because of white replacement? If a man is hospitalized because he is having paranoid delusions about his wife cheating on him, he is still sick even if his suspicions are true.
        dns_snek 1y ago
        This is the opposite of what you probably wanted to say, but if the man's wife is cheating on him then he's not experiencing paranoid delusions, so hospitalizing him and calling him sick would be a form of abusive crazy-making behavior in and of itself.
    - abstractbeliefs 1y ago
      It's a statement of fact, which is neutral on its own. Where it becomes a right wing talking point (or a discussion about the socio-economic future of a country) broadly comes down to how you present the causes, implications, and necessary actions. The fact that many more-developed countries having shrinking native populations is a fact that governments must reckon with in some way, and salting the earth on discussing because one faction is trying to exploit it cedes the ultimate policy decisions to them.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  South Korean politics is an absolute disaster, there's a non-zero possibility that 30 years from now, long after the Kims, people will be fleeing to the North.
  - tpm 1y ago
    I would actually bet in 30 years the Kims will still rule the North.
- oezi 1y ago
  Even a birth rate as South Korea's does not mean the population will disappear over night. It will shrink. It will mean things will change. Infrastructure will be overprovisioned and housing will be cheap. It will mean other things will be prioritized by politics (such as kindergardens and work life balance). In any case it won't be a catastrophy as life in North Korea.
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    A good analogy might be the Black Death: it didn’t destroy Europe, it changed priorities, freed the serfs, started valuing labor more, and ultimately led to a stronger Europe in the future.
    - oezi 1y ago
      If we consider that the world had 1bn people a bit over 100 years ago, it puts many things in perspective. We have generations of time to turn things around if we think it is necessary.
    - tuatoru 1y ago
      No, the Black Death is not a good analogy, because it killed all ages indiscriminately. Our "plague" "kills" the young and productive - by their never being born in the first place. We are headed for something we have never seen, ever: a society dominated by old people in pure numbers terms. The worry is that it is a design for stagnation and decay rather than greater strength. (There won't be money or people to maintain infrastructure because the elders will demand healthcare.) I don't know what will happen and nor does anyone else really.
      - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        It killed all but made people more valuable and, more importantly, valued in general. If kids become more rare, we will probably start treating and nurturing them better. We complain about childcare costs now but if kids are few enough society might just happily take up the bill.
farseer 1y ago
After reaching peak prosperity, both Korea and Japan have decided to evaporate into oblivion. Japan grudgingly allows in a few Filipino and Vietnamese, so there is that.
- forinti 1y ago
  Both these countries have really high population densities. Japan's is around 330/km2 and South Korea's is about 530/km2. Just like the UK, they would probably be better off with less people, geopolitical considerations aside.
  - pyb 1y ago
    Have you been to Korea ? Or even the UK ?
    - forinti 1y ago
      Yes, I lived in the UK for about 5 years.
- thisislife2 1y ago
  That "peak prosperity" thing is actually capitalism gone awry in my opinion. I'd include India too here - a common pattern that can be seen in all these three Asian countries is the unhealthy work-life balance. Couple that with the world-wide trend that two incomes are now necessary to raise kids in many of these "fast" growing or economically "prosperous" countries, most people are just choosing to have only 1 (or at most 2 kids), and there are some who are also opting not to have any kids. In India, the opposition leader has also lamented that we have already lost advantage of having a younger population because of poor economic planning and policies (by 2030, India will have the world’s largest youth population). Trump won, in large part, because many Americans are now struggling to feel secure with the wages that they earn - they can't afford to buy a house, which many feel is required to start a family. A course correction is required in the world economy, as, while capitalism-consumerism does seem to provide prosperity, it also seems to be consuming societies that adopts it.
- 1y ago
notorandit 1y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway652368 1y ago
  As you know, Korea has compulsory military service for men, but not for women. This would be a fantastic place for gender equality activists to make their voice heard and rally for greater gender equality, it's strange that they seem to be unconcerned with this sort of thing.
  - lawn 1y ago
    South Korea ranks very low globally on women's rights and equality so it's unfortunately not a surprise.
