Korea's Q2 fertility rate drops to record low of 0.7 amid population decline - Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea

freagle , 10 months ago

Clearly this is a genocide, right? Y’all libs have been screaming about Xinjiang where the birthrate declined from 11 to 4, which means the Uyghur population increasing under this supposed genocide. Clearly if the Korean birthrate is below 1 this must be a super genocide and we need to get in there and save those oppressed Koreans.

belated_frog_pants , 10 months ago

Good. Only rich assholes or nationalists want population growth right now. Less people and labor bargaining power are both wonderful things

Pons_Aelius , 10 months ago

Cool. The sooner human population starts to go down the better it will be the the rest of the planet.

JackOfAllTraits , 10 months ago

Not like this. Quick lowering results in massive economic problems due to rapidly shrinking worker base. Birthrate is best keot at 2.0, which results in slow and steady population decline.

GlitzyArmrest , 10 months ago

Does the earth care about human economic problems?

JackOfAllTraits , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Yes, actualy. I am all for degrowth, but if we do it without a plan of how to be sustaniable while doing it, our societies will collapse, brining all of the not-so-ecological things like war unto the fold.

BudgetBandit , 10 months ago

So… a planned dropping of bombs?

JackOfAllTraits , 10 months ago

What? No. Degrowth is not a codeword for genocide. It’s about creating an economic model in which humans consume sustaniably, rather than feeding infinite growth demanded by capitalism. It’s specificly about avoiding the bombs.

Pons_Aelius , 10 months ago

Sorry but we humans have been fucking over the planet and our impact needs to be reduced ASAP.

We have blithely caused catastrophic damage to the ecosystem and have continued to do so for decades after we had the knowledge and capacity to reverse the effects.

The argument the whole time against changing our ways has been but it will hurt the economy

Well, we are now reaping what we sowed, so Fuck the economy and let the find out phase begin as soon as possible.

JackOfAllTraits , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Just to preface - I am not a capitalist. I believe in degrowth and communalism. With that in mind, if we just start dropping our numbers at this rate any system we have will collapse. There is no way for human societies to work if the vast majority of its demographic are the elderly.

We are not doing “the planet” any favors by launching a civilizational collapse. Planned degrowth is not only better, it is literary the only way forward.

Pons_Aelius , 10 months ago

I am not a capitalist. I beleive in degrowth and communalism

Honestly?

Your politics are irreverent, you are still Humans first and only.

The earth is in the middle of the sixth and fastest mass extension in the planets 3,500,000,000 years that life has existed.

It is only the second caused by a single species. The other was the great oxygenation event caused by Cyanobacteria.

The big difference is that we know the destruction we are causing and are doing nothing

Personally, the best thing that could have happened to planet earth would have been for COVID to have had a mortality rate of 30-95%.

JackOfAllTraits , 10 months ago

I’ll admit that this answer broke me. I have no more avenues of dialogue

Mangosniper , 10 months ago

Well yes. But it is the same as like quitting smoking and drinking as a heavy abuser from one to the other day. Your next few weeks will be not so cool. On this case it will be not so cool decades

Mkengine , 10 months ago

Looking here the fertility rate is declining since the 1960s, so I wouldn’t say 60 years is like quitting from one day to another, they had more than enough time to tackle the problem.

Mangosniper , 10 months ago

Oh yes yes. Of course the time would be enough to apply policies to tackle the problems created by this. However my experience of humanity so far is that those time will not be properly used to tackle the problems 🙃 therefore it will still feel like a cold turkey (IMHO)

agarorn , 10 months ago

Will be interesting to see how the countries with a decline manage (japan, Russia, Korea come to mind)

ShimmeringKoi , 10 months ago

Quick, mandate longer work hours!

Jackcooper , 10 months ago

I truly didn’t know SK was worse than Japan

Pons_Aelius , 10 months ago

IIRC: The rate in Japan has been below replacement level (2.1) for longer but the rate in SK has been falling faster and has now passed Japan.

Edit:
Just did some quick research:

First year below 2.1

Japan: 1975

Sth Korea: 1984

Year Sth Korea dropped below Japan's rate and kept falling: 2001.

Evilphd666 , 10 months ago

Too expensive to live, over worked, no secure foreseeable future. doomer

x4740N , 10 months ago

North or South Korea

Edit: article says south korea