South Korea set a new record for the world’s lowest fertility rate as the impact of the nation’s aging demographics looms large for its medical system, social welfare provision and economic growth.
The number of babies expected per woman fell to 0.72 last year from 0.78 in 2022, according to data by South Korea’s national statistics office. The number of newborns also slid by 7.7% to 230,000, setting a fresh low for comparable data in a nation of about 50 million people.
“Shatter” is such a strong word these days, according to the press. I prefer “plummet,” myself.
And now the doctors are protesting because the government wants to add more doctors quickly.
Someone I know made a completely pragmatic (but perhaps ethically dubious) decision to get themselves a Korean wife because they are (he says) submissive, happy to do all the domestic chores, treat their husband like a king etc. Seems to be working for him so far.
Not surprising to see the article saying that this is a key reason Korean women don’t want to marry and have children.
Only one out of 10 children born is from a low-income family.
When the government is proposing a [69 hour](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korea-69-hour-workweek-rcna75854) work week, why would anyone want to have kids. The proposal was fortunately rejected, but it seems like South Korean government doesn’t even want to fix the country’s work culture.
Maybe raising workweek hours EVEN MORE will finally stop he drop!
Kids are in school, activities, or hagwon from 8-8. That’s far too much stress and not enough time to be a kid.
Best korea
I still think population decline isn’t going to be a big deal with AI and robots set to take over most labor in the near future.
In the old days, people have a strong financial incentive to have kids because they can help work in the farms when they are elementary-school aged and can take care of you when you get old. People didn’t move very far back then, and the cost of raising a child is really just the food that they need to eat to make sure they can grow.
Now, children cannot really make money for their parents meaningfully until they graduate high school (and in many places, you become an adult around the same time you graduate from high school). But then, in highly developed countries like South Korea, the information age means that you need to have a bachelor’s degree to be able to do anything. The cost of raising a child would then include substantial amounts of educational expenses (in the form of private tutoring, etc…) When they grow up, they may not have the capacity to care for you either. There is an extremely strong financial disincentive for having children because this spending when they are young guarantees that you will be stuck in poverty forever.
I am a Chinese-Canadian who was born in violation of the infamous one-child policy in China (i.e. I have an older sister). The majority of Chinese people my age don’t have siblings, and I would venture to guess that the majority of them want to have at most 1 child, if they want any at all. Terms like “sibling”, “cousin”, “aunt”, “uncle”, “niece”, “nephew” disappear from common vocabulary and a child will grow up knowing only mom, dad, 4 grandparents and maybe some great grandparents if they happen to have a long life. My grandparents had anywhere from 2 to 7 siblings, my mom and dad are each one of 3 siblings, my 3 uncles and 1 aunt each only has 1 child. 1 of my first cousins has only 1 child, another has 2 (and I don’t know about the other 2 cousins because I have not seen them for 16 years). My sister has 1 and I don’t plan on having any.
I wonder if anyone has projected a theoretical minimum birth rate. I know that the birth rate could reach 0, but usually that’s accompanied by mass exodus from a country and/or disastrous conditions and mass death. But is there a point where the conditions causing people to choose to not have kids finally collides with the human instinct to bone down and have babies. I feel like South Korea is on its way to finding that number and it’s going to be a crazy time for the country when the long lasting repercussions of a shrinking population start to set in.
Cause it’s not about money. This is what happens when you have a very patriarchal society trying to control fertility.
China is.no different. It’s the absurd social pressure and toxic work culture combined with a greater awareness and sense of individual aspirations for women. Not something that can be fixed by throwing billions of dollars at the problem.
Kim is waiting for south to implode in its own
Shooting Blanks?
Another interesting statistic is that 54.5% of all children born last year in SK are from an upper-class family. (househlods that earn more than 200% median income)
The cost of raising a child is too high in SK. The middle class just cannot afford to have one.
All the kids in SK nowadays are treated like royals, getting private education that costs a fortune starting from elementary school. Not getting one means your kid’s grades will be at the bottom of the class 😒
This is what every country needs. We’re destroying this planet.
We’ll adapt.
How open up your borders and let us come and have some South Korean babies.
Now if only China and India could beat it
Isn’t it more important for SK to focus on population than capitalism since it’s a security concern?
The beginning of 시녀 이야기 …
Keep this anti-feminism trend, it will definitely help.
Same for 69hr workweek.
will these old people that run countries ever understand you can’t force people to live a happy life and reproduce while you exploit them beyond any limits and leave no time for actual life – it’s not the 1800s anymore, people know they can choose.
