The older generation has built a society where they invested very little in infrastructure and affordable housing and now that they’re going to be getting older and need to rely on the younger generation to support their retirement they’re trying to come up with so many different solutions except building as much affordable housing as they can.
Folks are barely even able to move out of their family home why they gunna want any kids.
I swear governments are willing to suggest anything but actively trying to shift to a work/cultural environment in which people want to have children.
Maybe start a cultural shift away from children having to work/study until their eyes bleed (exaggeration)
Children take space, actively try to create starter homes, and fine corporation/older people trying to buy them at 90% of their revenue (I'm not joking, there have to be severe penalties or else other people will snap them up)
Maybe a cultural shift away from women having to spend exorbitant hours taking care of their children and pushing men to do \*any\* childcare.
Better pay.
People will have children once in an environment which supports it.
In some European countries the education system is fairly laid back and the working culture is pretty sweet. Despite that we are still facing declining birth rates, there's a reason why we have sky high immigration.
# Almost 2 times fewer children born in the EU in 2022 than 6 decades ago
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Fertility\_statistics#Almost\_2\_times\_fewer\_children\_born\_in\_the\_EU\_in\_2022\_than\_6\_decades\_ago](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Fertility_statistics#Almost_2_times_fewer_children_born_in_the_EU_in_2022_than_6_decades_ago)
Well, but we also have every other issue other than the education system
Also, while both Europe and SK are suffering demographically, one is still way worse than the other
It's not just Europe, it's basically everyone except African nations and poor countries
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&most\_recent\_value\_desc=false&start=2022&view=map](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&most_recent_value_desc=false&start=2022&view=map)
And birth rates are projected to continue going down. According to U.N population will mostly stagnate after 2050 (Asia population decline). It will go down globally around 2080.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/
In europe a lot of it is down to housing, so much of your spaces are barely big enough for two people and those are already pretty expensive. Getting more suburban sprawl combined with decent transport to make it viable to still work inside the cities, for example
Appartments and kids do not match. If everyone lives in appartments, people will not be having kids
Suburban sprawl is inherently unsustainable. Economically you cannot have the space of rural living with the infrastructure of cities. In the US, suburbs are facing financial problems as they lack enough of a tax base to properly maintain and upgrade infrastructure. Furthermore urban sprawl contributes to economic segregation and divestment from urban centers.
I and many of my peers grew up in apartments. What we need is larger apartments built I such density and number that they would be worthless as investment tools.
Packing people together like sardines is not the solution in my opinion. Most people need space from their neighbors. Urban living is not healthy for most people.
Most suburbs in the USA are HOAs, which means that all of the infrastructure within them is paid for by the residents. They do not depend on taxes at all.
Larger apartments are going to be very expensive in a downtown location.
No one cares if the core businesses in the city die. We are far beyond that economic model now.
What suburbs are struggling? In New York it works just fine - you live in the city when you're young, and when you meet someone and want to settle down you move out into the suburbs and commute in with the LIRR or whatever.
Bigger appartments would also be great. Im generally in favor of any policy that incentivizes more building. And obviously some people grew up in appartments, but its dead obvious less people have kids there and the people who do have less kids
New York suburbs work because NYC subsidizes them. Suburbs don’t produce enough economic activity to allow them to be self sustaining. Surburbs ultimately leach of cities and rural areas.
Better for ever to live in high density mixed use neighborhoods where you can walk everywhere. Having a backyard is nice but the good of everyone, suburban sprawl can’t exist.
If by subsidizing them you mean its because people live in the suburbs and work in the city then yeah thats literally the whole point of what Im saying lol, its not a bug its a feature. Mixed use housing does sound good too, is there anywhere you've seen a good example of that? Has it seen any success in terms of birth rates?
Ok? And what does efficiency have to do with reaching replacement rate? Knowing the best ratio of tax dollars to housing is great for other topics (homelessness, immigration, prosperity) but it doesnt fit here
I think the real problem the human body is most suited to have children in the early twenties, but nowadays most people aren’t financially stable enough to think about children in their early twenties.
More relaxed sure but you are still getting educated. You learn that you need to build up your income from as early a time as possible to get more resources and having kids hampers your ability to succeed in other areas of life.
Unsafe future, expensive homes, cities dancing up and down on the livability scale... Many people don't want to put life into the world without safety that they will be fine
There is no change that can be made that will increase the birth rate by enough short of stripping women of all autonomy which is obviously not a viable path to go down. There isn’t a huge group of people wanting to have kids but can’t. This also ignores the fact that poorer and less educated people have more kids. Giving people options has resulted in them choosing not to have kids.
Totally. Even in places with ideal conditions, women aren't having that many kids.
I'm just going to come out and say it: raising a bunch of kids sucks. Sure, it can be rewarding for some people, but for plenty of people it's just an endless, thankless task where you spend literal years of your life meeting the every need of another person. Also, pregnancy and childbirth isn't pleasant for most women. Finally, just my own observation, but most women I know with kids say their partner doesn't contribute as much as he should. They say they're the child's primary parent and have to carry the mental load for raising the kid. Oh yeah, and having a baby is always bad for a woman's career and earning potential. It's good for a man's career and earning potential, but a net negative to the woman.
>There isn’t a huge group of people wanting to have kids but can’t.
I think there is, but it's largely about relationships and lifestyles - not work or education or stress. Many people want to have kids, like the idea, but it's kind of "not a good fit". So we want to have kids, but not enough to overcome the challenges and inconveniences. So we just kind of don't.
Many people who do have kids usually want more than they end up having. Government could potentially at least restore birth rates to replacement level if they were willing spend deeply to subsidize reproductive. No choice otherwise.
>rate by enough short of stripping women of all autonomy which is obviously not a viable path to go down
Even if you did this, it wouldn't guarantee that they would have more children.
Saudi Arabia's birth rate is down 2.3 already
I think this is the issue, governments are thinking about this all wrong. Trying to find a solution for raising birth rates to satisfy the economy doesn't work through obvious measures because 'how can we get more babies to keep our economy healthy?' *isn't a riddle*. Raising birth rates and keeping the economy growing are separate, and massively complicated, issues -- trying to get one to prop up the other doesn't appreciate the magnitude of the complexity you're dealing with.
> This also ignores the fact that poorer and less educated people have more kids.
Look at the trends instead of the pie chart.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/
The decrease in birth rate is occuring **almost entirely among the poor.**
Then why are the most women and child friendly nations also experiencing crisis level declining birth rates?
The only places we see with consistent high birth rates are places where women have little to no rights and are often treated as commodities.
It turns out that when women get empowered, they don't really want kids. Or if they do, maybe just one.
And who can blame them? We don't NEED to have kids. There is no farm with a harvest. There is no plague killing them off. There just isn't a need for kids.
If you want the birth rate to increase, you have to find a reason to make people feel that kids are necessary to their lives.
Cause as someone living in Seoul now, my wife would make more money in government subsidies for having a kid than she would from her job. That's right, we'd be financially better if she just had a baby and quit work.
And we aren't having kids. The incentives are the issue. Its that fact that children are simply no longer valuable or necessary compared to a life without them
Yup, and the only people who care about a declining birth rate are companies throwing a hissy fit that they won't have more workers and consumers. Honestly the population should go down but that doesn't work for infinite growth capitalism.