  - vkou 1y ago
    What makes you think that conscription for women isn't being discussed in Korea? 1. Do you have evidence that it isn't? 2. You do realize that Korea is not actually a society with a lot of gender equality (or equality in general, as I'll note in point #4) as-is, right? 3. Which 'gender equality champions' exactly do you expect to be shouting about this so that you will hear about it? Americans and Europeans posting on Reddit and Hacker News? 4. Do you think that the existing problems regarding equality in conscription (with every connected person's sons actively dodging the draft) may be poisoning the well for anyone advocating - or considering advocating - throwing more bodies into that machine?
    - notorandit 1y ago
      I didn't argue about conscription for women. Just stated that soldiers may not be men only.
  - s5300 1y ago
    [dead]
  - refulgentis 1y ago
    Hmmm...I'm not sure if gender equality advocacy is when you always advocate for complete equality in all things always. There's a side component of the mens right advocacy movement that tries introducing the idea that there's some flaw in woman's rights movements because they're not true gender equality movements: inter alia, famously, lawsuits over ladies nights at bars I think the reason that doesn't carry much attention is because it's intuitive, even without the concept involved, to understand why someone might advocate for equal pay but not for equal conscription. We are but sentient meat.
franczesko 1y ago
We should ask ourselves a question, if the system we're living in is not rewarding having kids, is a good system at all?
- socalgal2 1y ago
  Personally I think the culture has changed. It's got little to do with costs or insentives or support and everything to do with changing wants/desires. Rather than devote 20+ years of a person's life to kids, most people would rather socialize, party, dance, netflix-and-chill, youtube, tiktok, travel, game, raise a pet, hobbies, etc.... Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns. Some of them have a short term effect but none of them get the numbers up to replacement levels and the numbers keep going down. It's hard to blame it on any one thing. Some might say "suburban car centric culture" but that doesn't explain Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc.... I can't personally imagine the numbers going back up. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman
  - noah_buddy 1y ago
    I think the failure in extrapolation is that the numbers will absolutely go back up, eventually. Subcultures that incentivize high birth rates culturally will have more kids, and eventually come to dominate society. If you want to see what culture will look like in a few hundred years, try and figure out what’s common between Mormons, Amish, and Muslims.
  - ponector 1y ago
    >> Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns. Those incentives are usually meaningless. Like 100€ monthly cash bonus. Could cover food, but nothing more. A year of child leave is good, but what to do during next 5 years untill you can put kids into the school system? And don't forget massive opportunity costs. Instead of having a single kid, woman can have few more years of advancing in career. Instead of putting all time into one kid, woman can upskill, get a degree, etc. And with second child it's three times harder. Also turns out, many baby boomers are not eager to be present in life of their grandkids. If you pregnant - you are screwed. You and the father-to-be will take a massive hit in every aspect of life.
wrg 1y ago
[flagged]
- refulgentis 1y ago
  It sounds like you're suggesting woman's rights caused South Korea's military to shrink 20%, and thus it is desirable to not give woman rights, lest it cause men to choose not to join the army, and thus it is desirable to roll back woman having rights, as it could cause men to not join the army and its no biggie anyway, its not in their constitution that woman have rights. Am I reading it right?
  - MisterMower 1y ago
    Perhaps not women’s rights, per se, but allowing the culture to portray every possible lifestyle except motherhood as honorable and rewarding definitely caused it. You gotta have mamas to have babies.
    - refulgentis 1y ago
      That's a hell of a motte to a bailey. We're not really saying anything anymore other than making a claim its not-honorable to be a mother in the culture (trivially false)
    - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
      I’d point to cultural issues that persist even now making motherhood unenviable, such as the norm of men taking little to no part in child rearing and house duties. Being expected to raise the children, keep the house clean, keep up with laundry, do the grocery shopping, and keep the family fed among other things all on your own while your partner’s day ends after coming home from his 9-to-5 doesn’t sound very pleasant, and a lot of young adult women (especially in East Asia) saw exactly this play out with their parents so it’s only natural if it’s led them to become avoidant.
    - wrg 1y ago
