South Korea is dying (but it has a plan)

[@CaspianReport]

Visit 80000hours.org/caspian and start planning a career that is meaningful, fulfilling, and helps solve one of the world’s most pressing problems. Make your 80,000 hours count.

[@jaro551]

What is that graph at 5:40? It doesn't make sense and doesn't align with what I found. Do the actual values not matter because the message stays the same? I suppose the actual values are somewhat common knowledge, so simple to find and seemingly unimportant. However it leaves a bad impression. Do you make the graphs yourself and something went wrong?

[@mr.gulliver]

sé-ul... not soul...

[@user-sh3cf7kd6e]

Please make a video about the Ukranian forces in the Golan hieghts!

[@pawegorka8589]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/moLaZapvjMyLmbMsi=vF0yk96ohftVEU02

[@matthewtopping2061]

In English, "soul" and "Seoul" are homophones. It doesn't matter how it's pronounced in Korean.

[@tricky1992000]

The issue is, that if you earn 10k a month and an apartment costs 8.5k a month, then you are not a rich country. Wealth is dictated by middle class disposible income.

[@bannedeverywhere]

Yeah and I'm lmaoing at that "majority choosed childfree life". I worked in korean company for some time and korean dudes there wanted wifes and girlfriends, but couldn't get any due to skyrocketing costs of living and hypergamy which went too far xD

[@XenosImplyer]

When even the middle class can only live in rent you don't get to pretend not to know why they don't have kids.

[@LancesArmorStriking]

​@@XenosImplyer South Korea is trying to have its cake and eat it too. Until Samsung (among others) is forced to pay higher wages, nothing will change.

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

@@bannedeverywhere That's what happens when you have billionaires, they are modern day feudal lords, except feudal lords at least made sure their peasants could have wives and kids... society went from basically utopia post world war 2 to what is quickly going back to the the middle ages

[@ericktellez7632]

By that metric the overwhelming majority of the countries are not rich all all, in fact only very few countries would be seen as rich.

[@HeliosLegion]

It's quite Amazing how they were able to fit two dystopias in one peninsula.

[@qworky902]

It's insane that they're the same nation but split into two dramatically different realities.

[@FuriouslyFamousBG]

stolen comment

[@pimmpslap]

​@@FuriouslyFamousBGI prefer "recycled."

[@yuyoshida7359]

Korea is hell. Splitting it and changing it in different ways still couldn’t change that reality

[@JoeTheBroken]

1984 vs Brave New World

[@NoVisionGuy]

South Korea is heading towards Cyber Punk while North Korea is stuck at Steam Punk type of dystopias

[@dickystrike6966]

@@NoVisionGuy steam punk with nukes

[@latentspacex]

NK is playing Manor Lords while SK is playing Anno 2070

[@PremiumMaple1125]

As a korean, Actually there are few problems here. 1.International foreign policy is not firm. In Korea, government changes almost every five years, but each political party has different international diplomatic lines (the Democratic Party supports North Korea and China, and the power of the people supports the U.S. and Japan), making it easy to lose trust from neighboring countries like U.S 2.Radical feminism is ruining the country. Unlike misogynistic national perceptions posted by foreign countries, Korea is very free from gender discrimination (there was one in the mother's generation). Unlike foreign countries, however, they do not form solidarity with PC, only based on feminism and hatred against men. In fact, false perceptions in foreign countries also contributed to the spread of feminists. They ridicule Korean men's military as "vacation," and populist politicians are implementing policies that favor these people in order to win votes.

[@DmoneyS44]

@@PremiumMaple1125lost me at “korea is free from gender discrimination” lmao. The idea that any asian country is completely free from gender discrimination is absurd

[@AprezaRenaldy]

​@@latentspacexin 2100 70 % sk population Over 65 years old

[@J_X999]

If birds don't have a nest, they won't lay eggs. What if nests cost 30x what the birds can afford?

[@orzehunter]

then you get south koreans not having kids

[@carlosandleon]

The true problem is the defeatist mindset. Easy to blame external factors for your inability to have children.

[@anaz7603]

If that analogy is a referral to humans and high cost of living (including mortgage or rent), then you must take into account the poorest in a society tend to have the most children, so you’d have to question why couldn’t the financially better off have more children too?

[@mam0lechinookclan607]

@@anaz7603 this exactley, its mostly a cultural problem

[@lamchunting856]

not to mention you have to feed big fat hungry cuckoos and get eaten by eagles

[@jesse8025]

Crazy that they planned a modern city and didn't think of public transport.