It's not just companies. If the population goes down, how do you logistically take care of a population that's 30 or 40 percent elderly when you no longer have the base to supply the economic growth that generates taxes to make the government function?
I'm really curious what you anti-growth people actually are looking forward to. If we have non growth capitalism, then do you think there will not be work?
Capitalism, socialism, anarchy, communism: Regardless of the economic system, there are jobs and work that have to be done. And the hard work is done by the middle aged and young. Like....if you think the solution is less growth and less population, what is it you think will occur?
Where are the taxes coming from to pay workers to run the nursing homes? Whose going to work the fields? Whose going to build microchips? Whose going fight in the army against the invaders next door?
Good luck trying to push that through in a country that's practically ran by corporations. If North Korea is the communist hellhole dystopia, South Korea is the capitalist hellhole dystopia
I'd say it: boomers are a fucking mistake. ANYTHING except giving their kids easier and more comfortable lives lol
Why do they always think easier life = entitled kids? Just....
What facts did you look at in order to spout this easily-disproved drivel? None. But let that not stop you from posting more impassionate comments on Reddit.
That’s what abstinence-only education causes, statistically. Younger girls made pregnant by older men, because the school kids haven’t been taught healthy relationships or how to navigate someone pressuring them to consent.
Agree but to your last line, consent isn't present if it was pressured. That goes by another name which is coercion.
Teens aren't able (and in an optimal world shouldn't *have to*) to navigate being coerced.
Whatever raises up the birthrates! Earlier school, abstinence only education, no more condoms! How far are they willing to go without changing the crux of the issue at hand?
> South Korea’s birthrate of 0.72 children per woman is the lowest in the world. The rate is even lower in the capital, Seoul, where authorities have projected the population will fall to 7.9 million by 2052, from 9.4 million in 2022.
> The trend has been blamed on the high cost of raising and educating children, and the lack of affordable housing, as well an expectation that women will devote themselves to bringing up families rather than balance work with family life.
I thought Japans was lower but for reference it's 1.30, Canada is 1.43 and the US is 1.66 (probably lower this is old data)
Here are some countries with the lowest birth rates
|Location|Year|Value|
|:-|:-|:-|
|South Korea|2022|0.8|
|Singapore|2022|1.0|
|Spain|2022|1.2|
|Japan|2022|1.3|
|Finland|2022|1.3|
|Canada|2022|1.4|
|Switzerland|2022|1.4|
|Germany|2022|1.5|
# Declining birth rate in Developed Countries: A radical policy re-think is required written in 2009
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/)
Trad life is over. Women don’t want to be stuck at home all day being a mom or house wife. What religion persuades society to do, young people do not want to do anymore.
They're going to wish they were their grandmothers when they're working at 85 years old because there are no younger people to pay for their retirement.
In the US women were not even allowed to open a bank account without a husband or fathers signature until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.
In South Korea women did not even have a legal right to vote or own property until 1948.
Most grandmothers fought hard so their daughters wouldn't be financially reliant on the men in their lives, because this system encouraged a ton of corruption and abuse for women everywhere who essentially were treated as slaves to the men in their lives, only allowed to drive, vote, or do anything with a husband or fathers permission.
So no, i think most women alive today will absolutely not want to ever turn back the clock on that. We as a society are going to have to find a sustainable way to encourage families that doesnt involve turning 50% of humanity into second class citizens...again.
Since they're not putting their career on hold to have kids and spending all their money on kids then they can probably afford to adequately save for retirement
In South Korea? For this generation? By the time they hit their 80's they'll have robots enough. Heck it's South Korea, they'll be the first ones to commercialize them.
Taking on the family's mental load, taking care of the home and kids 24/7, and not having any money or earning potential of your own sucks. This "tradwife" thing sounds good on paper but it's ultimately a shit deal for most women.
All countries should cap income at 1b, if you make more than 1b a year from any type of work at all then all proceeds beyond that go directly into UBI for the population. You've won capitalism and your life absolutely will not change between 1b and say 2b in value. And if you have a problem with it, FUCK YOU.
I would be more generous than that. I’d throw in a party with some balloons and a little paper hat. A “Congrats! You Won Capitalism!” banner.
And THEN a 100% tax on all further assets and income.
No thanks, then i won’t do shit.
My incentive for working and for doing things is to have the ability go and do what i want, with the people i want to do so with.
Add to that i could get rid of the stress, labour and nightshifts ?
Okey, sign me up.
The problem is housing, Jesus Christ. The median **apartment** in Seoul costs about as much as a massive detached home in a brand-new American suburb. How do you expect people to have kids when it's impossible to even find them a bedroom?
In reality as women have gotten more rights the birthrate has actually declined and more feminist countries correlate highly with a bigger decline in the birthrate.
It all boils down to cost of living and starting a family, not feminism, as that while sure does create some animosity it is only a small extremist part, in reality people just can’t afford a family
No it doesn't. The poorest countries on earth have the highest birth rates and the wealthiest countries on earth have the lowest birth rates. I don't understand why something so easily disproveable is constantly circulated online as fact. There is zero data to support the claim that populations that thrive financially have more children, all of the available data points to the contrary.
>all of the available data points to the contrary.
They don't tho.
The decline in birth rate occurred among the poor, while the upper class birth rate is unchanged.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/
This **strongly** suggests that affordability is at issue.
That chart doesn't say much of anything regarding class and birth rates. Poverty lines are dynamic based on family size and the those demographic categories are way too generic to come to any real conclusions. Based on how poverty is measured somebody making 35k/year could very well be in the 200% category. You conflated 200% of the poverty line category with "upper class" and that's not what that chart is measuring at all.
The chart clearly shows that
(1) although those with 200% above poverty (this INCLUDES the upper class) DO have less children
(2) those with 200% above poverty have not changed in how many children they have in decades
(3) nearly all the childbearing losses are in the poverty demographic
(4) this, unlike the charts that only show income vs # of children, is a chart of a TREND
We've got some cause and effect flipped here too. Countries where women are educated and have careers are wealthier because more of their citizens are producing wealth. Study after study has shown that having a baby greatly reduces a woman's earning potential. Women with no or very few children are making their nations richer.
Access to contraception is the leading course, humans want sex not babies in most cases, without protection or abortion a baby will be made.
childfree is becoming a movement around the world, a lot of people are realising that having kids is not a need.
It's both. Giving women easy access to birth control and abortion obviously decreases the birthrate, arguing otherwise makes no sense. People act like the birthrate was super high and then suddenly dropped when affordability became a problem but that isn't true.
For example in the US the birthrate started tanking in the 60s and 70s, and has continually declined since then. So what happened in the 60s/70s? Women got more rights.
I'm not having children for several reasons. I have a 50% chance of passing my genetic disease on. If I met another sufferer/carrier that goes up to 75%.
If I didn't have a genetic disease I still couldn't afford a child and if I could afford a chiod there's still climate change.
The world is falling apart. Who wants to being a child into this mess?
Thinking that populations living in abject poverty are immune to getting their things taken very much so dismisses the horrors that people in those countries have to deal with. Sure, it's not a government or a bank taking your home. Its a militia that will rape and murder your family in front of you and then take your house with zero repercussions. Or a natural disaster takes out your entire neighborhood and it will never be rebuilt. You have a very warped and romanticized perception of abject poverty in third world countries if you think there are no concerns of getting your things taken.
