"... and is projected to halve by 2100.... President Yoon Suk-yeol has described the population decline as a 'national emergency.' He and his wife Kim Keon-Hee are dog owners but do not have children. Experts say this reflects a broader societal shift, with pets filling emotional needs among a cohort of young people who are increasingly individualistic.... The shift in attitudes towards dogs in South Korea is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the fact that it only recently banned the consumption of dog meat.... Dog meat stew, known locally as boshintang, is eaten mainly by older Koreans in the summer.... The practice, often defended as cultural tradition, has faced growing opposition from... from younger Koreans who increasingly view dogs as companions rather than livestock...."
From "Raise children? No, South Koreans just want to pamper their pups/In the country with the lowest birth rate in the world, young people cite financial constraints and intense working conditions as reasons to choose pets instead" (London Times).
७३ टिप्पण्या:
I have 20,000 Haitian ways to end their reliance on pets for emotional support.
China? The global provider of labor and environmental arbitrage of choice. Americans have been under the same pressure, but with diverse natural resources, thus far viable debt and credit load, and immigration reform to supplement an increasingly Planned native population, life goes on with the belief in renewable, redistributive schemes that will placate the People and force others to take a knee in a warning a la Lord of the Flies.
Marco couldn't agree more on being man's best friend.
The inability to provide the full time guidance of a parent (even grandparents) that loves them is a huge factor in birthrates, I'm convinced of it. That children's primary adult supervision is at daycare, or school, or none at all when they get home. It's been increasingly somebody A) paid for or B) nobody since the 70s (gen x...latchkey kids).
My wife and I wouldn't know what to do without the assistance of my wife’s parents. It's really hard, and I somewhat sympathize with people my age that don't have them because they've realized that they could never give that level of support, and they exist.
BTW dog is tasty. Cat, not so much.
Banned consumption of dog meat?
There goes my plan to open a Haitian restaurant in Seoul.
Trump has 5 kids, Elon 12. JD is slacking off with only 3
This is only a problem in any country that relies on a Social Security/Medicare type system. People who have children who love them will be taken care of in old age. The others won’t. The Muslims aren’t going to take care of the old Western Europeans. This is human nature.
Japan is close so maybe robot caregivers will replace children.
When are we going to admit that removing mothers from the home in search of workers willing to take their husband's job at 75 cents on the dollar was a horrible mistake in every single country where it was tried?
All it did is IMPOVERISH people and lead to the death of children. Women (hey, I didn't make the rules) need to be AT HOME if they are going to have children. Making women feel unworthy if they don't have some guy telling them what to do for eight hours a day was wrong and still is. Just look at the sneering at "trad" wives ... otherwise known as "traditional wives and mothers" who work at home raising a family of FUTURE TAXPAYERS.
The Democrat Party brought this about. And it's not going to change until we eliminate these people from our lives.
Studies have shown the South Korean males have on average some of the smallest penises on the planet. Correlation? Causation?
Would that be "Haitian Seoul Food"?
People have to have hope for a better future to bear children by conscious choice. We have fewer now, because there are fewer unplanned pregnancies take to full term. And that is shown in the 72% decline in births to mothers 15-19 since 1972 and the 49% decline in births to mothers 20-24. The births to mothers over 30 have increased but not at the level to compensate to the decline in births to younger mothers. And first-time mothers over 30 have fewer overall children simply by the passage of time.
So Vance was right about the "childless cat ladies"?
There IS great significance to the passage of time.
It isn't very kind to leave a single dog alone all day, but it's better than eating them.
first-time mothers over 30 have fewer overall children simply by the passage of time.
I'm told repeatedly the passage of time is truly significant.
Sounds more like childless dog nutters to me. How very Western! I can't go into Walmart without getting run over by someone's unruly shitbeast
President Yoon Suk-yeol has described the population decline as a 'national emergency.' He and his wife Kim Keon-Hee are dog owners but do not have children.
So, why would anyone listen to him?
