Fertility rate drops below 1 in South Korea in 2018, lowest in the world.

[kmfdmpig]

Well North Korea still has around 2 fertility rate lol. Of course this is more due that poorer countries in general have higher birth rates.

Age pyramid of North Korea as of 2016:

Age Pyramid of South Korea as of 2016:

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It's odd how so many of the large Asian countries have this impending demographic issue. China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand all have this problem. North Korea, Indonesia and the Phillipines do not. Given how significant an impact this can have on the success of nations I think we'll see a bit of a shift (slow and gradual as it may be) of power toward those with more sustainable population levels and away from those that are going to collectively grow old while seeing a population decline.

 

[CrocM]

Do you guys think people with kids don't watch porn?

 

[Timbuktu]

It's odd how so many of the large Asian countries have this impending demographic issue. China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand all have this problem. North Korea, Indonesia and the Phillipines do not. Given how significant an impact this can have on the success of nations I think we'll see a bit of a shift (slow and gradual as it may be) of power toward those with more sustainable population levels and away from those that are going to collectively grow old while seeing a population decline.

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The low brith rate is an indication of development though.

 

[kmfdmpig]

The low brith rate is an indication of development though.

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In general - yes. If it's way askew, as it is with those countries, however, it leads to problems. An aging population without enough young people to support them is a recipe for disaster, and it's certainly something that the Japanese government is taking seriously. Looking at developed European countries, the US, Canada, etc... the age pyramids are much much healthier than those in S. Korea, Japan, China or Thailand. I suspect that much of that is due to immigration, but expecting those countries to suddenly flip a switch and introduce meaningful enough immigration changes seems too optimistic, IMO.

 

[Dingens]

What do you expect from a country embracing neoliberal capitalism like there's no tomorow

 

[KillerMan91]

It's odd how so many of the large Asian countries have this impending demographic issue. China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand all have this problem. North Korea, Indonesia and the Phillipines do not. Given how significant an impact this can have on the success of nations I think we'll see a bit of a shift (slow and gradual as it may be) of power toward those with more sustainable population levels and away from those that are going to collectively grow old while seeing a population decline.

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Well it's not that different in some parts of Europe.

Spain:

Germany:

Italy:

And this is with large amount of immigration. Especially with Germany. Germany has had more deaths than births since 1970s.

 

[Deleted member 2802]

Porn is largely banned in Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Asia#South_Korea

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It's illegal to make porn, but if you think kids don't watch porn rofl

Did you even read the wiki that you quoted?

In 2012 the Ministry of Public Administration and Security released statistics that cited 39.5% of South Korean children having experienced watching online pornography, with 14.2% of those who have viewed online pornography reportedly "wanting to imitate" it

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Pornographic websites, books, writings, films, magazines, photographs or other materials of a pornographic nature are illegal in South Korea, although the law is not regularly enforced

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[entremet]

Do you guys think people with kids don't watch porn?

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It's a very silly thesis honestly. I think it's just trolling at this point.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Porn is largely banned in Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Asia#South_Korea

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[AoM]

That's every developed country, including the US. Population growth in Western nations is driven by immigration.

Demographers have know this for ages, yet people continue to pervade the overpopulation scare, which is not really quantifiable and the science is incredibly iffy. Consumption is a bigger issue than population troubles.

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Watched this video recently.

 

[samoyed]

They have the same "problems" as their neighbors, and much of the developed world.

I don't think it's strictly a bad thing but when you factor in anti-immigration policies, you wind up with a shrinking tax base and an aging populace. Most developed countries in the west offset their <2 fertility rate with immigration but not for SK or JP, which is why they feel the effects the most.

 

[Terrell]

I'm mostly fine with lower birth rates, so long as it doesn't negatively effect quality of life. But the fact is that our whole social structure demands more people and that's unsustainable.

 

[morningbus]

Blame porn

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I can't seem to find this fetish on clips4sale.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Blame porn

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i blame kpop

 

[Mivey]

This wouldnt have happened if they had embraced the juche idea

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Wrong Korea. Oh wait, thought there was a negation there.
Well, I don't think the South or North had much choice there, as their ideologies were really decided for them by the Chinese/Soviets on one side, and the Americans on the other side.