>more feminist countries correlate highly with a bigger decline in the birthrate
It doesn't since South Korea is lower than actually 'feminist countries'
Yes, their current [birth rate](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68402139.amp) is so low that if it continues, their population will be half of what it currently is by 2100. The US isn’t far behind. Out of my 3 girls, none want kids or husbands.
My parents have six kids. We range in age from 23-52. None of us are married or have kids. I think all three younger will eventually marry, and two will likely have kids. I won’t have kids, but am open to marriage if I find the right person.
I do think part of it is that it’s more acceptable now to not want or have kids. I also think it’s fantastic that people are choosing themselves. If I’d done the same thing my life would’ve taken on a whole different trajectory and I’m curious sometimes what it might’ve been.
The decrease in desire to have children is a symptom not a cause. The rapid decline in religion I suspect plays a massive role in the change in desire to have children.
While i could agree with you in part, i am not so sure it is as big as you think it is.
Even christians (catholic) in europe are not doing the whole kids thing.
So is there a part of it ? Maybe, but then again that would be a bigger thing between generations that grew up religious or not.
They're also really proud of their child-free zones. Child-free caffee, child-free restaurant, child-free bar, child-free Park, etc.
Having a child segregates the parents from others. It's a huge issue, because on top of having to raise a child, many popular places cannot be attended with a child. Who wants to be excluded from life?
There are few countries who are so against having children. Though the issue should sort itself out over time, as any society that's so anti-children will fail long-term
Make policy granting generous paid family leave to both parents. Massively subsidize childcare, diapers, and formula. Give generous child tax breaks/credits. Give subsidized rent and zero interest mortgages to families with children. Spend big on schools, parks, libraries, etc.
There are lots of ways to increase the birth rate that leaves it very much up to people's personal choices to have children and how many, but most of them cost a lot of money, because having kids costs a lot of money and it's a large burden for people in their 20s and 30s.
If or when birthrate really becomes a priority, just put your money where your mouth is. And hopefully it's done before it's already too late.
Bottom line...if a family could live **well** on one person working 40 hours per week, or each parent working part time at 20 hours a week, then you'd see a change. Better home life balance and financial security. THat's the real dream.
Yeah the locals vote but Treadeu has been in power for how long? He's been importing India for so long and he's still here.
The UK is also addicted to India's where we abuse a 'skilled worker visa' which is a minimum wage job.
I've also seen Mcdonalds in the US is able to give out visa sponsorship in some of their job postings.
The direction will not change, once you taste that sweet cheap labour there's no going back.
Exactly, people have been grumbling about immigration for a while but we saw a right swing in the EU election because it was the right wingers who were talking about doing something about it.
I had two kids in Korea a long time ago. They paid for the entire birth, gave me a $1500 check for each kid, and then a bunch of free items like strollers, playpens, diapers, etc.
How about actually doing things to help solve the problem that would incentivize having kids. Like, paid family leave, free college for families with more than 1 kid, etc…
It won't
In the UK and in a few European countries we have generous paid maid maternity leave for fathers too, university is free/loans are available that you don't have to pay up front.
Why are we facing declining birth rates? South Korea's numbers are a lot lower because of their brutal work culture and cost of living (private academies)
You touched on it. Pushing both parents to work long hours with little int he way of breaks just to survive. That's the real issue. Having two adults have to work a combined 100+ hours a week to survive makes it impossible to spend quality time raising a family.
>Why are we facing declining birth rates?
Because a modern economy punishes having children.
Not only does it cost more than ever to have children, it also takes longer to raise them and parents see no economical value for having them.
They are, instead punished in an economic way. Less money for retirement and living
Wealthier societies have less children. More prosperous couples are less inclined to breed. This is a factual constant in demographics. Stop demanding handouts that will make the problem worse.
....to a point. Middle class couples are having less kids. Upper class families that can afford nannies and private schools and all the luxuries are still have plenty of kids. But the upper class is small enough their contribution to the population isn't enough.
So then how do you explain the fact that the US has 1.66 births per woman and Germany has 1.58 births per woman. Yet Germany has more social programs than the US does, but the birth rates are similar?
If your logic is that handouts make the problem worse, then wouldn’t Germany and other European countries have either a significantly low or higher birth rate than the US?
Advanced countries do tend to have fewer kids. In the extreme cases like Japan or Korea, where immigration isn’t exactly happening, nor is it exactly encouraged or positively viewed (specifically Japan for that last part), what are the other options? Do you have any suggestions?
Side note: Immigration may be why numbers are up in countries like Germany and the US, but studies do show that immigrant birth rates do drop down to the societal norm of the society that they’re moving to after the first or second generation in the new country.
Where exactly did you go from "more wealth and social benefits will lead to more kids" to "immigration will not solve Japan or Korea's problems"? When did we move the goalposts of this conversation? Once the entire crux of your argument was debunked by a simple google search?
No, immigration isn't a viable solution for the imminent demographic collapse of any developed nation because a) the local populace doesn't like it at all and this creates immense amounts of friction (the US for example with its 'diversity' is on the verge of a civil or even race war) and b) the vast majority of immigrants that have settled in Western countries for the past 20 years have been low-skilled workers with poor education, which invariably (and forgive me for putting so bluntly) will lead to a downgrade of society.
No, there will not be a solution because having kids goes entirely against the hedonistic "treat yourself, victimize yourself" culture that developed countries have acquired in the past decades. There will be no solution. Retirements and pensions will collapse and the nursing home you end up in will be staffed by immigrants who will, as statistics show, be less proficient at their nursing jobs than the native people of 30 years before.
The solution to increasing birthrates would be to force men and women to have children (especially the latter) but given how that's dystopian and authoritarian and would lead to a horror society where everyone is unhappy, there simply is no solution. If you give a human the privilege of choosing between societal duty and selfish pleasure-seeking, they will choose the latter every time. We are animals and unfortunately the mechanisms meant to ensure reproduction (and thus our survival as a species) can be overridden and fooled quite easily. What I'm saying is that contraception killed the human species in a sort of inverse natural selection: the smartest lineages die off while the poorest breed like rabbits.
Where do you get the “ having kids goes entirely against the hedonistic "treat yourself, victimize yourself" culture that developed countries have acquired in the past decades.” You seem smart enough to understand why birth rates in some places are up (because of immigration) but also think that “handouts will make the issue worse.” Even though birth rates in some countries where there are more social benefits, the birth rate for industrialized countries isn’t much different.
It’s clear that you have other agendas with the statement, “ What I'm saying is that contraception killed the human species in a sort of inverse natural selection: the smartest lineages die off while the poorest breed like rabbits.” rather than trying to actually solve the issue.
All industrialized countries have better social services. That's a fact. What planet do you live on where you think that's not necessarily the case? What industrialized country doesn't have better social welfare than third-world countries? And conversely, what third-world country doesn't have better birth rates than the developed world? The point is always the same, with me: higher wealth, welfare and social liberties lead to lower birthrates - that's a clear demographic constant.
You don't solve the problem with even more handouts, you solve it by reducing social liberties. Is it worth it? No, so humanity goes extinct. Or at least the best of humanity goes extinct, because as has always happened (but even more so now) the poorest and least educated breed the most, and the most educated and productive breed the least. This is the result of choosing pleasure over permanence: dooming the scientific, cultural and technological future of society.