      It really is women's rights per se. I wrote that fully realising I will get downvoted to oblivion for questioning the status quo/consensus but it's so mind-boggling that I can't stay quiet and it helps that this time they're finally connecting the most vital of dots, military capability.
nis0s 1y ago
Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did. Besides that, at a cultural level personal worth and dignity and safety need to be divorced from monetary net worth as that makes it easier for someone to decide where is a comfortable place for them in their society, and then adjust their time between working and child-rearing. That said, it's also hard to motivate some people to reproduce if there's no greater point to it than some basic primal instinct, which may not be that high in such people. It follows, I guess, that the more educated a populace gets, the less its participants are likely to thoughtlessly reproduce. Tax credits are helpful (said sarcastically).
- _t9ow 1y ago
  > Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did. Total fertility rates in Scandinavian countries (known for their very generous welfare) are falling as well -- not as catastrophic as South Korea's, but way below replacement rate nonetheless. E.g., Denmark's total fertility rate fell yet again in 2024 to 1.466. (Source: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fertilitet https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer...)
  - nis0s 1y ago
    Yes, that's what I was alluding to in my last para. The blue states in the U.S. have relatively lower fertility rates than the red states. The second para is what I think would actually help with falling reproductive rates in such situations, but those conditions need to be met by social safety programs.
    - insane_dreamer 1y ago
      Ironically, poverty levels are correlated with birth rates. The states with the highest birth rates are concentrated in the South and Midwest; wealthier states with high birth rates, like Texas, Utah, are also more religious. We see this trend internationally too, i.e., Africa vs Europe.
maxglute 1y ago
Shortterm, SKR probably the only country with culture of civil service, loathing for immigration, and enough gender drama for misandrist men to eventually roll out coercive family planning system onto females (that hate them) to force family formation. TBH need someone to attempt very illiberal effort to make babies because every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR > replacement. At this point it should be abundantly clear that short of religion, carrot policies cannot reward their way to 2.1+ TFR. Or I guess embrace immigration.
- hax0ron3 1y ago
  Russia has been putting a lot of government effort into increasing the fertility rate for years now and it's still below replacement. Granted, the modern Russian government is incompetent in many ways so maybe that is not a good example, but are there any modern examples of specifically authoritarian but not full-on totalitarian policies significantly raising fertility rate? By specifically authoritarian, I mean policies that would not be possible in a liberal system. It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism. Now, full-on totalitarianism could clearly raise fertility rate through draconian measures, but at what cost? It would be horrible to live through.
  - maxglute 1y ago
    > It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism IMO the problem is fertility rate also laughs at everything "liberalism" and wealth has thrown and true authoritarian measures have not been taken. As in every liberal / pro natal policies (Nordics) have failed to raise TFR >2.1, usually settle at 1.7. I think more illustrative is wealthy MENA countries where culture, religion, resources align but those countries are either <2.1 TFR or declining to <2.1 TFR, i.e. if you have all the government subsidies and families regularly hire maids/nannies from ample cheap migrant workforce (something even most wealthy liberal societies don't have ubiquitous access too) then the carrot solution itself is not enough. Stick policies, which only authoritarians or societies in extreme fertility stress can even start to contemplate, would be increased taxation / limited wealth transfers, i.e. if you want to inherit anything from your parents or grandparents (including real estate) you better have at least 2 kids. And in case of east asian societies, ban pets / AI relationships that's been eating at relationship formation. Peak authoritarian methods would be civil service that requires women to start making babies (in conjunction with massive support), state orphanage programs to basically raise new bodies and engineer/manage demographics (i.e. women don't have to keep kids but my spend 1-2 years doing state surrogacy). There's also increasing lifespan, i.e. workforce participation duration, but still hits ultimate limits of needing to replacement TFR. Or again... engineer society to accept immigration.
cyberax 1y ago
The US resisted that for much longer, due to a higher level of suburban population. But it's getting there, now that dense cities are the only places with decent jobs.

