kurzgesagt: South Korea's demographic issue is killing their country [video]
youtu.be
youtu.be
Domestic policy seems to be hard to fix since it requires a massive cultural shift that may take a generation and requires big changes in the economic structure (income, employment law, child care capacity, etc.) that are going to have push back from corporations.
Immigration is also a bit of a challenge as SK, Japan, and Taiwan are all a bit xenophobic to extents and of course, the languages are not easy to gain proficiency.
I also think that this generation of people just think differently on matters of child rearing and what it means in life. (East Asian elder millennial w/2 kids). Even if money were no issue, I wouldn't want more kids.
Will be an interesting couple of decades.
The TFR in the UK right now for example is ~1.4.
The US is also probably not the best example because it’s a very different situation. Even in the 19th and 18th centuries natural birth rates accounted for about half of the population growth in the US.
The current projection for the UK is that between 2021 and 2036 immigration will account for 92% of the population growth, and based on the previous 2-3 years this might actually be an underestimate.
I'm unsure if immigration is a sustainable solution - immigrants also get old and retire. But perhaps it works out because immigrants have more kids than people that were born here?
I'd recommend Australia, for anyone considering moving, because it has better economics and a wider choice of locales and jobs.
There are so many cultural factors in SK that might take generations to reverse without being "forced" by the government (which is also wary to enforce). Of course, by then its too late per the video.
I always pondered if child baring should be done as a generational leap.
As in how would society look like if people have kids in their 20’s with the grandparents who are in their 40’s being the primary caretakers and rinse and repeat.
Seems that this combines the best outcomes in terms of biology and still being able pursue educational and career goals.
But this is a very major shift from where we are today. It’s going to be far more likely that more and more people will start having children in their late 30’s and even 40’s and 50’s. If we are going that way then freezing sprem and eggs at a young age should be much cheaper than it is now and people should really start considering it.
I see no crisis, only total fertility rates reaching a neutral rate based on women empowered to make the best choice for themselves.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-...
https://www.dw.com/en/why-south-korean-women-arent-having-ba...
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240918-chile-birth-r...
I actually wonder why this isn’t a bigger talking point, we are probably not at the point of no return yet but many countries are getting there and people will be caught by surprise as whilst the effect is delayed human life expectancy isn’t that long and it doesn’t take more than a couple of generations like ours until we are going to be facing a major crisis.
I really don’t know where we went wrong, and I’m not sure it’s purely financial either (tho it is for many), at least from my anecdotal experience.
Where we went wrong? Women not being empowered in the first place. This is the fix, not a problem. This is a success story.
Even if you don’t see shrinking population as a massive problem which it will be, if the TFR remains below ~2.1 humanity won’t be here for much longer.
I’m also not sure how much empowerment anyone will have once we are forced back to living as agrarian subsistence farmers within a few generations.
So I don’t know if you are trolling at this point or not…
The problem is welly explained in the video: the society in East Asia (South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, etc.) is too toxic for the youth and it is too hard for them to live a decent life.
Young people there are constantly competing with others of their generation. Households are unaffordable for the majority of the population, and for the lucky ones, it takes approximately 30 to 50 years to buy one. Traditional culture encourages people to work extremely hard, to the extent that they don't even have time for social activities or to form relationships. Meanwhile, promotion is often difficult because management-level positions are occupied by older individuals.
People are stopping having children not only because they cannot afford it, both financially and in terms of time, but also because they do not want their children to suffer. It is expected that the situation will persist for generations to come.
This seems to pretty much ignore AI and robots which will be able to do all/most of the work way before 2060. Probably before 2040.
Maybe the future is more AI/human uploads and less bio models.
Just like self-driving has revolutionized trucking, even before 2020!
/s
Progress is patchy - you still can't have a robot come round and make coffee but on more abstract stuff like IQ tests they passed 100 last year and recently got 136 https://cryptoslate.com/openais-o3-scores-136-on-mensa-norwa...
Also give the trucks a chance! The first one with no driver in should be going from Dallas to Houston around now https://www.govtech.com/transportation/what-to-know-as-self-...