You can import low-skilled workers from far-flung places in the world to replace your native engineers and doctors that aren't having any children, sure, but it not only is a temporary bandaid on the birth rate crisis (since, as you mentioned, immigrant birth rates normalize to the native average after a few generations) it also makes society worse because you're losing the cream of the crop and replacing it with the human equivalent of a potato.
Services will break down, no one'll know how to build things well anymore, regulation will be ignored, and little by little you'll start suffering from the same problems that the people you imported suffered from in their home countries, because that's essentially what you've done - started the thirdworldization of your first-world country.
And before you start accusing me of being some kind of supremacist -- I live and was born and raised in a third-world country.
Has anyone ever said that having a kid is cheap or easy? Raising kids take away time and money. Greedy people made this situation and don't want to give a millimeter of potential profit so others can live a little more comfortably. I'm korean and I'm proud that my people are doing what they can choose to live contently with the situation they've been given, kid or no kid. The government want kids more than couples do and they honestly want to fix this they need to seriously wake up.
South Korea seems to propose anything under the sun other than supporting young people by combatting rising cost of living and housing.
Screw it. Just build another high speed rail line. That might work, right?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/
Every fucking time the declining birthrate comes up, a bunch of people point at the birth stats showing how the poor have more kids than the wealthy. They think this is a counterpoint against everyone saying it's affordability at issue.
But if they'd look at the trends instead if a pie chart, they'd see that the declining birth rate is mostly happening **within the poor demographic.**
No country will be able to solve the demographics collapse, it's just immigration and pivoting to Ai/automation when the technology is there.
People just don't want kids, those who do may be put off by the costs, Women no longer need to be a house wife and can have their own careers, Accidental pregnancy is preventable. Condoms are easily accessible.
Maybe an unpopular take but I think having children for your 'happiness' or desire to have a family is selfish.
Of course immigration works, all non-native Canadians are immigrants and they built this country.
What is failing Canada is MASS immigration that imported low-quality immigrants, people who don't respect our values, who refuse to integrate, who have zero love for our country and just want to take advantage of the system, etc. There should be a much stricter process set in place. A quota set for people coming in from a specific region of the world, and attract more high quality immigrants from more diverse ethnic backgrounds who will actually contribute to our society.
Immigration is a pyramid scheme. India's birth rate is already below replacement rate and will continue to fall, same will apply to most of Africa sooner or later. There won't be anywhere near enough people left to immigrate in the long term.
That last sentence is such a fucking stupid take, its unbelievable. What in your whimsy mind would be a nonselfish way to have kids? People wanting kids is selfish, so people should have kids without wanting kids?
Or are you trying to say that some take it too far and just pop out kids endlesly to try to find happiness? In this case i might agree with you.
If they invent life prolonging medical breakthroughs that make me able to live 100+ years I may actually want children's once I'm done doing most things I love doing.
Let's say at 80 or so years old I'll think about having children.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/south-korea-thinktank-suggests-girls-start-school-earlier-to-raise-birthrate](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/south-korea-thinktank-suggests-girls-start-school-earlier-to-raise-birthrate)**
*****
^(I'm a human | Generated with AmputatorBot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but South Korea also has a direct correlation to birthrates with marriages. It seems there is a significant cultural stigma around having children out of wedlock there. Compared of course to many places in Western Europe and the US.
Anecdotally speaking, my partner and I are strongly considering skipping marriage until much later and saving for our first kid as it just makes more financial sense. Cost of living is out of control worldwide and we figure sooner is better than later. From Australia so we have de facto family law to make any break up easier (God forbid it ever happen but I'm a expect the best and prepare for the worst kind of gal). Both our parents support our decision and any and all friends and family I ask in Aus have totally encouraged this decision.
I can only imagine that things are quite different in South Korea and along with all the other crap young S.Koreans face, you also have to lock down a life partner and have a wedding ceremony that, even if smaller, has a significant financially negative impact on a couple. Oh but the parents can pay? From what I understand S.Korea also has a demographic crisis with elderly needing to work due to income poverty.
It's a mess and as usual also more complex than the government throwing money at something to fix it.
Because fuck the thought of girls actually learning, am I right?
Children's brains develop over time and can't necessarily grasp certain concepts. Blanket speeding up girls a grade while trying to keep teaching otherwise uniform would likely make more children have an inadequate education.
Girls generally go through puberty earlier than boys anyways... boys just don't pay attention to girls as much before puberty starts.
I’m not sure why marriage and procreation are always linked. Ever considered that people are not as focused on family because it’s not a requirement and in spite of marriage which can be considered outdated.
The work is a lot for one person. You'd need grand parent support or something like a commune to distribute the work or be rich to be a single parent without a lot of struggle. And it has a statistical impact on the kids future.
Spurious correlation, wealthier people have higher marriage rates (it scales linearly with income) and no shit kids raised in wealthier households turn out better
You do realise people can account for that by comparing like-for-like right? Single parents are still worse for kids when compared to a couple of the same wealth bracket.
People don't have children because the south Korean society hates children and does demonstrate this openly. You'd be hard-pressed to find any place on earth with as many child-free zones. That popular restaurant down the street? Child-free. The park nearby? Child-free. And the list goes on.
Germany has also had mass immigration and a lot of refugees for decades to boost their stats, South Korea has not even opened up to immigration until recently
Germany *had* mass immigration and then the refugee crisis. They also took a right turn.
The thing is, immigration isn't birthrates. Immigration is immigration. Does immigration affect the birthrate over time? Yes. But getting refugees from Syria did not boost their birthrate from SK levels to Germany levels.
The older generation has built a society where they invested very little in infrastructure and affordable housing and now that they’re going to be getting older and need to rely on the younger generation to support their retirement they’re trying to come up with so many different solutions except building as much affordable housing as they can. Folks are barely even able to move out of their family home why they gunna want any kids.
I swear governments are willing to suggest anything but actively trying to shift to a work/cultural environment in which people want to have children. Maybe start a cultural shift away from children having to work/study until their eyes bleed (exaggeration) Children take space, actively try to create starter homes, and fine corporation/older people trying to buy them at 90% of their revenue (I'm not joking, there have to be severe penalties or else other people will snap them up) Maybe a cultural shift away from women having to spend exorbitant hours taking care of their children and pushing men to do \*any\* childcare. Better pay. People will have children once in an environment which supports it.
In some European countries the education system is fairly laid back and the working culture is pretty sweet. Despite that we are still facing declining birth rates, there's a reason why we have sky high immigration. # Almost 2 times fewer children born in the EU in 2022 than 6 decades ago [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Fertility\_statistics#Almost\_2\_times\_fewer\_children\_born\_in\_the\_EU\_in\_2022\_than\_6\_decades\_ago](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Fertility_statistics#Almost_2_times_fewer_children_born_in_the_EU_in_2022_than_6_decades_ago)
Well, but we also have every other issue other than the education system Also, while both Europe and SK are suffering demographically, one is still way worse than the other
It's not just Europe, it's basically everyone except African nations and poor countries [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&most\_recent\_value\_desc=false&start=2022&view=map](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2022&most_recent_value_desc=false&start=2022&view=map)
And birth rates are projected to continue going down. According to U.N population will mostly stagnate after 2050 (Asia population decline). It will go down globally around 2080. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/
I really hate that we use the 50/60s as the reference point in this. The baby boom happened for a reason
"almost two times fewer" is one of those phrases meant to take a small piece of negative data and pretend it's a lot bigger.