51 points by _t9ow 1y ago

Its always amazing to me that South Korea is economically and politically much more successful and in that result it "won" the cold war of the last 50 years with its Northern counterpart. But its population is going to disappear so not much of a victory.

fwsgonzo 1y ago
Yeah, I'm watching people walk around in SK and JP and I really want to visit one day. One day before it's too late. Both countries will evaporate.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  Japan's population was 44 million in 1900, it is 123 million now. South Korea's population was 25 million in 1960, it is 54 million now. We need to stop going over the top with claims of "population collapse". The 20th century to this day was abnormal at historical scale in that human population exploded like never before, and perhaps like never again and probably for the best considering how we have brought the planet to its knees.
  - derektank 1y ago
    South Korea's birth rate is 0.7, which means for every 100 grandparents there will be only 12 grandchildren if things don't change. At the current pace, the South Korean population will be 32 million in 2075 and 11 million in 2125, and most of the people alive will be old. That's nearly as massive a change in the opposite direction as the drop in childhood mortality in the 20th century.
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless. We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population because the explosion that has happened is unsustainable and so are current global population levels. That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment. This does not mean that population should or will collapse to extra low levels...
      - nec4b 1y ago
        >> Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless. Its just math showing the trend and it's not worthless as it should give you something to think about. >> We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population Of course, but it will be painful. >> That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment. That simple math, which you deem worthless also tells you this is impossible. There will be a small number of young active people having to support a big group of elderly. They will not have the time to solve world problems. In fact a lot of knowledge will be lost as economy will contract and there will be less people available for specialization.
        mytailorisrich 1y ago
        It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable. Even with a constant population this will happen if people live long. We need to embrace this and use existing and new technologies to cope. We have AI, automation, robots progressing fast, this is exactly what we need in addition to investing in education. The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
        nec4b 1y ago
        >> It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable. Based on history it hasn't happened. How do you know it's going to? >>The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner. That is absolutely not the only alternative. One would be to have a stable population at the current size. Another on would be decreasing population slowly and not as drastically as it will happen in Korea. A third one would be growing it slowly. The fourth one would be oscillating around the current size, etc.
  - thisislife2 1y ago
    You miss the point - a larger population isn't necessarily good if most of them are not economically productive (i.e. don't have skilled working class). Are people supposed to work even in their old age, till they die?
  - notTooFarGone 1y ago
    Please do the math. We will likely see the collapse of SK. There will be less working people than people in their retirement. We don't know how a society can work that way as it's a first time.
  - general1726 1y ago
    Well the problem is people in retirement, caring only about size of their pension outnumbering working age people and effectively creating positive feedback for populist parties to constantly increase pensions despite the constantly shrinking working population and tax revenue. This system can't work. This system is going to collapse. Just matter of time.
  - UncleMeat 1y ago
    Yeah it is baffling to me that people are already on the "we are doomed" phase for this. 50 years ago people were saying "we are doomed" because of overpopulation. We had people saying that the optimal number of humans on the planet was just one billion and that we had to engage in extreme measures of international oppression to force as much of the unavoidable starvation on certain populations and not others. Now we are seeing "the world is doomed" because of underpopulation (despite the fact that the world population is still growing) and we are starting to see the proposed extreme measures of rolling back women's rights in order to address this.
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  Neither country will evaporate in your lifetime.
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    There are people born today that will see it evaporate.
dijit 1y ago
If you follow much of the USSR, you’d be aware that the nations surrounding Russia were the most heavily invested in, at least those that were front facing. Estonia for example had quite a lot of investment, you’d be surprised what a regime will invest in to ensure that the optics are positive. Not saying that happened here, but it is something that has happened.
- rr808 1y ago
  Sorry which regime? You mean the USA put money into Estonia and SK?
  - dijit 1y ago
    Russia put money into Estonia. USA/EU might be putting money into SK. Both to “prove to the other side” that their ideology is the right one.
    - rr808 1y ago
      OK sorry yes that makes sense. Berlin too both side lavished funds to make them look better.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      The US spends about USD$4.5B per year on US troops and facilities based in South Korea. And funded what looks like ~USD$35B in post-war economic assistance. (Plus other UN funding) For that, South Korea went from being devastated by 2 wars to around the 13th largest economy in the world. Not a bad return. China and Russia were welcome to invest in North Korea...
- manuel_w 1y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. Estonia invested a lot? In what? Military? So the optics are positive?
  - dijit 1y ago
    Estonia was part of the USSR, and the USSR put a lot of money into Estonia to make communism look like it was working. At the expense of other parts of the USSR.
MaxHoppersGhost 1y ago
Same thing is happening to most counties in Europe but they’re “fixing it” with immigrants. But the Germany filled with Germans will be disappearing just as South Korea is.
- jennyholzer 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - antiimbeciles 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - wincy 1y ago
    If a Nazi says the sky is blue is that something we should also reject outright?
    - justonceokay 1y ago
      No but nazis have a way of presenting facts that are only relevant if you are concerned primarily with racial purity. Is Germany’s population growing because of immigrants, or is germanys “heritage” disappearing because of white replacement? If a man is hospitalized because he is having paranoid delusions about his wife cheating on him, he is still sick even if his suspicions are true.
      - dns_snek 1y ago
        This is the opposite of what you probably wanted to say, but if the man's wife is cheating on him then he's not experiencing paranoid delusions, so hospitalizing him and calling him sick would be a form of abusive crazy-making behavior in and of itself.
  - abstractbeliefs 1y ago
    It's a statement of fact, which is neutral on its own. Where it becomes a right wing talking point (or a discussion about the socio-economic future of a country) broadly comes down to how you present the causes, implications, and necessary actions. The fact that many more-developed countries having shrinking native populations is a fact that governments must reckon with in some way, and salting the earth on discussing because one faction is trying to exploit it cedes the ultimate policy decisions to them.
pessimizer 1y ago
South Korean politics is an absolute disaster, there's a non-zero possibility that 30 years from now, long after the Kims, people will be fleeing to the North.
- tpm 1y ago
  I would actually bet in 30 years the Kims will still rule the North.
oezi 1y ago
Even a birth rate as South Korea's does not mean the population will disappear over night. It will shrink. It will mean things will change. Infrastructure will be overprovisioned and housing will be cheap. It will mean other things will be prioritized by politics (such as kindergardens and work life balance). In any case it won't be a catastrophy as life in North Korea.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  A good analogy might be the Black Death: it didn’t destroy Europe, it changed priorities, freed the serfs, started valuing labor more, and ultimately led to a stronger Europe in the future.
  - oezi 1y ago
    If we consider that the world had 1bn people a bit over 100 years ago, it puts many things in perspective. We have generations of time to turn things around if we think it is necessary.
  - tuatoru 1y ago
    No, the Black Death is not a good analogy, because it killed all ages indiscriminately. Our "plague" "kills" the young and productive - by their never being born in the first place. We are headed for something we have never seen, ever: a society dominated by old people in pure numbers terms. The worry is that it is a design for stagnation and decay rather than greater strength. (There won't be money or people to maintain infrastructure because the elders will demand healthcare.) I don't know what will happen and nor does anyone else really.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      It killed all but made people more valuable and, more importantly, valued in general. If kids become more rare, we will probably start treating and nurturing them better. We complain about childcare costs now but if kids are few enough society might just happily take up the bill.