Kamalanomics.
My wife and I have mostly been consuming Korean entertainment for the past several years, and while what we've watched has been fiction, it appears that certain cultural touchpoints come through, so I don't think it's contentious to say that Koreans feel that their society is: too polluted, too crowded, too expensive, too authoritarian, too competitive, and too stressful to want to bring a child into it. Women would likely add "too patriarchal" to that list also.
I've seen some videos put out by Koreans that talk about the fertility rate, and something they note is that if a woman gets married, she will tend to have 2-3 children, so if nearly every woman got married then they'd be more or less at replacement, but due to the factors I just listed, the marriage rate is also incredibly low, and the low birth rate stems from that.
For those that say "you don't need to be married to have kids," Korea has a 98% legitimacy rate. Out-of-wedlock births are incredibly rare. They also only legalized abortion in 2017 (with restrictions), and it's not culturally accepted, so the abortion rate is also incredibly low.
Beyond all that, their culture encourages "parasocial relationships" with celebrities, and as such celebrities are expected to remain single so that their fans "might have a chance" or something. Any hint of celebrities dating is called "a scandal." A male celeb took a picture *with his sister* a year or so ago and lost half his fanbase because his fans didn't know he had a sister and thus assumed she was a romantic partner. This leads to an overall culture of singleness as the celebs that normal folks generally seek to emulate are all single too.
Further, marriage is generally something put off until their 30's (if at all) due to cultural demands for career, financial stability, and a certain level of status to be obtained in order to be thought of as a good match before marriage can be considered either. So the average age for a 1st pregnancy in Korea is 33, which also makes it harder to have several children.
All in all, the whole situation with Korea sounds very dysfunctional to me.
As an aside, if you see articles talking about Koreans having "blind date" events... I don't know the Korean words that get translated as such, but it seems to be an idiom that means "looking for marriage" and not just a random setup like American generally think of them.
Watched a video of a Korean University student talking about this issue and he makes the case that a large issue for Korea is that it is a city state. Seoul has such a high gravity, all young people move there for study and work. Living outside of Seoul draws contempt.
Life in the capital is expensive and cramped making family formation difficult. In addition to all the issues facing western cultures, Korea has this issue to address.
So which is it? Too many humans are going to cook the planet to death, or too few humans are going to die out?
I didnt bother to read the article because i can predict with metaphysical certitude that somewhere in there is a recommendation to fix this nice homogeneous society’s problems with mass importation of fast-breeding foreigners.
Which seems to me to just be a way of moving 3rd worlders to countries where they can spew even more carbon into the atmosphere.
But of course there is no contradiction. The global warming scam and the depopulation scam are just two strategic tools to destroy the West.
In reality, i predict the slow-breeding Asians will solve their own problem with robots to care for the aged and do whatever other jobs are proposed to be filled by foreigners.
(Except in Red China, of course - they will just kill the wrinklies to reach a new equilibrium population.)
JSM
Those who can't do, teach? No offense to Althouse about teaching.
This is the rarely discussed other side of the prosperity coin. Children are very expensive largely because the various service providers are making a lot of money on every conceivable service that can be offered, especially college tuition. But also dentistry, other medical, houses and owners-equivalent-rent. Daycare, clothes, even autos count since you may well need a bigger one.
Society's prosperity comes from the healthy profit margins that its businesses earn. But an expanding household with two or three children suddenly has a lot of demand without any income increase. I cannot imagine how to do it with six or seven, as once was common. I think this is a major factor behind the terrible European birthrates, South Korea's, and ours.
Some of those services are optional and can be foregone. But as the standard of living rises, people will stretch for them. And some, no, many, people feel that they can never afford all the costs that additional children are going to require. So one or two are plenty. And none doesn't seem so bad to a number of folks, at least some of whom would be happier if they did have a child in their life.