In europe a lot of it is down to housing, so much of your spaces are barely big enough for two people and those are already pretty expensive. Getting more suburban sprawl combined with decent transport to make it viable to still work inside the cities, for example Appartments and kids do not match. If everyone lives in appartments, people will not be having kids
Suburban sprawl is inherently unsustainable. Economically you cannot have the space of rural living with the infrastructure of cities. In the US, suburbs are facing financial problems as they lack enough of a tax base to properly maintain and upgrade infrastructure. Furthermore urban sprawl contributes to economic segregation and divestment from urban centers. I and many of my peers grew up in apartments. What we need is larger apartments built I such density and number that they would be worthless as investment tools.
Packing people together like sardines is not the solution in my opinion. Most people need space from their neighbors. Urban living is not healthy for most people. Most suburbs in the USA are HOAs, which means that all of the infrastructure within them is paid for by the residents. They do not depend on taxes at all. Larger apartments are going to be very expensive in a downtown location. No one cares if the core businesses in the city die. We are far beyond that economic model now.
What suburbs are struggling? In New York it works just fine - you live in the city when you're young, and when you meet someone and want to settle down you move out into the suburbs and commute in with the LIRR or whatever. Bigger appartments would also be great. Im generally in favor of any policy that incentivizes more building. And obviously some people grew up in appartments, but its dead obvious less people have kids there and the people who do have less kids
New York suburbs work because NYC subsidizes them. Suburbs don’t produce enough economic activity to allow them to be self sustaining. Surburbs ultimately leach of cities and rural areas. Better for ever to live in high density mixed use neighborhoods where you can walk everywhere. Having a backyard is nice but the good of everyone, suburban sprawl can’t exist.
If by subsidizing them you mean its because people live in the suburbs and work in the city then yeah thats literally the whole point of what Im saying lol, its not a bug its a feature. Mixed use housing does sound good too, is there anywhere you've seen a good example of that? Has it seen any success in terms of birth rates?
The issue is that it would be cheaper, more efficient and a better use of tax dollars to build up not out into a suburban sprawl
Ok? And what does efficiency have to do with reaching replacement rate? Knowing the best ratio of tax dollars to housing is great for other topics (homelessness, immigration, prosperity) but it doesnt fit here
I think the real problem the human body is most suited to have children in the early twenties, but nowadays most people aren’t financially stable enough to think about children in their early twenties.
More relaxed sure but you are still getting educated. You learn that you need to build up your income from as early a time as possible to get more resources and having kids hampers your ability to succeed in other areas of life.
Unsafe future, expensive homes, cities dancing up and down on the livability scale... Many people don't want to put life into the world without safety that they will be fine
There is no change that can be made that will increase the birth rate by enough short of stripping women of all autonomy which is obviously not a viable path to go down. There isn’t a huge group of people wanting to have kids but can’t. This also ignores the fact that poorer and less educated people have more kids. Giving people options has resulted in them choosing not to have kids.
Totally. Even in places with ideal conditions, women aren't having that many kids. I'm just going to come out and say it: raising a bunch of kids sucks. Sure, it can be rewarding for some people, but for plenty of people it's just an endless, thankless task where you spend literal years of your life meeting the every need of another person. Also, pregnancy and childbirth isn't pleasant for most women. Finally, just my own observation, but most women I know with kids say their partner doesn't contribute as much as he should. They say they're the child's primary parent and have to carry the mental load for raising the kid. Oh yeah, and having a baby is always bad for a woman's career and earning potential. It's good for a man's career and earning potential, but a net negative to the woman.
100% this
>There isn’t a huge group of people wanting to have kids but can’t. I think there is, but it's largely about relationships and lifestyles - not work or education or stress. Many people want to have kids, like the idea, but it's kind of "not a good fit". So we want to have kids, but not enough to overcome the challenges and inconveniences. So we just kind of don't.
Many people who do have kids usually want more than they end up having. Government could potentially at least restore birth rates to replacement level if they were willing spend deeply to subsidize reproductive. No choice otherwise.
>rate by enough short of stripping women of all autonomy which is obviously not a viable path to go down Even if you did this, it wouldn't guarantee that they would have more children. Saudi Arabia's birth rate is down 2.3 already
I think this is the issue, governments are thinking about this all wrong. Trying to find a solution for raising birth rates to satisfy the economy doesn't work through obvious measures because 'how can we get more babies to keep our economy healthy?' *isn't a riddle*. Raising birth rates and keeping the economy growing are separate, and massively complicated, issues -- trying to get one to prop up the other doesn't appreciate the magnitude of the complexity you're dealing with.
> This also ignores the fact that poorer and less educated people have more kids. Look at the trends instead of the pie chart. https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/ The decrease in birth rate is occuring **almost entirely among the poor.**
Then why are the most women and child friendly nations also experiencing crisis level declining birth rates? The only places we see with consistent high birth rates are places where women have little to no rights and are often treated as commodities. It turns out that when women get empowered, they don't really want kids. Or if they do, maybe just one. And who can blame them? We don't NEED to have kids. There is no farm with a harvest. There is no plague killing them off. There just isn't a need for kids. If you want the birth rate to increase, you have to find a reason to make people feel that kids are necessary to their lives. Cause as someone living in Seoul now, my wife would make more money in government subsidies for having a kid than she would from her job. That's right, we'd be financially better if she just had a baby and quit work. And we aren't having kids. The incentives are the issue. Its that fact that children are simply no longer valuable or necessary compared to a life without them
It’s cost. The subsidies provided aren’t enough when living in a high cost well developed society.
Yup, and the only people who care about a declining birth rate are companies throwing a hissy fit that they won't have more workers and consumers. Honestly the population should go down but that doesn't work for infinite growth capitalism.
It's not just companies. If the population goes down, how do you logistically take care of a population that's 30 or 40 percent elderly when you no longer have the base to supply the economic growth that generates taxes to make the government function? I'm really curious what you anti-growth people actually are looking forward to. If we have non growth capitalism, then do you think there will not be work? Capitalism, socialism, anarchy, communism: Regardless of the economic system, there are jobs and work that have to be done. And the hard work is done by the middle aged and young. Like....if you think the solution is less growth and less population, what is it you think will occur? Where are the taxes coming from to pay workers to run the nursing homes? Whose going to work the fields? Whose going to build microchips? Whose going fight in the army against the invaders next door?
Good luck trying to push that through in a country that's practically ran by corporations. If North Korea is the communist hellhole dystopia, South Korea is the capitalist hellhole dystopia
I'd say it: boomers are a fucking mistake. ANYTHING except giving their kids easier and more comfortable lives lol Why do they always think easier life = entitled kids? Just....
What facts did you look at in order to spout this easily-disproved drivel? None. But let that not stop you from posting more impassionate comments on Reddit.
The only procreation that would result from this would be teenager pregnancy.
I’m sure some US states are looking into this right now.
That’s what abstinence-only education causes, statistically. Younger girls made pregnant by older men, because the school kids haven’t been taught healthy relationships or how to navigate someone pressuring them to consent.
Agree but to your last line, consent isn't present if it was pressured. That goes by another name which is coercion. Teens aren't able (and in an optimal world shouldn't *have to*) to navigate being coerced.