farseer 1y ago

After reaching peak prosperity, both Korea and Japan have decided to evaporate into oblivion. Japan grudgingly allows in a few Filipino and Vietnamese, so there is that.

forinti 1y ago
Both these countries have really high population densities. Japan's is around 330/km2 and South Korea's is about 530/km2. Just like the UK, they would probably be better off with less people, geopolitical considerations aside.
- pyb 1y ago
  Have you been to Korea ? Or even the UK ?
  - forinti 1y ago
    Yes, I lived in the UK for about 5 years.
thisislife2 1y ago
That "peak prosperity" thing is actually capitalism gone awry in my opinion. I'd include India too here - a common pattern that can be seen in all these three Asian countries is the unhealthy work-life balance. Couple that with the world-wide trend that two incomes are now necessary to raise kids in many of these "fast" growing or economically "prosperous" countries, most people are just choosing to have only 1 (or at most 2 kids), and there are some who are also opting not to have any kids. In India, the opposition leader has also lamented that we have already lost advantage of having a younger population because of poor economic planning and policies (by 2030, India will have the world’s largest youth population). Trump won, in large part, because many Americans are now struggling to feel secure with the wages that they earn - they can't afford to buy a house, which many feel is required to start a family. A course correction is required in the world economy, as, while capitalism-consumerism does seem to provide prosperity, it also seems to be consuming societies that adopts it.
1y ago

