Also in several counties and cities, and some parts of Busan and Seoul the fertility rates have reached 0.30 children per woman (And still falling quickly nationwide). How bad and severe this is for SK?
In: Other
It’s pretty bad. This should be Korea’s biggest issue. I have 8 cousins. 6 have disavowed marriage and children completely (5 woman and 1 guy)… Everyone needs to let up.
It will lead to the majority of the population being old. This will mean that the government will have to pay more and more money for their pensions and this means that they will either have to: increase taxes, increase the retirement age. The lack of people in their prime working age in SK will mean that there will only be a few people who are actually fit enough to do particular jobs safely (manual labour).
Basically it means that SK’s economy will decrease and it will need immigration to keep their country alive. (this may not be completely accurate as it is just what I know)
Very bad. Humans are capital in the form of labour, so losing the resupply is a detriment to the national economy. It’s made worse by the fact that the retirement of elderly people is partially or entirely paid by payroll taxes on the income of younger people, so you need enough young people to finance pensions or the whole system falls apart.
We don’t really know, because this has never happened before in human history.
The most urgent problem is the aging population: it doesn’t make much sense to have a whole country where almost everyone is retired and there are very few young people. Someone has to do all the work.
How might a country cope with that?
* They could make young people work eighty hours a week to get more done, but that doesn’t seem like a long term solution, and isn’t going to help the birth rate increase.
* They could make it impossible for anyone to retire – no pensions, work until you drop. Not easy; there are some jobs that are best done by younger people.
* They could bring in workers from other countries- right now South Korea isn’t very immigrant-friendly so this probably isn’t going to happen any time soon.
* They could have robots do all the work – if the technology can catch up fast enough.
* They could find a way to increase the birth-rate, but even if they did, it would take a couple of decades for the new children to start making a contribution to the economy.
Beyond that you have a general issue that a shrinking population means your economic and military strength shrink too (unless robots take care of that too). Whether that will really matter depends on what kind of future they live in.
Some parts are bad: There will be fewer people to pay taxes and take care of the old people. There will be fewer young people who can join the army to protect SK from their butthead neighbors.
On the bright side, there will be less traffic jams, and people will have more space to live. It will be terrific for the plants and animals. I would personally like to live in a world with fewer people. I think it will be a good thing long term.
You’re in the US?
Well people keep talking about how when they retire, they’ll get money from social security.
The idea is that when you’re working from age 18-62, you pay into social security. By the time you retire at 62, you start getting payment from that account that you’ve been paying into.
That’s false advertising!
The payment you make from 18-62 is for the people that are already retired. When you retire, your money will come from the younger generations that are still working.
Meaning that by the time you retire at 62 and there’s not much young people in the working force contributing to the social security fund, then there’s not gonna be any money for you.
This is the US system, and in some way/shape/form, it’s similar to other countries like SK. Not limited to retirement, but the contribution to the community/society like, who’s going to be operating the metro, picking up your home trash, repairing the roads, etc. if there’s not enough people to take on those roles
Most of the economy is owned by a few corporations (like Samsung). If you are not part of the families that own that corporations then you have little to no future. So, people is extremely stressed (The TV show Squid Game is Korean and reflects in an artistic way how they feel).
To add to that, Koreans are very conservative. Once a woman is married and has children is supposed to stay at home, stay pretty and take care of her husband. Many women prefer just to not have children and have a live instead. And men also want to avoid the pressure of having to have to work for two people.
You need a fertility rate of about 2.1 to sustain population.
Take a population with 1000 people born each year.
After three generations with a fertility rate of 2.1 you have 1000 people being born each year.
After three generations with a fertility rate of 0.68 you have about 30 people being born each year. A 97% reduction. This is a fairly catastrophic population collapse. “Children of Men” type situation.