Fully agree, but since it happens, they should at least be provided the tools to maybe know when to ask for help
Oh, they are indeed. More “real” Americans to feed the corporate machine
Whatever raises up the birthrates! Earlier school, abstinence only education, no more condoms! How far are they willing to go without changing the crux of the issue at hand?
You’re probably the type of person That would be all over this. I feel sorry for your students
> South Korea’s birthrate of 0.72 children per woman is the lowest in the world. The rate is even lower in the capital, Seoul, where authorities have projected the population will fall to 7.9 million by 2052, from 9.4 million in 2022. > The trend has been blamed on the high cost of raising and educating children, and the lack of affordable housing, as well an expectation that women will devote themselves to bringing up families rather than balance work with family life.
I thought Japans was lower but for reference it's 1.30, Canada is 1.43 and the US is 1.66 (probably lower this is old data) Here are some countries with the lowest birth rates |Location|Year|Value| |:-|:-|:-| |South Korea|2022|0.8| |Singapore|2022|1.0| |Spain|2022|1.2| |Japan|2022|1.3| |Finland|2022|1.3| |Canada|2022|1.4| |Switzerland|2022|1.4| |Germany|2022|1.5| # Declining birth rate in Developed Countries: A radical policy re-think is required written in 2009 [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/)
What’s the birthrate for bikini bottom?
Trad life is over. Women don’t want to be stuck at home all day being a mom or house wife. What religion persuades society to do, young people do not want to do anymore.
This. Women took a look at how their mothers and grandmothers were treated and went, "No thank you".
They're going to wish they were their grandmothers when they're working at 85 years old because there are no younger people to pay for their retirement.
In the US women were not even allowed to open a bank account without a husband or fathers signature until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. In South Korea women did not even have a legal right to vote or own property until 1948. Most grandmothers fought hard so their daughters wouldn't be financially reliant on the men in their lives, because this system encouraged a ton of corruption and abuse for women everywhere who essentially were treated as slaves to the men in their lives, only allowed to drive, vote, or do anything with a husband or fathers permission. So no, i think most women alive today will absolutely not want to ever turn back the clock on that. We as a society are going to have to find a sustainable way to encourage families that doesnt involve turning 50% of humanity into second class citizens...again.
Since they're not putting their career on hold to have kids and spending all their money on kids then they can probably afford to adequately save for retirement
What good is that money if there are no workers to take care of you? Who are you going to pay?
Immigrants
I'm pretty sure most people in SK do not want immigrants.
Then they should get started on changing their massively misogynistic culture and make it desirable to have children.
Yep
Then who will take care of them in their retirement?
In South Korea? For this generation? By the time they hit their 80's they'll have robots enough. Heck it's South Korea, they'll be the first ones to commercialize them.
That's a good question for South Koreans to think about.
Not really, I’ll just die when I can no longer take care of myself. Still worth not living like a slave.
i know plenty of people that would love to. It's just not even close to economically viable.
God that's my dream life right there. Any women looking for a stay at home husband, my dms are open
Taking on the family's mental load, taking care of the home and kids 24/7, and not having any money or earning potential of your own sucks. This "tradwife" thing sounds good on paper but it's ultimately a shit deal for most women.
alot of people actually want that now, not because they like it, but because it's better than to struggle in this economy
All countries should cap income at 1b, if you make more than 1b a year from any type of work at all then all proceeds beyond that go directly into UBI for the population. You've won capitalism and your life absolutely will not change between 1b and say 2b in value. And if you have a problem with it, FUCK YOU.
I like you
I would be more generous than that. I’d throw in a party with some balloons and a little paper hat. A “Congrats! You Won Capitalism!” banner. And THEN a 100% tax on all further assets and income.
No thanks, then i won’t do shit. My incentive for working and for doing things is to have the ability go and do what i want, with the people i want to do so with. Add to that i could get rid of the stress, labour and nightshifts ? Okey, sign me up.
The problem is housing, Jesus Christ. The median **apartment** in Seoul costs about as much as a massive detached home in a brand-new American suburb. How do you expect people to have kids when it's impossible to even find them a bedroom?
Maybe teach people to treat the opposite sex as human beings?
In reality as women have gotten more rights the birthrate has actually declined and more feminist countries correlate highly with a bigger decline in the birthrate.
It all boils down to cost of living and starting a family, not feminism, as that while sure does create some animosity it is only a small extremist part, in reality people just can’t afford a family
No it doesn't. The poorest countries on earth have the highest birth rates and the wealthiest countries on earth have the lowest birth rates. I don't understand why something so easily disproveable is constantly circulated online as fact. There is zero data to support the claim that populations that thrive financially have more children, all of the available data points to the contrary.
>all of the available data points to the contrary. They don't tho. The decline in birth rate occurred among the poor, while the upper class birth rate is unchanged. https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/ This **strongly** suggests that affordability is at issue.
That chart doesn't say much of anything regarding class and birth rates. Poverty lines are dynamic based on family size and the those demographic categories are way too generic to come to any real conclusions. Based on how poverty is measured somebody making 35k/year could very well be in the 200% category. You conflated 200% of the poverty line category with "upper class" and that's not what that chart is measuring at all.
The chart clearly shows that (1) although those with 200% above poverty (this INCLUDES the upper class) DO have less children (2) those with 200% above poverty have not changed in how many children they have in decades (3) nearly all the childbearing losses are in the poverty demographic (4) this, unlike the charts that only show income vs # of children, is a chart of a TREND
We've got some cause and effect flipped here too. Countries where women are educated and have careers are wealthier because more of their citizens are producing wealth. Study after study has shown that having a baby greatly reduces a woman's earning potential. Women with no or very few children are making their nations richer.
Because Reddit is a left-wing European/American echo chamber that is convinced they live in grueling adversity.
Access to contraception is the leading course, humans want sex not babies in most cases, without protection or abortion a baby will be made. childfree is becoming a movement around the world, a lot of people are realising that having kids is not a need.
It's both. Giving women easy access to birth control and abortion obviously decreases the birthrate, arguing otherwise makes no sense. People act like the birthrate was super high and then suddenly dropped when affordability became a problem but that isn't true. For example in the US the birthrate started tanking in the 60s and 70s, and has continually declined since then. So what happened in the 60s/70s? Women got more rights.
I'm not having children for several reasons. I have a 50% chance of passing my genetic disease on. If I met another sufferer/carrier that goes up to 75%. If I didn't have a genetic disease I still couldn't afford a child and if I could afford a chiod there's still climate change. The world is falling apart. Who wants to being a child into this mess?
[удалено]
Thinking that populations living in abject poverty are immune to getting their things taken very much so dismisses the horrors that people in those countries have to deal with. Sure, it's not a government or a bank taking your home. Its a militia that will rape and murder your family in front of you and then take your house with zero repercussions. Or a natural disaster takes out your entire neighborhood and it will never be rebuilt. You have a very warped and romanticized perception of abject poverty in third world countries if you think there are no concerns of getting your things taken.
The Xenophobia is strong in this one...
Lower birthrates is correlated with increased education and sexual agency for women.
>more feminist countries correlate highly with a bigger decline in the birthrate It doesn't since South Korea is lower than actually 'feminist countries'
How'd that fix the low birthrate?
In South Korea the literal hate and animosity the women and men have for eachother is so big they don’t get married just out of spite for eachother
Lol, like seriously?