notorandit 1y ago

[flagged]

throwaway652368 1y ago
As you know, Korea has compulsory military service for men, but not for women. This would be a fantastic place for gender equality activists to make their voice heard and rally for greater gender equality, it's strange that they seem to be unconcerned with this sort of thing.
- lawn 1y ago
  South Korea ranks very low globally on women's rights and equality so it's unfortunately not a surprise.
- vkou 1y ago
  What makes you think that conscription for women isn't being discussed in Korea? 1. Do you have evidence that it isn't? 2. You do realize that Korea is not actually a society with a lot of gender equality (or equality in general, as I'll note in point #4) as-is, right? 3. Which 'gender equality champions' exactly do you expect to be shouting about this so that you will hear about it? Americans and Europeans posting on Reddit and Hacker News? 4. Do you think that the existing problems regarding equality in conscription (with every connected person's sons actively dodging the draft) may be poisoning the well for anyone advocating - or considering advocating - throwing more bodies into that machine?
  - notorandit 1y ago
    I didn't argue about conscription for women. Just stated that soldiers may not be men only.
- s5300 1y ago
  [dead]
- refulgentis 1y ago
  Hmmm...I'm not sure if gender equality advocacy is when you always advocate for complete equality in all things always. There's a side component of the mens right advocacy movement that tries introducing the idea that there's some flaw in woman's rights movements because they're not true gender equality movements: inter alia, famously, lawsuits over ladies nights at bars I think the reason that doesn't carry much attention is because it's intuitive, even without the concept involved, to understand why someone might advocate for equal pay but not for equal conscription. We are but sentient meat.

franczesko 1y ago

We should ask ourselves a question, if the system we're living in is not rewarding having kids, is a good system at all?

socalgal2 1y ago
Personally I think the culture has changed. It's got little to do with costs or insentives or support and everything to do with changing wants/desires. Rather than devote 20+ years of a person's life to kids, most people would rather socialize, party, dance, netflix-and-chill, youtube, tiktok, travel, game, raise a pet, hobbies, etc.... Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns. Some of them have a short term effect but none of them get the numbers up to replacement levels and the numbers keep going down. It's hard to blame it on any one thing. Some might say "suburban car centric culture" but that doesn't explain Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc.... I can't personally imagine the numbers going back up. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman
- noah_buddy 1y ago
  I think the failure in extrapolation is that the numbers will absolutely go back up, eventually. Subcultures that incentivize high birth rates culturally will have more kids, and eventually come to dominate society. If you want to see what culture will look like in a few hundred years, try and figure out what’s common between Mormons, Amish, and Muslims.
- ponector 1y ago
  >> Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns. Those incentives are usually meaningless. Like 100€ monthly cash bonus. Could cover food, but nothing more. A year of child leave is good, but what to do during next 5 years untill you can put kids into the school system? And don't forget massive opportunity costs. Instead of having a single kid, woman can have few more years of advancing in career. Instead of putting all time into one kid, woman can upskill, get a degree, etc. And with second child it's three times harder. Also turns out, many baby boomers are not eager to be present in life of their grandkids. If you pregnant - you are screwed. You and the father-to-be will take a massive hit in every aspect of life.

wrg 1y ago

[flagged]

refulgentis 1y ago
It sounds like you're suggesting woman's rights caused South Korea's military to shrink 20%, and thus it is desirable to not give woman rights, lest it cause men to choose not to join the army, and thus it is desirable to roll back woman having rights, as it could cause men to not join the army and its no biggie anyway, its not in their constitution that woman have rights. Am I reading it right?
- MisterMower 1y ago
  Perhaps not women’s rights, per se, but allowing the culture to portray every possible lifestyle except motherhood as honorable and rewarding definitely caused it. You gotta have mamas to have babies.
  - refulgentis 1y ago
    That's a hell of a motte to a bailey. We're not really saying anything anymore other than making a claim its not-honorable to be a mother in the culture (trivially false)
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    I’d point to cultural issues that persist even now making motherhood unenviable, such as the norm of men taking little to no part in child rearing and house duties. Being expected to raise the children, keep the house clean, keep up with laundry, do the grocery shopping, and keep the family fed among other things all on your own while your partner’s day ends after coming home from his 9-to-5 doesn’t sound very pleasant, and a lot of young adult women (especially in East Asia) saw exactly this play out with their parents so it’s only natural if it’s led them to become avoidant.
  - wrg 1y ago
    It really is women's rights per se. I wrote that fully realising I will get downvoted to oblivion for questioning the status quo/consensus but it's so mind-boggling that I can't stay quiet and it helps that this time they're finally connecting the most vital of dots, military capability.

