How much longer will South Korea survive?

    For the 2nd year in a row, South Korea is ranked 198th out of 198 in fertility rate. The average birth rate is 1.1, which is much lower than the global average of 2.4...even lower than North Korea which is 1.9. The population aged 0-14 is 12.3%, down from 12.5% last year. The population aged 65+ is 16.6%, up .8% from last year and way above the global average of 9.6%. On top of all that, Korea's population declined for the first time ever. South Korea is in an even more dire situation than Japan, which also faces a low birth rate and aging population.

    I don't think the fact that SK is last place in fertility matters much. Any country lower than 2.0 should be worried about this.


    I think China is in a way worse position than SK in this regard. They aren't really in the high income bracket yet and with such numbers, it would require a way more drastic solution to solve their crisis in the future.


    I think any country will be fine as long they can guarantee these two basic aspects: productivity and security. Having a lower population sux, but technology can fill the gaps. When people talk about automation, they always think of loss of jobs, but automation isn't just saving costs. It can increase productivity lost from declining population. Singapore and SK both are the rock bottom of the fertility rate ranking and they have the highest industrial automation. The security can be automatized as well.


    The other solution would be immigration. People bring up easing workplace for parents and creating incentives. However, this is just a costly solution with very little tangible effect. The truth is raising a kid in a highly urbanized country sux. Lot of couples would need to have 3+ kids to pick up the slack from people who go solo (which is increasing) and couples who have zero to one child. Even with incentives, not many would choose this unless forced to. Even if we force people to have a more traditional life style, this is a dubious measure at best (like some countries are doing).


    Immigration is a can of worms. If it too lax, a backlash can occur. If it is too focused on bringing qualified people, a brain drain will be caused to another country. SK probably won't take this route to solve it. It seems they are trying the same as Singapore which probably won't work well to reach the magical number. The objective isn't getting out of bottom place. It's 2.1 or nothing.


    I guess the only real solution is reversing urbanization, but that means reversing prosperity.

    Why Would it matter tbh??? For such a small country, the population is way too dense. They are better not giving birth to so many new kids.

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  • AllKill VIP

    there's too much problem in Korea

    first the countryside is dying, they are working so much to make of seoul this big city who shine in the world that they neglect the countryside, and now the population of the countryside is moving to seoul


    secondly too much social pression and school, i used to had a correspondent in Korea and one of the reason he told me he don't want to have kids is because they know how much the society put too much pressure on the kids at a very young age with all their exams, that they have to go to school until midnight etc.. sometimes , and after living like this he wouldn't want to let his kids live the same things

    that's why a lot of koreans don't want kids or don't want to have kids in Korea

    Korean women are modern women still and shouldn’t have to be pressured into marriage and children. It’s hard for a country that’s so conservative to let go of those values, but they’re outdated imo and it is a woman’s choice after all.

    All of east asia is going extinct. Same as Europe. Japan's birth rate crisis is well documented and now some estimates say that China is going to lose half of its population by 2100 due to low birthrates. This will lead to all sorts of economic issues partly due to how many elderly people there will be. Eventually you'll have to allow immigration to offset the lack of young people.

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