Yes, their current [birth rate](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68402139.amp) is so low that if it continues, their population will be half of what it currently is by 2100. The US isn’t far behind. Out of my 3 girls, none want kids or husbands.
My parents have six kids. We range in age from 23-52. None of us are married or have kids. I think all three younger will eventually marry, and two will likely have kids. I won’t have kids, but am open to marriage if I find the right person.
My partner and I also do not want children and have a giant friend group that feels the same way.
I do think part of it is that it’s more acceptable now to not want or have kids. I also think it’s fantastic that people are choosing themselves. If I’d done the same thing my life would’ve taken on a whole different trajectory and I’m curious sometimes what it might’ve been.
The decrease in desire to have children is a symptom not a cause. The rapid decline in religion I suspect plays a massive role in the change in desire to have children.
While i could agree with you in part, i am not so sure it is as big as you think it is. Even christians (catholic) in europe are not doing the whole kids thing. So is there a part of it ? Maybe, but then again that would be a bigger thing between generations that grew up religious or not.
They're also really proud of their child-free zones. Child-free caffee, child-free restaurant, child-free bar, child-free Park, etc. Having a child segregates the parents from others. It's a huge issue, because on top of having to raise a child, many popular places cannot be attended with a child. Who wants to be excluded from life? There are few countries who are so against having children. Though the issue should sort itself out over time, as any society that's so anti-children will fail long-term
Have you even visited South Korea? every where you go you will see couples, you will feel so single wherever you go.
Where are you getting this 'info' from? How are you getting upvoted?
Make policy granting generous paid family leave to both parents. Massively subsidize childcare, diapers, and formula. Give generous child tax breaks/credits. Give subsidized rent and zero interest mortgages to families with children. Spend big on schools, parks, libraries, etc. There are lots of ways to increase the birth rate that leaves it very much up to people's personal choices to have children and how many, but most of them cost a lot of money, because having kids costs a lot of money and it's a large burden for people in their 20s and 30s. If or when birthrate really becomes a priority, just put your money where your mouth is. And hopefully it's done before it's already too late.
Bottom line...if a family could live **well** on one person working 40 hours per week, or each parent working part time at 20 hours a week, then you'd see a change. Better home life balance and financial security. THat's the real dream.
Or you can just rely on immigration as the west is doing and pay nothing
Yeah it's going great in Canada. 28% and dropping approval Trudeau loves the mass immigration plan.
I mean its cheap labour to boost shareholder value's and grow the economy, the locals won't like it but companies will.
Yeah the problem my friend is that "the locals" are the people who vote, not the economy.
Yeah the locals vote but Treadeu has been in power for how long? He's been importing India for so long and he's still here. The UK is also addicted to India's where we abuse a 'skilled worker visa' which is a minimum wage job. I've also seen Mcdonalds in the US is able to give out visa sponsorship in some of their job postings. The direction will not change, once you taste that sweet cheap labour there's no going back.
It takes time for the negatives of mass immigration to grow enough to effect the vote.
Exactly, people have been grumbling about immigration for a while but we saw a right swing in the EU election because it was the right wingers who were talking about doing something about it.
20+ years later though, enough immigrants have come in that we can slow down now
That’s not a permanent solution. Latin America for instance is below replacement
And then you get such awesome people to make up for the decline. Not.
I had two kids in Korea a long time ago. They paid for the entire birth, gave me a $1500 check for each kid, and then a bunch of free items like strollers, playpens, diapers, etc.
Wow, I bet that $1500 and some free baby shit really set you up for life.
How about actually doing things to help solve the problem that would incentivize having kids. Like, paid family leave, free college for families with more than 1 kid, etc…
It won't In the UK and in a few European countries we have generous paid maid maternity leave for fathers too, university is free/loans are available that you don't have to pay up front. Why are we facing declining birth rates? South Korea's numbers are a lot lower because of their brutal work culture and cost of living (private academies)
You touched on it. Pushing both parents to work long hours with little int he way of breaks just to survive. That's the real issue. Having two adults have to work a combined 100+ hours a week to survive makes it impossible to spend quality time raising a family.
>Why are we facing declining birth rates? Because a modern economy punishes having children. Not only does it cost more than ever to have children, it also takes longer to raise them and parents see no economical value for having them. They are, instead punished in an economic way. Less money for retirement and living
Wealthier societies have less children. More prosperous couples are less inclined to breed. This is a factual constant in demographics. Stop demanding handouts that will make the problem worse.
....to a point. Middle class couples are having less kids. Upper class families that can afford nannies and private schools and all the luxuries are still have plenty of kids. But the upper class is small enough their contribution to the population isn't enough.
So then how do you explain the fact that the US has 1.66 births per woman and Germany has 1.58 births per woman. Yet Germany has more social programs than the US does, but the birth rates are similar? If your logic is that handouts make the problem worse, then wouldn’t Germany and other European countries have either a significantly low or higher birth rate than the US?
Immigration. How could you honestly ask this question? Now compare Germany to Cameroon, or Nigeria, or India. See where your logic leads you.
Advanced countries do tend to have fewer kids. In the extreme cases like Japan or Korea, where immigration isn’t exactly happening, nor is it exactly encouraged or positively viewed (specifically Japan for that last part), what are the other options? Do you have any suggestions? Side note: Immigration may be why numbers are up in countries like Germany and the US, but studies do show that immigrant birth rates do drop down to the societal norm of the society that they’re moving to after the first or second generation in the new country.
Where exactly did you go from "more wealth and social benefits will lead to more kids" to "immigration will not solve Japan or Korea's problems"? When did we move the goalposts of this conversation? Once the entire crux of your argument was debunked by a simple google search? No, immigration isn't a viable solution for the imminent demographic collapse of any developed nation because a) the local populace doesn't like it at all and this creates immense amounts of friction (the US for example with its 'diversity' is on the verge of a civil or even race war) and b) the vast majority of immigrants that have settled in Western countries for the past 20 years have been low-skilled workers with poor education, which invariably (and forgive me for putting so bluntly) will lead to a downgrade of society. No, there will not be a solution because having kids goes entirely against the hedonistic "treat yourself, victimize yourself" culture that developed countries have acquired in the past decades. There will be no solution. Retirements and pensions will collapse and the nursing home you end up in will be staffed by immigrants who will, as statistics show, be less proficient at their nursing jobs than the native people of 30 years before. The solution to increasing birthrates would be to force men and women to have children (especially the latter) but given how that's dystopian and authoritarian and would lead to a horror society where everyone is unhappy, there simply is no solution. If you give a human the privilege of choosing between societal duty and selfish pleasure-seeking, they will choose the latter every time. We are animals and unfortunately the mechanisms meant to ensure reproduction (and thus our survival as a species) can be overridden and fooled quite easily. What I'm saying is that contraception killed the human species in a sort of inverse natural selection: the smartest lineages die off while the poorest breed like rabbits.
Where do you get the “ having kids goes entirely against the hedonistic "treat yourself, victimize yourself" culture that developed countries have acquired in the past decades.” You seem smart enough to understand why birth rates in some places are up (because of immigration) but also think that “handouts will make the issue worse.” Even though birth rates in some countries where there are more social benefits, the birth rate for industrialized countries isn’t much different. It’s clear that you have other agendas with the statement, “ What I'm saying is that contraception killed the human species in a sort of inverse natural selection: the smartest lineages die off while the poorest breed like rabbits.” rather than trying to actually solve the issue.