How we stop and reverse the cycle of rising costs I don't know. I am shocked by the plumbers' charges that we receive out in the rural lands. They have us by the pipelines. Probably only a depression could affect this spiral and even that would prompt huge governmental intervention. (Likely to leave prices higher, not lower, than before.) But it has been many years of super-high profit margins among the large corporations so new products with hefty pricetags have become a way of life.
That which cannot go on forever, won't, said Herb Stein. But the crystal ball is very cloudy on this. A nation with a birthrate as low as South Korea's will not have prosperity to worry about, since they will have a terrible labor shortage. Maybe there is hope for North Korea there. Maybe reunification will happen in this natural way. Maybe.
A boy is a dog is a pig is a rat.
To a certain extent I think younger folks could use a dose of the wisdom of the Dick Van Dyke theme song lyrics.
When you find the joy of livin’
Is lovin’ and givin’
You’ll be there when the winning dice are tossed.
I think largely because of social media, but other factors as well, people aren't cognizant of the happiness and fulfillment one can get from loving and serving someone else. And let's be honest the flow of work in the typical parent-child relationship is very one sided. I think too many young folks only think of the cost and what they lose out on by having kids and raising them.
Friends with "benefits", tradwife, Great Society, toxic masculinity, gender confusion, progressive prices, immigration reform, the dreaded "burden"... we didn't start the dysfunction, but we're fighting to mitigate its progress, its liberal excess.
“Studies have shown the South Korean males have on average some of the smallest penises on the planet. Correlation? Causation?”
Probably causation, esp with the 98% legitimacy rate. Some of the racial stereotypes are based on the reality that different races evolved in different environments. Sexual dimorphism is at its highest in East Asian societies, and lowest with African societies. And Blacks likely have the largest penises. Why? East Asian climate is unforgiving, so cooperation is paramount. Thus high levels of legitimacy. Food gathering is much easier in African societies, so cooperation is less important, as is legitimacy of kids - single mothers can successfully raise kids there, where they would likely starve in a high cooperation, but harsh climate, like Eastern Asia, where known paternity is important to social harmony. But with the need for that social harmony comes less pressure for men to screw around with other men’s wives. Thus, less competition for penis size.
You do know that East Asians wrinkle less than those of us of European stock?
Maybe it’s simple. Koreans don’t like to fuck
Maybe it’s simple. Koreans don’t like to fuck
Is this a liberal argument or a conservative argument? Here goes. What if we try a grand experiment. Stop all migration from other countries into the USA. Come up with some tax/taxes on the well off (especially liberal industries/income streams/lawsuits/royalties), and fund private retirement accounts, equity based, that cannot be obtained until 65 or 70.Also fund revitalization of poor and middle class neighborhoods. The very well off and well off are doing fantastically well. Everyone else is weighed down by the rat race. I know people who are too tired to fuck. All they do is work and rest to work more. Sorry Doc K.
I've tasted it. And let me tell you, the right pussy tastes really, really good.
South Korea needs BREATHING ROOM!
I suggest heading North.
Bruce Hayden - ha! I shall add “yellow stay mellow” to “black don’t crack!”
But seriously, the CCP won’t have to look for wrinkles to find their oldsters.
The very oldest can probably still be counted upon to do their duty to the Party and self-report to the boxcars….
JSM
Here's an experiment. Open up Google Earth. Search Pyongyang.
39°02'26.15" N 125°44'21.95" E
That's the USS Pueblo, an American ship. What do you notice about the surrounding area. Scroll out. Look around. This is the capital city of North Korea.
There isn't a soul to be seen. Not a single vehicle. Not a single person walking the streets.
Now why would that be?
I felt that my constitutional rights were violated by the requirements that I mask and be vaccinated but maybe it was a matter of state interest that compelled the government to impose these violations ON MY BODY.
Perhaps in the name of national interest, the nation of South Korea might eliminate all birth control and give control of the wife's body to the husband? Would it be wrong to do so? How would that differ from forcing masking and vaccines on the body in the name of health and safety?
