That's where the the economic pressure (which societies seem to want, lest people become 'lazy') pushes the next generation. When that's what you incentivize, that's what you get - not just in Korea but all over the modern world.
A shrinking population is terrible as there are less and less people to support existing institutions like social services, infrastructure, healthcare, etc.
A very simple example is social security. It is a net wealth transfer from working age people to retirement age people.
If there's not enough working age people then there is not enough to support the retirement age people.
If 1 person (augmented with AI) can be 5x productive then you can easily support aging population.
At the end of the day, population needs goods and services (not money) to improve their standard of living.
- Smaller population will need less infrastructure
- They don't plan to support the old
- Pension plans were fit for 20th century, esp. post-WW2, but they can't work anymore
Plot twist: They're going to become the old. They don't seem to have that as part of their calculation...
However even if they have many children it doesn't help them if everybody else doesn't.
Demographically you’re in a world of trouble still, but then having children is actually far more important if society and its safety nets are collapsing.
Japan has had these demographics for a while now but it doesn't seem like they are falling apart. Someone will say-- oh but there economy isn't growing! Better a stagnant economy than a famine or a plague.
Every 40 years, the population halves. As each pair of parents retire, their one child enters the workforce, and their labour is used to cover their parents’ pensions — taxes for state pension, and whatever share of the wealth they generate that ends up as corporate profit for private pension.
I don’t know about South Korea, or indeed the statistics of the incidence rate and duration, but from experience I know that late-stage dementia care in the UK costs about twice the average UK earner’s headline salary. I think this may at least show the way it could go wrong, given this is all just an illustration.
The problem with population decline is that most countries are built around the naive assumption of perpetual growth, especially when it comes to social security and welfare systems. Of course most of this can easily be fixed by raising taxes but that would fly in the face of the general trend to give tax breaks to higher incomes, abolish wealth taxes and prefer flat tax rates over progressive ones to prevent "wealth flight".
That kind of research is based on the assumption that the social/cultural trends encouraging people to have less kids continue unabated.
Humans often overcompensate. It is conceivable that a country's population may decline to the point that the threat that poses to its future becomes impossible to ignore – the threat may motivate the general population to change their behaviour, and may lead to the government introducing major incentives to encourage more children. That may lead to the population decline being reversed; but, it may then be difficult to "turn off the tap" of the new culture/policies to stop the population booming again.
There are also countercultural minorities (mostly ultra-conservative religious sects) who stubbornly continue to have lots of kids in spite of the social/cultural forces which discourage mainstream society from doing so. That kind of analysis generally ignores those minorities, because they are so small – true, but if they don't change their ways, eventually they will grow to become the majority, and then we'll be back to population boom again.
Will they eventually change their ways? That is possible, not inevitable. Many of them have been successfully resisting pressure to change their ways for decades; if they haven't succumbed to that pressure yet, why assume it is inevitable that they eventually will? If one considers that there are multiple such countercultural minorities, even if some of them do end up changing course, all it takes is for one to stubbornly resist doing so, for it to eventually become the demographic majority.
Only much worse because the trend is increasing on both sides - old people being kept alive with expensive treatments, dropping population of working people.
In 1990, CO2 emissions equated CO2 absorption by trees. All the goals about CO2 are about coming back to 1990 levels (minus the surplus). So 1990 levels of population is what we should aim for. If a country depopulates, let’s not increase births.
So (1) there are fewer and fewer decent jobs, and (2) once you fall off the "correct career path" for any reason, there's no way to get back, or at least that's the universal perception. So everybody fights tooth and nail to keep whatever they already have, which further distorts the market, and the cycle continues.
Disclaimer: have been living in the US since 2011, so my understanding is from reading news and stuff.
I remember once visiting the head office in Seoul of a major South Korean firm – they had a rather large development team working on some rather quotidian internal corporate needs (identity management, corporate intranet/portal, etc). And yet, they were being subjected to the kind of limitations one would expect only on some classified national security project – e.g. Internet access blocked so they couldn't access StackOverflow/etc, personal electronic devices had to be put in lockers at the building security desk, etc. The restrictions were very obviously impeding their productivity. It appeared that the company's management was very paranoid about corporate espionage, to a degree which seemed out of place given the actual business this company did.
A Korean colleague told me that a lot of South Korean companies were like that. His theory was that senior management at many firms is dominated by retired military officers, who take from their military background a culture of secrecy which may well be justified in the military, defence contractors, super-high-tech firms such as leading-node semiconductor fabrication, etc–but isn't appropriate for your average business, and this particular firm wasn't doing anything like that. What do I know, but his theory seemed plausible to me.
I wonder what the % of people currently in a long-term relationship looks like. Those also don't tend to do well under economic duress.
> due to low income, lack of savings, job insecurity, weak familial ties, etc
Almost every couple I know who is not having kids makes good $$. It's my friends who make less and are more working class (and work longer hours at that) are the ones having kids. So that sounds like the opposite of what you're suggesting.
Those you see making good money, if they intend to have kids, are probably holding off until they feel they're ready (I'm in this group myself). Couples who aren't earning much might feel that someday may never come and have kids since they're going to be somewhat financially stressed either way, plus some in that group have kids as a way to add some meaning and motivation to keep on with the everyday grind.
That said, the answer to population problems clearly not to make more people impoverished, but rather to bring the bar of "ready of kids" down to a level that's accessible by more people more quickly.
We had our first when I was 25 and then seeing all our peers wait until 35+ health wise you're going to cope better when you're younger. Plus you get that much longer when them in your life, and more time being able to play competitive sports with them.