[@rayeya3138]

Have you heard of America?

[@frida507]

Busses could be added quite quickly I guess. Maybe they thought everybody would be riding self driving vehicles by now....

[@spiritfree5050]

@@frida507 self driving taxi cars was probably the plan

[@UKfanX13]

​@@frida507 those are called trains

[@jmdoza3938]

Real Estate Scams. After they have been built, that place will only get expensive.

[@HaHa-um4zr]

I'm Korean and there are few errors. 1. Sejong has been around for 10 years now, and most of things are already built there. 2. The Korean government is not planning to fully replace its capital to Sejong. Only less than half of its government departments are located there and there is no further plan to move the rest to there. Also the main cause of the low birth rate is the fact everything is too competitive. They've been taught from young age that money is everything. Korean people genuinely do not like seeing others becoming successful, and gossiping is what people do with their friends the most. Students are obliged to go to universities at all cost and get masters if better, and along with the fact Korean men go to military for 2 years, most Korean men get their first proper job in their late twenties and early 30s. Almost all Korean people want to live in Seoul or around there making the housing price extremely high. This, along with the fact people start making profit by their 30s, makes it difficult to get married and settle down. In Korean culture, the male side has to prepare a fully owned home prior to marriage and this makes marriage a challenging life event. So Korean people that are rather poor do not even think about getting married. Korean parents also have to spend most of their income on their children's education in order to send them to good universities. This is also the cause for married couples to not have kids, and the high elderly poverty rate of 60%.

[@АВЗ002]

it turns out funny. To start giving birth, Korea must become poor. Perhaps this applies to any country.

[@Certago]

It is interesting how our advanced civilisations wipe themselves out slowly.

[@arjavgarg5801]

If population comes down then competition should come down eventually right Then birth rate will go up on its own

[@mekingtiger9095]

​@@arjavgarg5801 We already kind of see this happening in Japan right now. Shortages in labour are making companies compete more between thenselves for employees rather than the other way around increasing the power leverage of the working class. It's been a slow process so far, though.

[@JasonDrogo]

What about k pop?

[@rx5mlqid732]

How the fuck do you build a completely new city and not put in a metro system as the very first thing?

[@castheeuwes1085]

No condom dispensers I can dig, but no metro..

[@karlyap3011]

It’s most likely due the built-in corruption of liberal democracy, also known the special interests of Korean automakers.

[@lamchunting856]

Very simple, Chaebols own Korea, how does building a metro benefit them?

[@ChristianDoretti]

It is a headless logistical mess. Korea has corporations that are mainly based of producing cars, you see where everything goes from here. the government definitely designed this city based on the interests and guidance of the companies rather than what the Citizens would find attractive and practical to live there and work.

[@ytn00b3]

That city wasn't meant for population, it was meant for government officials that's why, they just use cars.

[@roadrunner6224]

If you've ever seen how ridiculous the education requirements for children are and that anyone who doesn't land a job at Samsung is considered a failure, you have to wonder how anyone with an ounce of compassion will bring a child into that society.

[@jossland1628]

Terminal online brain lol.

[@lefunnyN1]

i feel sorry for korean youth, i wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of their highschool life

[@ls200076]

​@@jossland1628True, the pressure Korean society puts on these days

[@qadeera3906]

Brainless K-pop/drama addicts, that’s the answer , don’t be underestimate their how delusional they can be

[@kelsey_roy]

Having a child would only disadvantage me. Why would I do something that would harm me long term?

[@SweetPlain]

I am Korean, and trust me, we do not have a plan.

[@SweetPlain]

@@raazirazz4216 nope

[@SweetPlain]

@@raazirazz4216 Overcome-low birth rate-dance is what they did recently. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5a3pmuMmK6DeZYsi=WEMl0l1n1_1vIiht

[@alexfriedman2152]

Least Korea will be safe and prosperous for a few generations at least. The USA and the entire West is completely boned. They only add immigrants on purpose,which creates so much crime, but keeps the economy floating. There are so many problems because of these leftist, progressive policies. At least Korea doesn't have those policies. It is really sad money is so important in the culture though.

[@koreangymmemes]

​@@raazirazz4216 they don't have. Council of seoul made "a childbirth promotion dance" using taxes.

[@jacqueslee2592]

There is a surplus of Chinese and Southeast Asian fertile women that Japanese and South Korean men can chose from. This will also introduce much needed genetic diversity in Korea and Japan if repopulation and population stability is needed. The main issue is that it seems that asexuality and low testosterone are prevalent among East Asian men. It must be the chemicals and pollutants, it may be the uranium and heavy metals from WW2 and Korean war or industrialization that led to this.