I can see no more compelling state interest than the continuation of the state, and for the state to continue, the state requires citizens.
When my body was being violated, the feminists gave me lectures and arrogance. I will just end by noting that the vaccines interfered with female reproductive heath, and I have been a defender of a woman's right to control her own body.
Your body is your property, but no one really owns property when the government can take it.
*I am not a lawyer nor am I a philosopher. Maybe I have some things wrong. Educate me.
We have groups of flight crew routinely staying here in Las Vegas. I thought, from the beauty of the women, they were Japanese. Nope - Korean. 3-4 flights a week here from Seoul. Two crews per plane, which translates to 4 good looking male pilots and copilots, who don’t talk to the two crews of maybe 10 or so very thin and attractive female flight attendants each, all dressed identically in crème and light blue uniforms, except for their crew leaders who are dressed all in crème, but with light blue hair bows. It’s funny watching them. The two crews of women kinda stick together, but you have to look closely to see which crew is which. They all arrive together, then head upstairs together. And then the women quickly come down in small groups, changed into civies, to go shopping across the street. Last week a new crew came into town, and on the way back to the airport, there was only one bus. One of the women panicked and wanted assurances that another one would soon arrive. We pointed to their unconcerned male pilots. Nope. Couldn’t do. I have never seen such a division by sex. The female flight attendants just could not ask the males they were with for directions. Anything else. The second bus arrived shortly after that, and the women quickly calmed down.
I have an Ockham's Razor suggestion: the amount of clothing matters. Where people wear more clothes, there is less ability for a woman to select a man based on that characteristic. Colder and more affluent societies wear more clothes. Even where it is hot, people with money cover their skin.
Another aside: Affluent Korean women engage in a lot of cosmetic surgery. In the west, we only see a small selection of the population. Did you know American women are the most beautiful women in the world? Ask anyone in another country. They know. They've all seen the movies. Hopefully Shouting Thomas will be by to make some comments on some of this. He has a good perspective.
Big families were common in agricultural times. My great grandfather had 12 children and my father was one of 10. "Hired Girls" were also common in census records, so mothers had help before the younger kids got old enough to contribute. Farms required a lot of labor before the 1920s. Now, children delay adulthood with education and children are not part of the family economic system anymore.
It will be okay…
Happy people have children - Tucker Carlson
I wish I'd thought of that.
Tucker Carlson, the guy who hobnobs with Holocaust deniers.
"So which is it? Too many humans are going to cook the planet to death, or too few humans are going to die out?"
Either or both, as insane progtards require in order to force their preferences on normal people.
Using Ockham's Razor on penis size . . . only at Althouse.
They're all inside fucking?
My son, daughter in law, and two young grandchildren came to visit in July and for unexpected reasons will be staying with us for six months. I've been able to see modern child rearing up front and it is exhausting. First off, my daughter in law and son require more "me" time than earlier generations did. The children must be supervised at all times (and coddled); they can't simply go into the back yard and explore and play by themselves for surely something bad will happen. Eating is a haphazard activity involving frequent trips to delis and restaurants. Meals when made tend towards organic ingredients, but with copious amounts of oil, fat and sugar.
My daughter-in-law law lives in a state of fear induced by the media, and also spends a good deal of time instructing the 4 year old on proper moral choices.
So, aside from my carping on their personal lives and food choices it is clear that the time requirements of modern parenting have increased enough to drive sane people crazy.
Disjointed post, but I am in my second week of suffering from various bugs the the small ones have gifted to me and my wife. Pretty certain this culture will become extinct in 2 to 3 generations as no longer able to sustain itself. Very nice, loving people but not living a sustainable reproducible life style. And at least 40% of the parents we knew when my son was young (in the most highly educated community on the West coast) seem likely to never become grandparents at this point. Son is now 33.
Sounds like your next 6 months will be enjoyable. I wish you… and them luck.