It’s not about biologically fertile, they just ain’t banging
Some of the problems can be fixed by immigration, like Germany and other European countries does. But south Korean and Japan will not let other people integrate into their society.
I can assure you mother nature is high giving itself over this news
We need more profit!
But you’re killing us!
Doesn’t matter more profits!
Whats the use if we’re all dead?
But you have profit…
Some of the sexiest women. Unfortunate.
See, what i dont understand is: Why was it sufficient up to the 70’s- 90’s to have only one Partner in the household working to feed a familly? Now people struggle even when both are working? We have better automation and technoligical advancements, yet quality of life is worsening.
I know statistics say higher QOL countries have declining birth rates but as a parent to be let me tell you it is dreadfull to pop a child out, have kindergardeners see it more than u do, have higher expenses and still struggle with household and care taking. We need the fing time and money to raise them.
Beeing a parent means you step towards poverty, unless you already are on social wellfare. It’s genocide of the middleclass.
Bazinga!
Many developed Asian countries are around the birth rate of Korea. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc are all around the 0.7-0.9 range. China and Thailand, despite being less developed still, are at 1.02 and 1.06 respectively. Thailand looks to have stabilized while China has continued to plummet.
Japan is surprisingly the highest among developed Asian countries at 1.21 in 2023. Similar rate of many developed European countries.
And most of developed Europe in 2023 has fallen to around the birth rate Korea was at in 2015 (~1.24).
There is a very significant chance Korea is just ahead of the curve by a year or two in the case of developed Asian countries sans Japan, and a few years in the case of developed Western countries.
People used to have kids back in the day because they could economically contribute to the household by working on the farm. If you want to incentivise people to have more children, you’ll have to lower the age at which they can start working.
Koreas answer to this issue is to make working life shittier and immigration more restrictive. Expect the population to soar like an eagle soon!
Alarming indeed when you find out what demographics DO have high birth rates.
That’s great, I hope humanity will half
But what about kpop?
Either the Boy Band industry becomes the Man Band industry or the groups are gonna get way smaller.
37 comments
From Bloomberg reporter Sam Kim:
South Korea set a new record for the world’s lowest fertility rate as the impact of the nation’s aging demographics looms large for its medical system, social welfare provision and economic growth.
The number of babies expected per woman fell to 0.72 last year from 0.78 in 2022, according to data by South Korea’s national statistics office. The number of newborns also slid by 7.7% to 230,000, setting a fresh low for comparable data in a nation of about 50 million people.
“Shatter” is such a strong word these days, according to the press. I prefer “plummet,” myself.
And now the doctors are protesting because the government wants to add more doctors quickly.
Someone I know made a completely pragmatic (but perhaps ethically dubious) decision to get themselves a Korean wife because they are (he says) submissive, happy to do all the domestic chores, treat their husband like a king etc. Seems to be working for him so far.
Not surprising to see the article saying that this is a key reason Korean women don’t want to marry and have children.
Only one out of 10 children born is from a low-income family.
When the government is proposing a [69 hour](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korea-69-hour-workweek-rcna75854) work week, why would anyone want to have kids. The proposal was fortunately rejected, but it seems like South Korean government doesn’t even want to fix the country’s work culture.
Maybe raising workweek hours EVEN MORE will finally stop he drop!
Kids are in school, activities, or hagwon from 8-8. That’s far too much stress and not enough time to be a kid.
Best korea
I still think population decline isn’t going to be a big deal with AI and robots set to take over most labor in the near future.
In the old days, people have a strong financial incentive to have kids because they can help work in the farms when they are elementary-school aged and can take care of you when you get old. People didn’t move very far back then, and the cost of raising a child is really just the food that they need to eat to make sure they can grow.
Now, children cannot really make money for their parents meaningfully until they graduate high school (and in many places, you become an adult around the same time you graduate from high school). But then, in highly developed countries like South Korea, the information age means that you need to have a bachelor’s degree to be able to do anything. The cost of raising a child would then include substantial amounts of educational expenses (in the form of private tutoring, etc…) When they grow up, they may not have the capacity to care for you either. There is an extremely strong financial disincentive for having children because this spending when they are young guarantees that you will be stuck in poverty forever.