But kids are expensive you say? Well they can be, but only if you spend money on them, and most of that spending is school years anyway so you still have time to figure out out.
Not everything is about current income. Sure, they make good money but are they able to cut hours to spend more time at home with an infant or toddler? Can one of them take a few years off work and still have their career recover from that? Will they be able to maintain their lifestyle if they have to pay for another human being? There are a lot more considerations than raw money and a higher income doesn't help with that unless you can also build up considerable savings or have a strong support network. It takes a village, and all that.
So yes I think people who earn more have better job security and ability to support a spouse during mat leave. I also live in Canada with liberal mat leave laws so that's not an issue.
If anything the biggest pressure on my wealthy urban friends vs working class suburban/small town people is a) cost of housing and b) lack of savings.
But OP said "a competitive and maximally efficient society" dissuades kids.
First, a competitive economy should generate plenty of housing for people with the $$ to pay for it.
Secondly, an efficient economy should provide plenty of ways to save/invest beyond just housing. The public stock market is highly exclusive and controlled. The primary other way (besides housing/stocks) is investing in or starting a small business. New small business rates have declined in recent years. Housing is the only game in town for most people and what politicians spend 90% of focus on incentivizing in capital markets + culturally, but keep supply artificially limited.
So if anything regressive policies which prevent competition/efficiency leads to less kids.
In modern secular society, elites use their power to define a vision of a good life that reflects their own life, but is unattainable for the average person: living comfortably in a big, interesting city, having an interesting or impactful or glamorous professional job, being a famous performer or fame-adjacent, etc.
How about change it to forever? Has there ever been a time where everyone is equal? I have NEVER seen that happen in practice, just like the communists' so called 'equality'. Let's put it in this way, I have never seen 'All animals are equal'. I have only seen 'but some animals are more equal than others'. You should read Animal Farm.
I am only asking one question. Has there been a time in history where there are really no elites group in the religious groups and everyone is equal? When did that happen? It's such a hypocrisy that all the religions have a good idea that we should have a god above men so that we don't worship human as god, but in the end it never translated to the practice isn't it?
Money doesn't buy happiness. Having a family successfully contributes a great deal to happiness.
You can verify this for yourself. Go to an old folks home. Ask them about their lives. See how many don't bring up their children. Or mention them with regret. Look into their eyes as they speak of them.
In my experience everyone wears their children like badges of honor and any regrets are about not doing enough for them or having their priorities not family oriented enough.
This is the perspective of the oldest among us with the longest time here to contemplate what they find most important.
Yes, we preach it, have preached it. This doesn't make it any less true, because it is true. Your being given the keys to life and your appear to want to question.
Today's poor people are richer than rich people way back when those old folks were raising children.
I've been quite poor and with children. I'm intimately familiar with the pain of being poor. Speaking from my experience, in 20 years your poorness won't matter, but your children, if any, will.
Waiting for perfection before having children is like never shipping because there are flaws in the code. Sure, you try not to ship crap but it still must go out as best as you can manage.
I assure you that just hoping the poorness goes away after 20 years doesn't magically result in it happening, nor does time effortlessly unwind the trauma or mend the damage done by generations of people who were ill prepared to take care of children.
The families of the earth do need improvement. That starts with individual choices to be better, do better. However, you are disgusted at the wrong thing. Having children isn't the issue. Being bad to then is. And money isn't the fulcrum you make it out to be.
> Perhaps these old people's regrets about not doing enough for their children are because they didn't prepare properly to actually have children.
Generally it was along the lines that they regret their unnecessary selfish pursuits over family time. Working more for a nice car or boat, an example.
> assure you that just hoping the poorness goes away after 20 years doesn't magically result in it happening,
That isn't really my argument now is it. And this isn't the only time in your response where you do this. Makes a conversation kind of pointless when you just put whatever words and points in my mouth you feel like and ignore the main points.
> nor does time effortlessly unwind the trauma or mend the damage done by generations of people who were ill prepared to take care of children.
Your life has challenges. Most do. You are human like the rest of us. Stop blaming your forebears, even if they have some fault, and rise to the occasion.
You do not get to choose your parents. Your parents should choose a good time & place to have children & not cave to pressure from foolish people waxing poetic about finding meaning by living through their children.
I absolutely will blame my abusers, and I will blame their abusers too. I don't see how "earth families" will improve without accountability. We certainly don't need people telling victims to stop asking for it.
I agree that stress about this eventuality is the root of a lot of mental health issues. But I would say the problem is actually that recent generations have been socialized into thinking that the average person can expect any more than that. A blessing Indians and Chinese have is being free of that socialization.
In societies, having many kids is seen as a sign of success; ideally not just the number but also their prosperity.
In other societies, personal consumption and personal display of wealth and influence prevail; likely it's the case of the urbanized part of the SK society.
For obvious natural reasons, the trait of not having kids is self-eliminating. Those who don't care that their culture will end with them will be outnumbered and eventually replaced by those who do.
I almost think you have it entirely backwards. In a society where competition and choice is so severely limited you see people adopt these strategies because there is far less room to make a mistake or to engage with economically sub optimal decisions like having a child.
I think you're seeing this effect creep into the US as well, as we've allowed more mergers and acquisitions financed by cheap interest from the Fed that people are effectively feeling this same squeeze here. Plus, I don't think people are at all effectively factoring in the consequences of the lock downs and crash of small businesses that were associated with it.
This is a government monopoly problem, not a lazy population problem.