What does a a nation do in this situation. "I guess we will just disappear from the earth, goodbye!"
Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula.
Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula.
Wouldn’t it be better for a country like the UK to have a population of about 30 million? More space for everyone, self sufficient in food and renewable energy, less pollution and resource depletion, … Why not order society to maximise average quality of life instead of GDP?
As a counterexample, an skilled American white collar worker who earns about 200k per year could buy about ten thousand avocado's per month. But does the skilled, say, programmer do more "work" than multiple Avocado farmers? So, economic output is not a result of work done, it's a matter of value created (US industry creates lots of value) and how much of that is captured.
So on the one hand, a shrinking population might reduce purchasing power by producing less work. On the other hand, as long as the value of the produced work increases, the implosion might not be so bad.
how can a country such as South Korea, when it gets to over 50% retirement-age people, produce "high value", let alone "increasing value"? who will be taking care of their health and doing physical labor?
> long as the value of the produced work increases
Assuming that this is only a problem for "high-value" societies is incorrect - Indonesia, for example, while still not as bad, is almost below replacement rate, so who is going to take care of 273 million non-high-value people there once they get old?
The problem is a falling population exacerbates those stresses. The economy crunches, anti-immigrant and right-wing forces gain power; the older population won’t vote to nix their benefits in favour of younger people, so either the system veers towards collapse or someone takes away their votes.
I don’t think it’s a general rule. But the countries in a demographic bind are in one because they’re not getting immigrants. So as the vice tightens, we see those preëxisting tendencies amplified. This is more observational than prescriptive, mine you.
Right wing anti-immigration parties sell an enemy (immigrants) as cause of all problems (they are stealing all our jobs!). In addition they sell tax breaks which also sound very appealing to people that struggle to get by on their current income. Of course all history shows that these "solutions" are lies, but history tend to repeat itself. The problem in a democracy is that the solutions that political parties present does not always have to be grounded in reality to be popular. Especially in these modern times with disinformation and conspiratorial thinking running rampant online (it's all Soros fault!).
Why? Because they are the "bad" ones?
Living in a brand new mall is not what humans strive for : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
> Bizarre that North Korea would be the only Koreans left on the peninsula.
It is indeed. They seem to be doing slightly better by the numbers but not looking too promising either.
Plus, declining population doesn’t inherently provide a big dramatic marker to put in the history books like a natural disaster or battle.