I am a Chinese-Canadian who was born in violation of the infamous one-child policy in China (i.e. I have an older sister). The majority of Chinese people my age don’t have siblings, and I would venture to guess that the majority of them want to have at most 1 child, if they want any at all. Terms like “sibling”, “cousin”, “aunt”, “uncle”, “niece”, “nephew” disappear from common vocabulary and a child will grow up knowing only mom, dad, 4 grandparents and maybe some great grandparents if they happen to have a long life. My grandparents had anywhere from 2 to 7 siblings, my mom and dad are each one of 3 siblings, my 3 uncles and 1 aunt each only has 1 child. 1 of my first cousins has only 1 child, another has 2 (and I don’t know about the other 2 cousins because I have not seen them for 16 years). My sister has 1 and I don’t plan on having any.
I wonder if anyone has projected a theoretical minimum birth rate. I know that the birth rate could reach 0, but usually that’s accompanied by mass exodus from a country and/or disastrous conditions and mass death. But is there a point where the conditions causing people to choose to not have kids finally collides with the human instinct to bone down and have babies. I feel like South Korea is on its way to finding that number and it’s going to be a crazy time for the country when the long lasting repercussions of a shrinking population start to set in.
Cause it’s not about money. This is what happens when you have a very patriarchal society trying to control fertility.
China is.no different. It’s the absurd social pressure and toxic work culture combined with a greater awareness and sense of individual aspirations for women. Not something that can be fixed by throwing billions of dollars at the problem.
Kim is waiting for south to implode in its own
Shooting Blanks?
Another interesting statistic is that 54.5% of all children born last year in SK are from an upper-class family. (househlods that earn more than 200% median income)
The cost of raising a child is too high in SK. The middle class just cannot afford to have one.
All the kids in SK nowadays are treated like royals, getting private education that costs a fortune starting from elementary school. Not getting one means your kid’s grades will be at the bottom of the class 😒
source: (in korean) https://n.news.naver.com/article/001/0014520072?cds=news_edit
# #1
대한(恨)민국
This is what every country needs. We’re destroying this planet.
We’ll adapt.
How open up your borders and let us come and have some South Korean babies.
Now if only China and India could beat it
Isn’t it more important for SK to focus on population than capitalism since it’s a security concern?
The beginning of 시녀 이야기 …
Keep this anti-feminism trend, it will definitely help.
Same for 69hr workweek.
will these old people that run countries ever understand you can’t force people to live a happy life and reproduce while you exploit them beyond any limits and leave no time for actual life – it’s not the 1800s anymore, people know they can choose.
It’s not about biologically fertile, they just ain’t banging
Some of the problems can be fixed by immigration, like Germany and other European countries does. But south Korean and Japan will not let other people integrate into their society.
I can assure you mother nature is high giving itself over this news
We need more profit!
But you’re killing us!
Doesn’t matter more profits!
Whats the use if we’re all dead?
But you have profit…
Some of the sexiest women. Unfortunate.
See, what i dont understand is: Why was it sufficient up to the 70’s- 90’s to have only one Partner in the household working to feed a familly? Now people struggle even when both are working? We have better automation and technoligical advancements, yet quality of life is worsening.
I know statistics say higher QOL countries have declining birth rates but as a parent to be let me tell you it is dreadfull to pop a child out, have kindergardeners see it more than u do, have higher expenses and still struggle with household and care taking. We need the fing time and money to raise them.
Beeing a parent means you step towards poverty, unless you already are on social wellfare. It’s genocide of the middleclass.
Bazinga!
Many developed Asian countries are around the birth rate of Korea. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc are all around the 0.7-0.9 range. China and Thailand, despite being less developed still, are at 1.02 and 1.06 respectively. Thailand looks to have stabilized while China has continued to plummet.
Japan is surprisingly the highest among developed Asian countries at 1.21 in 2023. Similar rate of many developed European countries.
And most of developed Europe in 2023 has fallen to around the birth rate Korea was at in 2015 (~1.24).
There is a very significant chance Korea is just ahead of the curve by a year or two in the case of developed Asian countries sans Japan, and a few years in the case of developed Western countries.
[https://twitter.com/BirthGauge/status/1754259151537012784/photo/1](https://twitter.com/BirthGauge/status/1754259151537012784/photo/1)
People used to have kids back in the day because they could economically contribute to the household by working on the farm. If you want to incentivise people to have more children, you’ll have to lower the age at which they can start working.
Koreas answer to this issue is to make working life shittier and immigration more restrictive. Expect the population to soar like an eagle soon!
Alarming indeed when you find out what demographics DO have high birth rates.
That’s great, I hope humanity will half
But what about kpop?
Either the Boy Band industry becomes the Man Band industry or the groups are gonna get way smaller.