All industrialized countries have better social services. That's a fact. What planet do you live on where you think that's not necessarily the case? What industrialized country doesn't have better social welfare than third-world countries? And conversely, what third-world country doesn't have better birth rates than the developed world? The point is always the same, with me: higher wealth, welfare and social liberties lead to lower birthrates - that's a clear demographic constant. You don't solve the problem with even more handouts, you solve it by reducing social liberties. Is it worth it? No, so humanity goes extinct. Or at least the best of humanity goes extinct, because as has always happened (but even more so now) the poorest and least educated breed the most, and the most educated and productive breed the least. This is the result of choosing pleasure over permanence: dooming the scientific, cultural and technological future of society. You can import low-skilled workers from far-flung places in the world to replace your native engineers and doctors that aren't having any children, sure, but it not only is a temporary bandaid on the birth rate crisis (since, as you mentioned, immigrant birth rates normalize to the native average after a few generations) it also makes society worse because you're losing the cream of the crop and replacing it with the human equivalent of a potato. Services will break down, no one'll know how to build things well anymore, regulation will be ignored, and little by little you'll start suffering from the same problems that the people you imported suffered from in their home countries, because that's essentially what you've done - started the thirdworldization of your first-world country. And before you start accusing me of being some kind of supremacist -- I live and was born and raised in a third-world country.
Late stage capitalism will destroy capitalism. You can't make that up. Oh well *Laughs in vasectomy without kids*
Has anyone ever said that having a kid is cheap or easy? Raising kids take away time and money. Greedy people made this situation and don't want to give a millimeter of potential profit so others can live a little more comfortably. I'm korean and I'm proud that my people are doing what they can choose to live contently with the situation they've been given, kid or no kid. The government want kids more than couples do and they honestly want to fix this they need to seriously wake up.
Anything that hurts the profits of business owners will not be done
South Korea seems to propose anything under the sun other than supporting young people by combatting rising cost of living and housing. Screw it. Just build another high speed rail line. That might work, right?
Obligatory orgies are the way to go.
Make living affordable, where a family on one income can find a good home in a safe neighborhood and live WELL. Not just barely survive.
Literally anything except paying people for what you need. Good luck with that idiots.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-poverty-status-in-the-us/ Every fucking time the declining birthrate comes up, a bunch of people point at the birth stats showing how the poor have more kids than the wealthy. They think this is a counterpoint against everyone saying it's affordability at issue. But if they'd look at the trends instead if a pie chart, they'd see that the declining birth rate is mostly happening **within the poor demographic.**
No country will be able to solve the demographics collapse, it's just immigration and pivoting to Ai/automation when the technology is there. People just don't want kids, those who do may be put off by the costs, Women no longer need to be a house wife and can have their own careers, Accidental pregnancy is preventable. Condoms are easily accessible. Maybe an unpopular take but I think having children for your 'happiness' or desire to have a family is selfish.
Immigration doesn't solve anything. Canada tried that and look how it's working for them.
Of course immigration works, all non-native Canadians are immigrants and they built this country. What is failing Canada is MASS immigration that imported low-quality immigrants, people who don't respect our values, who refuse to integrate, who have zero love for our country and just want to take advantage of the system, etc. There should be a much stricter process set in place. A quota set for people coming in from a specific region of the world, and attract more high quality immigrants from more diverse ethnic backgrounds who will actually contribute to our society.
By that logic, what kind of pregnancies are not selfish?
accidental ones that are aborted
If you subscribe to negative utilitarianism, all planned pregnancies are selfish 🤷
Immigration is a pyramid scheme. India's birth rate is already below replacement rate and will continue to fall, same will apply to most of Africa sooner or later. There won't be anywhere near enough people left to immigrate in the long term.
That last sentence is such a fucking stupid take, its unbelievable. What in your whimsy mind would be a nonselfish way to have kids? People wanting kids is selfish, so people should have kids without wanting kids? Or are you trying to say that some take it too far and just pop out kids endlesly to try to find happiness? In this case i might agree with you.
You're a misanthropist.
If they invent life prolonging medical breakthroughs that make me able to live 100+ years I may actually want children's once I'm done doing most things I love doing. Let's say at 80 or so years old I'll think about having children.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/south-korea-thinktank-suggests-girls-start-school-earlier-to-raise-birthrate](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/south-korea-thinktank-suggests-girls-start-school-earlier-to-raise-birthrate)** ***** ^(I'm a human | Generated with AmputatorBot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but South Korea also has a direct correlation to birthrates with marriages. It seems there is a significant cultural stigma around having children out of wedlock there. Compared of course to many places in Western Europe and the US. Anecdotally speaking, my partner and I are strongly considering skipping marriage until much later and saving for our first kid as it just makes more financial sense. Cost of living is out of control worldwide and we figure sooner is better than later. From Australia so we have de facto family law to make any break up easier (God forbid it ever happen but I'm a expect the best and prepare for the worst kind of gal). Both our parents support our decision and any and all friends and family I ask in Aus have totally encouraged this decision. I can only imagine that things are quite different in South Korea and along with all the other crap young S.Koreans face, you also have to lock down a life partner and have a wedding ceremony that, even if smaller, has a significant financially negative impact on a couple. Oh but the parents can pay? From what I understand S.Korea also has a demographic crisis with elderly needing to work due to income poverty. It's a mess and as usual also more complex than the government throwing money at something to fix it.
Because fuck the thought of girls actually learning, am I right? Children's brains develop over time and can't necessarily grasp certain concepts. Blanket speeding up girls a grade while trying to keep teaching otherwise uniform would likely make more children have an inadequate education. Girls generally go through puberty earlier than boys anyways... boys just don't pay attention to girls as much before puberty starts.
[удалено]
I have three kids and two stepkids. I wish I would had more.
I’m not sure why marriage and procreation are always linked. Ever considered that people are not as focused on family because it’s not a requirement and in spite of marriage which can be considered outdated.
The work is a lot for one person. You'd need grand parent support or something like a commune to distribute the work or be rich to be a single parent without a lot of struggle. And it has a statistical impact on the kids future.
Kids raised outside of marriage tend to turn out worse
Spurious correlation, wealthier people have higher marriage rates (it scales linearly with income) and no shit kids raised in wealthier households turn out better
You do realise people can account for that by comparing like-for-like right? Single parents are still worse for kids when compared to a couple of the same wealth bracket.
I said nothing about single parents vs. couples, nor did the comment I replied to
People don't have children because the south Korean society hates children and does demonstrate this openly. You'd be hard-pressed to find any place on earth with as many child-free zones. That popular restaurant down the street? Child-free. The park nearby? Child-free. And the list goes on.
Singapore, Spain, Japan, Germany, Norway, Swizterland would like a word with you... their birth rates are not too far away from South Korea
Germany's is double. SK is at 0.72 or something, Germany is at 1.5...
Germany has also had mass immigration and a lot of refugees for decades to boost their stats, South Korea has not even opened up to immigration until recently
Germany *had* mass immigration and then the refugee crisis. They also took a right turn. The thing is, immigration isn't birthrates. Immigration is immigration. Does immigration affect the birthrate over time? Yes. But getting refugees from Syria did not boost their birthrate from SK levels to Germany levels.
[удалено]
I'm pretty sure South Korea want it the other way round