To illustrate: Think of your elementary school. Maybe 30 kids in the class. You go back there a generation later for your kids school play. There’s 10 kids in the class. You go back a generation later for your grandkids school play. There’s 3 or 4 kids in the class. You get wheeled in a generation later to see your great grandkid’s school play. They’re the only kid in the year. (Obviously the school would be closed and consolidated long before… just trying to put a scale to this)
At the same time, you still have many of the original 1000 people born three generations before still about, except they’re all old and need to be supported for some time, which is going to be a lot of work for the tiny population you have coming in.
Edit: Just did the math for the 0.3 fertility rate in some areas. This is around 10 times worse then 0.68. After three generations the 1000 births per year above reduces to about 3.
For the elderly and middle aged? Very bad. Most safely nets and retirement benefits work on a ponzi scheme, where there always has to be more younger people putting in more than there are old people. So those people are going to have a rough retirement.
For the young and those not yet born? Very very good as long as the elites don’t flood the country with immigrants. When the population is less, rent is decreased, housing is cheaper to buy, food is cheaper, and wages are higher as businesses fight over workers. See the worker’s revolution that happened after the black plague killed one third of Europe for how life becomes radically better for people when there is less people.
>From Copilot:
[South Korea has the **lowest fertility rate in the world**](https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=87cd5d42d720bc2cJmltdHM9MTcxNTk5MDQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZjQ3MjM3ZS02ZTNiLTZiYzktMWJlOC0zNzA1NmZlZjZhMzUmaW5zaWQ9NTY2OA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=1f47237e-6e3b-6bc9-1be8-37056fef6a35&psq=sk+low+fertility+rate+reasons&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucHN5Y2hvbG9neXRvZGF5LmNvbS9jYS9ibG9nL3NvY2lhbC1mYWJyaWMvMjAyMjA4L3doeS1kb2VzLXNvdXRoLWtvcmVhLWhhdmUtdGhlLWxvd2VzdC1mZXJ0aWxpdHktaW4tdGhlLXdvcmxk&ntb=1). [The reasons for this include **high cost of housing, expensive and highly competitive environment for children’s education, and increasing gender tensions**](https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=411f2cb03f44acf3JmltdHM9MTcxNTk5MDQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZjQ3MjM3ZS02ZTNiLTZiYzktMWJlOC0zNzA1NmZlZjZhMzUmaW5zaWQ9NTY3MA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=1f47237e-6e3b-6bc9-1be8-37056fef6a35&psq=sk+low+fertility+rate+reasons&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1lLmNvbS82ODM1ODY1L3NvdXRoLWtvcmVhLWZlcnRpbGl0eS1yYXRlLTIwMjMtcmVjb3JkLWxvdy8&ntb=1) [People are also marrying later in life and waiting longer to have children](https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=37c5d5b613979e84JmltdHM9MTcxNTk5MDQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZjQ3MjM3ZS02ZTNiLTZiYzktMWJlOC0zNzA1NmZlZjZhMzUmaW5zaWQ9NTY3Mg&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=1f47237e-6e3b-6bc9-1be8-37056fef6a35&psq=sk+low+fertility+rate+reasons&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYXNhaGkuY29tL2Fqdy9hcnRpY2xlcy8xNDU1NjY4NA&ntb=1). [The vast majority of young couples in South Korea end up having only one child because of high childcare costs, and young couples also delay having children because of expensive housing](https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=c926f56b6f25d923JmltdHM9MTcxNTk5MDQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZjQ3MjM3ZS02ZTNiLTZiYzktMWJlOC0zNzA1NmZlZjZhMzUmaW5zaWQ9NTY3NA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=1f47237e-6e3b-6bc9-1be8-37056fef6a35&psq=sk+low+fertility+rate+reasons&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucHN5Y2hvbG9neXRvZGF5LmNvbS9jYS9ibG9nL3NvY2lhbC1mYWJyaWMvMjAyMjA4L3doeS1kb2VzLXNvdXRoLWtvcmVhLWhhdmUtdGhlLWxvd2VzdC1mZXJ0aWxpdHktaW4tdGhlLXdvcmxk&ntb=1)
So, government policy then. Back to affordable daycare, education, health care, gender parity, housing, and the cost of living. Can’t deliver on those so people don’t have babies.
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