nis0s 1y ago

Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did. Besides that, at a cultural level personal worth and dignity and safety need to be divorced from monetary net worth as that makes it easier for someone to decide where is a comfortable place for them in their society, and then adjust their time between working and child-rearing. That said, it's also hard to motivate some people to reproduce if there's no greater point to it than some basic primal instinct, which may not be that high in such people. It follows, I guess, that the more educated a populace gets, the less its participants are likely to thoughtlessly reproduce. Tax credits are helpful (said sarcastically).

_t9ow 1y ago
> Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did. Total fertility rates in Scandinavian countries (known for their very generous welfare) are falling as well -- not as catastrophic as South Korea's, but way below replacement rate nonetheless. E.g., Denmark's total fertility rate fell yet again in 2024 to 1.466. (Source: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fertilitet https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer...)
- nis0s 1y ago
  Yes, that's what I was alluding to in my last para. The blue states in the U.S. have relatively lower fertility rates than the red states. The second para is what I think would actually help with falling reproductive rates in such situations, but those conditions need to be met by social safety programs.
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    Ironically, poverty levels are correlated with birth rates. The states with the highest birth rates are concentrated in the South and Midwest; wealthier states with high birth rates, like Texas, Utah, are also more religious. We see this trend internationally too, i.e., Africa vs Europe.

maxglute 1y ago

Shortterm, SKR probably the only country with culture of civil service, loathing for immigration, and enough gender drama for misandrist men to eventually roll out coercive family planning system onto females (that hate them) to force family formation. TBH need someone to attempt very illiberal effort to make babies because every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR > replacement. At this point it should be abundantly clear that short of religion, carrot policies cannot reward their way to 2.1+ TFR. Or I guess embrace immigration.

hax0ron3 1y ago
Russia has been putting a lot of government effort into increasing the fertility rate for years now and it's still below replacement. Granted, the modern Russian government is incompetent in many ways so maybe that is not a good example, but are there any modern examples of specifically authoritarian but not full-on totalitarian policies significantly raising fertility rate? By specifically authoritarian, I mean policies that would not be possible in a liberal system. It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism. Now, full-on totalitarianism could clearly raise fertility rate through draconian measures, but at what cost? It would be horrible to live through.
- maxglute 1y ago
  > It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism IMO the problem is fertility rate also laughs at everything "liberalism" and wealth has thrown and true authoritarian measures have not been taken. As in every liberal / pro natal policies (Nordics) have failed to raise TFR >2.1, usually settle at 1.7. I think more illustrative is wealthy MENA countries where culture, religion, resources align but those countries are either <2.1 TFR or declining to <2.1 TFR, i.e. if you have all the government subsidies and families regularly hire maids/nannies from ample cheap migrant workforce (something even most wealthy liberal societies don't have ubiquitous access too) then the carrot solution itself is not enough. Stick policies, which only authoritarians or societies in extreme fertility stress can even start to contemplate, would be increased taxation / limited wealth transfers, i.e. if you want to inherit anything from your parents or grandparents (including real estate) you better have at least 2 kids. And in case of east asian societies, ban pets / AI relationships that's been eating at relationship formation. Peak authoritarian methods would be civil service that requires women to start making babies (in conjunction with massive support), state orphanage programs to basically raise new bodies and engineer/manage demographics (i.e. women don't have to keep kids but my spend 1-2 years doing state surrogacy). There's also increasing lifespan, i.e. workforce participation duration, but still hits ultimate limits of needing to replacement TFR. Or again... engineer society to accept immigration.

cyberax 1y ago

The US resisted that for much longer, due to a higher level of suburban population. But it's getting there, now that dense cities are the only places with decent jobs.