The article makes an interesting case for the possibility that South Korea's military dictatorship intentionally created low-fertility policies that can't be reversed. But reading the description of what's going on, I can't help be reminded of John B. Calhoun's work on the "behavioral sink" [1], where he basically created a utopia where rats had everything they needed for survival, they multiplied exponentially, but once they reached a certain critical population density, they ceased to be interested in reproduction and instead exhibited a bunch of socially pathological behaviors. Within 3 generations, no further rats were born.<p>South Korea is a densely populated country, as is Japan (another country often cited as having an aging, low-fertility population). And people tend to move out of dense metropolises like Manhattan or SF to have children. Maybe there's something inborn to humans that causes us to seek space and resources, and if those are not available, to not have kids?<p>[1] <a href="https://vocal.media/geeks/the-true-history-behind-the-secret-of-nimh" rel="nofollow">https://vocal.media/geeks/the-true-history-behind-the-secret...</a>
Whew, boy. There's a ton of loaded phrases in this piece . . which, well, I'll let others do the googling. Anyway. Ideologies (Evangelicals, Feminists, Transsexuals, Insert-Your-Evil-Genius-Here) don't shunt people's life decisions around willy nilly like this. Money does. People don't have kids in industrialized countries because children rapidly transform from a net investment to a net burden. Thus, <i>ideal</i> industrialized states have political policy to skim improved industrial productivity into incentives for childbirth[1]. This typically doesn't happen, so kids don't happen either.<p>This isn't a new phenomenon; urban areas <i>eat</i> birthrates, and you can see it in records from as long ago as the 14th century. Industrialization turns urbanization up to 11.<p>[1] Or a rational immigration / naturalization policy, but that's another subject, and it's not really tenable for some cultures.
I think it's obvious where this goes. The cited "war" between childless and people who start families is creating a tradcon counterculture in the youth, of people who want lots of kids, to raise them themselves instead of delegating to the state, and thus will be able to instill deeply from an early age the importance of family. They will necessarily win in a couple of generations. The shift back to a stable society centered around the family will return, and it will not be as easy as the shift to childless consumerism for short term economic paper gains. It's simple, ideology is passed to future generations when people raise their own kids, and those with the opposing ideology have removed themselves from the gene pool.<p>Off topic question, I've been using a different HN aggregation tool that isn't the front page, and I've found that some of the more interesting topics get flagged, why is that?
The hostility towards children is a real thing you can see today. I saw it first hand in Japan; parks had signs with dozens of prohibitions, while news stories about this phenomena inevitably had an 80 year old complaining that there were children outside at 8 and politicans saying that it was a "complex problem". These are not new parks mind you; just there are silver-haired "main character syndrome" types who consider public spaces as public spaces for their own personal pursuits.<p>As the proportion of the elderly (and mentally ill elderly) increase, creating age restrictions on elderly voting may be necessary if we want to prevent these selfish behaviors from damaging the long-term viability of our own democracies.
This is a take from a gender-essentialist who ardently believes fixed roles for men and women are established by the bible. Their other publication: <a href="https://americanreformer.org/" rel="nofollow">https://americanreformer.org/</a>
Peter Zeihan's take is that urbanization leads to less children because there's less space, you don't need the free labor kids provides on the farm, and children are very expensive in the city.<p>This is coupled with the speed of urbanization for countries that industrialized after the second world war- the later you industrialize, the faster that industrialization happens, the more stark the transition to a childless economy.<p>As mentioned in the article, there is a demographic boon for that industrialized generation. Less money needed for schools, etc, more time your prime working age adults can contribute to the economy.<p>Except all those countries industrialized around the same generation. That generation is aging out of the workforce and there's nothing to replace them.<p>Zeihan posits this leads to demographic collapse, and that these countries just simply "go away" because there isn't enough children to keep the country functioning. I'm not sure how much I believe that, but I do know that nobody has a clue how to fix it. Japan has been front and center for this problem and still haven't found a way to reverse the trend.
South Korea has another problem: shunning the elderly, elder poverty, and elder suicide.<p>EDIT: I recall a documentary about certain bridges requiring security cameras due to elderly people jumping from them.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapo_Bridge" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapo_Bridge</a>
Any hope that we can replace the traditional family-based society with some sort of urban community thing has been dashed already by the ultra partisan libs versus cons divide and conquer tactics of the elites and their tools in the media
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention North Korea more. The DPRK is probably the most collectivist (least individualistic) large society on the planet, so much so that it terrifies bona fide liberals. I'm sure the intense political polarization of the divided Peninsula has contributed to hyper-charging individualism in the South. You don't want to be like the enemy.<p>FWIW, DPRK birth rate is about 1.9, still below replacement but more than double the ROK, and much higher than PRC or Japan.