That sounds like the Korean crew hierarchy what makes the Korean planes crash
Having dealt with both I am not convinced that "pets are cheaper/less hassle" is an argument that makes much sense
Dave, much easier than banning birth control would be regulating the workplace. Affirmative action for men would keep more women at home, and those women would have to marry someone just to survive. Then they’d have children in hopes that might guilt the man into staying around, or at least in 18 or so years they might have an adult son to support them.
Regulating legit businesses is more efficient than trying to ban substances. Remember, most of the Covid tyranny was enforced through businesses afraid of losing their licenses. “Fire these women or fire everyone and shut down” is easy to enforce.
Robots and AI might accomplish this anyway through market forces. The jobs remaining for humans will require original, non-iterative thought, not pink-collar rule-following. And well, who does that better?
JSM
"The children must be supervised at all times (and coddled); they can't simply go into the back yard and explore and play by themselves for surely something bad will happen."
When I was a kid, at 9AM it was "Go outside and play." Nobody watched over us much as long as we weren't doing stuff that would get us in trouble. In which case, every mother on the block would somehow be instantly alerted. Unless it was time for lunch, going back into the house before it got dark (or it was dinnertime) would have been- how shall I say- unproductive.
Nobody I know died from this lack of supervision.
Look up "good daughter in law syndrome in Asia". So much traditional expectations put on a daughter in law, I don't blame women for not getting married and having kids.
I thought Islam was one of the worst systems for women on earth. Then I learned about Neo-Confucianism, which almost seems worse.
Commenter Dinky Dau needs to chime in here...
There goes my Bonchon Chicken sammich!
It's been noted elsewhere, and I'm sure that you have noted it, how much of a production it is to get a bunch of kids mobilized for a car trip. In our day, we climbed into the back seat, or were more or less gently placed there. Today, each child must have a dedicated protective APC that takes a couple of difficult minutes to secure the child in, and takes up half the back seat. The need for these has been cited as a major reason that most suburban parents stop at 2 kids.
To be clear, these safety seats have been instrumental in protecting kids and preventing injuries and deaths, and are a very good thing. As Dr Sowell, said, tradeoffs, not solutions.
Now that was just mean, FullMoon!
Classy
Yeah, can you imagine what would happen if they paid them equally?
Seems like the conservatives and Musk types are wrapped up with high birth rates.
Alp: At least as far as I can tell, Neo-Confucianism doesn't demand the destruction of all other belief systems and the slaughter of those who don't adopt it.
Heck, that's pretty much benign as far as religions go these days.
When you eliminate home makers, the home soon follows
Blind date is usually seon (pronounced like "sun") or sogaeting (from sogae, meaning introduce). Yes, it's more serious, but there's a range, from direct introductions to vague instructions to call the girl at this number and hope her relatives or whoever haven't been lying about letting her know someone will call (a thing that has happened to me).
We regularly let our kids go off to have fun with the cul-de-sac gang by themselves. The 9 and 7 year old are old enough to be smart about it and know their respective boundaries. The just-turned-5 year old gets direct supervision out front (whether by us or the older kids on the street) and has free reign of our back yard (which includes such dangers as a zip line and a trampoline, as well as various garden spiders, garden snakes, and two vicious dogs that lay around in the sun all day and will lick your face off if you aren't careful). Being helicopter parents in this day and age is still a choice.
Post title needs a Trigger Warning! The title should read: "South Korea’s birth rate is the lowest on the planet, at 0.7 per birthing parent. The population officially began shrinking four years ago..."
Stop trying to erase all the men having babies!
Query: Is the 0.7 for all birthing parents or just women only? If only women, what is the birth rate when you include everyone else?
To see how bad it is, compare Korea's population pyramid to others:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2023/
versus Nigeria:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/nigeria/2023/
and the whole World:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2023/
The consumption of dog meat is still legal in Canada. Only in 2018 was the practice banned in the U.S.
How many of those two generations went to college, Michael? If you see this reply. Yes, clearly the economic value of children has changed dramatically.
That was painful, Narr
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