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> The highest density countries like Korea and Japan have some of the lowest fertility rates.

I'm going to doubt that's because of density. That's entirely because of toxic aspects of the cultures (especially work and education culture) that make it near impossible to have and raise a child for the first few years of their life.

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Generally speaking, birth rate declines happen because people have more things to do than have children. That's why all rich countries experience them and noone has been able to reverse them. (Japan actually has slightly reversed theirs. Korea hasn't because Korean men are awful misogynists no women want to associate with.)

There are high density countries with high birth rates though; they're either very religious (Israel) or very poor (Africa).

The same effect can be observed in animals and one theory is that it's a stress reaction to densely populated environments.

https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/162/11/bqab154/6354390

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