[@SgtCandy]

"We don't know why they neglected a transit system" Bruh you literally said the reason earlier in the video, the city planners spent all their time obsessing over self-driving cars.

[@MustraOrdo]

Sponsored (Lobbied) by Kia/Hyundai;)

[@jorgbuhler4521]

Maybe the planners were all rich government officials that were driving to Seong by car all the time. They didn't think of the average salary man/woman.

[@anthonybird546]

Yeah sometimes he doesn't hear himself

[@focumQuarium]

Or rather, planned by Americans most likely.

[@MyVanir]

@@anthonybird546 Or closes his ears when he speaks.

[@ProtocolAbyss]

Lemme summarise why they’re not having children: - Too much stress - Too much Work - Too little time - Too much money needed - Too little time for love.

[@FromTheWombTotheGrave]

None of those It’s mainly of cuz their women hate their own men 4b movement is literally about resenting men

[@ericktellez7632]

@@ItmightnotbeoverWhites have low replacement rate as well, in the US ethnicities seen as non white so far are the ones with a higher fertility rate than non Hispanics white

[@FromTheWombTotheGrave]

@lif6737 not really South Korean women simply don’t like their own men Just like most western women Cuz women are hypergamous These women only look for the top 10% of most successful attractive men only

[@jesperburns]

@@ericktellez7632 How is that a response to what he said? He's wrong but just going "whataboutthisweirdcountry" makes no sense. Actual response to @itmightnobeover : in-group preference mate selection is the highest everywhere in the world, Koreans are not an exception.

[@someguy5261]

People don't want to bring children into an existence they think of as being a rather miserable wage slave. They also do not want to further complicate their existence as a rather miserable wage slave by taking on the responsibility of raising another, which will surely cut into the already dwindling amount of actual free time they have.

[@markw999]

A bunch of government employees having a few kids in a sequestered, stagnant, soul-less techno-city is not a solution.

[@DirMichaelDavid]

EXACTLY. they build a seoul-less new city that is bleak and depressing, with ugly eye sore buildings and no public transportation infrastructure and wonder why people don't want to live there. I bet if they built a city with traditional Korean architecture in cheap area people will be more willing to live there and have kids.

[@osu3167]

This actually wasn't the first time this happened back in the 80s population plummeted because Koreans would go have abortions in preference of male babies. S Korea had to ban parents being able to know the gender of the baby so this would stop.

[@134343]

I lived in Korea and I met so many Koreans who hated their study in engineering, medicine, math, etc but had to due to parental and societal pressure to a point that they just hated life. This pressure is also created by parents and society as they had to build the country from nothing and expect their kids to do the same. I can imagine that if you go through this all you would never want to get kids and get them through the same torture. My outside perspective is that it would be more efficient to try to improve the work-live balance and working culture in general.

[@widodoakrom3938]

Can't be helped with capitalist society where the gap between the rich and the poor so high

[@Corredor1230]

@@widodoakrom3938 To be fair, there's another non-capitalist state also run by Korean people, and that one's not doing much better either.

[@BloodyNapkin25]

Just a korean male college student here. I think the problem roots from a very distorted view of the average middle class by us koreans. For marriage, a typical female looking for an avg male looks for a man that is 178+(30% of pop.), income of 45k+(25%), graduated from universities in Seoul (top 20%), working in big corps like Samsung Hyundai LG etc or are in highpaying work force (doctor, lawyer, etc) (10% at max) and so on. This is literally what is viewed as average in Korea, and it is so far off from reality. It doesn’t even end here. So for the definition of middle class, it is 50% to 200% of median income (35k), which becomes a range of 18k to 70k usd. However, people who earn less than 50k usually consider themselves poor, who earn 50k-150k consider themselves middle class. So, yeah, i think the entirety roots from distortion.

[@Corredor1230]

@@BloodyNapkin25 This is all based on my Korean friends abroad and their account, but I feel like that goes both ways as well. Guys are looking for girls that look straight out of a drama, that will be willing to drop their careers and stay home, cook for them, take care of the house, be fun and intelligent, and even stay home taking care of the kids. So under that context it seems like guys are becoming more and more anti feminism and anti progressive values, while girls are becoming more and more feminist and anti male in general, breeding this very toxic environment where neither side is willing to compromise much less work as an actual team. This is different from for example Japan or Germany, where this phenomenon is considerably less widespread and although it still happens, it's not as big as in Korea. That plus higher cost of living, stagnated wages, and just social problems in general, might explain why specifically South Korea has a rate almost half of all other developed countries.