 

[StrayDog]

Does S.Korea also share Japan's terrible immigration policies, oppressively sexist workplace policies for mothers and general lack of social support for childcare?

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western media has boner to single out Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

The fucking planet population is 7.5 billion. Why people want more people in this fucking planet?

 

[Neo C.]

South Korea treats the youth terribly. A friend of mine told me that for a small apartment, she had to put a deposit of around € 25k, which is crazy from our perspective.
And as others said before, young Koreans always dream about going and working abroad.

 

[BocoDragon]

Sign of development, education and affluence.

There is no actual "problem" with the society not having kids, here except for the economy. Obviously they should try to mitigate it for the economy's sake, but it's not like there's some societal ill causing this. Rich educated people tend not to have lots of kids, and that's fine.

 

[demosthenes]

That is pretty alarming, they are looking at a massive population collapse in 30 years

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Japan is going to lose 50+ million people in the next 45 years.

 

[OgTheEnigma]

Hopefully it's a sign of things to come for all countries. Our long term prospects would be a lot better if the total human population was only a few hundred million. 7.5 billion and rising is absurd.

 

[Ether_Snake]

The falling birth rates is in line with technological progress. Less people will be needed, so better to have lower birth rates, higher quality of life. Technological development allows to do more with less, the outcome will be that individual humans will have a higher standard of living if population count falls to an optimal level. We'll simply individually benefit from a greater ROI on our contribution to global and/or local productivity.

 

[demosthenes]

Also, I bet Korea is regretting exporting 200k babies in the 80s and treating single mothers like shit for so long.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

At this rate Korean reunification is going to be easy since there won't be any South Korean left

 

[Sanka]

That's horrible though it's nothing new for most developed countries, the US is the exception. Most hover around a rate of 1.5, though the nordic countries and france managed to stay relativley high. We need a drastic change in the way we look at work and family planning.
Longer parental leaves, better child care options, financial child support, more men taking leaves, people who do leave not fearing negative repercussions to their career, paid vacations, etc. As more women enter the workforce we need to find ways for them to have a successful career, while also having the ability to have children.

There is a lot of work needing to be done.

 

[kmfdmpig]

western media has boner to single out Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

The fucking planet population is 7.5 billion. Why people want more people in this fucking planet?

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I don't think people are worrying that the world's population will shrink or would be worried if a country had a slow/steady/stable decline. The problem is that when you have an aging population and few young people then it's very difficult to sustain adequate levels of support for the elderly. In Japan that's becoming a significant issue and in China in 10-20 years it will be as well.

 

[Deleted member 283]

The falling birth rates is in line with technological progress. Less people will be needed, so better to have lower birth rates, higher quality of life. Technological development allows to do more with less, the outcome will be that individual humans will have a higher standard of living if population count falls to an optimal level. We'll simply individually benefit from a greater ROI on our contribution to global and/or local productivity.

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Well this is all a hot load of nonsense since it's certainly not the workers themselves seeing these quality of life increases, especially since a good part of the reason for these low fertility rates in countries like Japan and South Korea stem from unhealthy work-life balance (and even before that crazy expectations on students to test into good schools and so spend all their time studying).

For all this talk of productivity, workers sure aren't seeing the benefits of it considering they're expected to work just as many if not more hours than ever. All technology really has done is change expectations on how productive people are expected to be, how much work they're expected to get accomplished.

It's all good to talk about how theoretically this could lead to less people being needed, a UBI being put in place, etc, but nothing about the history of technological advancement indicates that, nor does it have anything to do with the topic of why countries like South Korea have particularly low birth rates even among developed countries (if anything they serve as a counterpoint), so I don't know what you're talking about here, at all.

 

[samoyed]

For all this talk of productivity, workers sure aren't seeing the benefits of it considering they're expected to work just as many if not more hours than ever. All technology really has done is change expectations on how productive people are expected to be, how much work they're expected to get accomplished.

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Mhm.

Say a new technology comes out that makes you twice as productive at your job. Do you then have to work half the time? No. In modern capitalist economies, especially for overwork cultures like those found in East Asia, you're pushed to output twice the amount of work over the same timeframe, and then a few more hours of work in overtime, paid only if you're lucky.

 

[Dabanton]

I know a ton of Korean women aged between 25 - 40 who have gotten PR here in Canada.

As they don't want to live in Korea again.