[@eddy8032]

You might think that I’m making excuses, but I completely disagree with you as a Korean man. The reason Korean men became anti-feminism is not due to their unsatisfactory towards woman. During the era of rapid industrial growth(~2000s), Korean man powered the most important parts of Korean industry, and served for a military giving up their most valuable times of the life. It is clear that there was a glass ceiling for women, but there was no such severe gender conflicts like nowaday’s. But as the economy matures and the discrimination towards woman has waned, which has begun since 2010s, everything has changed. The outcome and opportunity between two genders had become almost the same. However, duties charged on man, which is representatively military service, has remained only for man while politicians backed by radical feminists mocked young Korean man who were protecting their country in his most thriving years of life. Even at this moment, Korean men serving in military are dying of accidents, bully.. but no one cares about us. As a Korean man sharing these situations, I feel a sense of helplessness. Getting Jobs is still extremely stressful even for those who graduated Top-schools. But girls are expecting more and more from men. They don’t even try to date a man who does not have decent jobs(lawyer, doctor, Accountants..) As an outburst of these unfair circumstances, radical anti-feminism had emerged recently. I do not support their thoughts thoroughly, but I wanted to pointed out that foreigner’s view on Korea is not always 100% true. There is something way more complicated than your views acquired from news or Kdramas.

[@Canadiana_Invicta]

6:10 “A population of 100 is reduced to just 6” *shows 9 dots*

[@dmax9946]

Glad someone else saw that

[@twestgard2]

Serious dissonance

[@playstationakcurate8292]

6+3 North Korean defectors

[@jorgbuhler4521]

Actually this calculation of immediate population collapse implies that the parents die right after childbirth. In reality they will live some decades more, so the population collapse happens later.

[@AmericanwrCymraeg]

When your population has declined that much, you can't spare anyone to count dots.

[@bringbryanback]

Please help me get my son back from South Korea. He was kidnapped to Korea 5yrs ago and Korean court made 11 orders to return him but Korean government still fails to return my child.

[@MrErdem95]

Imagine building a trillion $ city but forgetting it's transportation infra.

[@guydreamr]

Allow me to introduce you to Los Angeles.

[@chrisrhodes2]

How is that different than almost every American city being developed the past 50 years?

[@MrErdem95]

@@chrisrhodes2 The difference is that this City was %100 planned compared to Us cities. Besides, Us cities are old at this point.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@MrErdem95 It was planned with self-driving pod cars in mind I suppose. Probably suggested by Kia and Hyundai...

[@janentomenkafka]

How many cities do you know - with a population of 350K - that have a metro system ?

[@st_christoph3648]

"In other words, it is soulless" One could almost say that Sejong is... Seoul-less

[@MiguelDLewis]

Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

[@Filon2137Potocki]

That was my first thought 😂

[@MustraOrdo]

I thought that was the cheeky thing he was going for.

[@stereomachine]

reddit tier pun thread

[@MustraOrdo]

@@stereomachine >NOOO, STOP HAVING FUN this is you.

[@rooneytutoring]

Let me guess, they didn't want to piss off the car companies by building a transit system or maybe they thought it would improve GDP numbers by boosting car sales.

[@lilemont9302]

Woah stop noticing things

[@rooneytutoring]

@@lilemont9302 I can't help it, it so similar to the stupid crap politicians here in Canada do all the time.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Then South Korean politicians have no right to complain if young people refuse military service and refuse to breed. Tough shit if the country dies out.

[@Renato-144]

This seems to be a very convoluted way to justify spending billions on a new city to keep the government and their workers outside North Korean artillery range.

[@sosapablo1995]

It's so evident

[@Caprikel-ov2od]

Woah, it's also like it's possible to have multiple practical reasons to make something, truly this is an incredible insight what no one could have imagined.

[@skunkjulio]

They have short range ballistic missiles like Scuds in the thousands. Moving the capital to Busan wouldn't matter for avoiding attacks

[@TimSlee1]

@@Caprikel-ov2od butt

[@ВладиславВладислав-и4ю]

​@@skunkjulioit's make smaller damage per cost

[@nietur]

Imagine building a new city without public tranportation. What is this, USA?

[@widodoakrom3938]

Lol

[@MyVanir]

Who do you think they learned from?

[@Muhammet-Kuruoglu]

car lobbying so strong, it targets even countries that wont even benefit them much

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@MyVanir Most likely they learned from their own people - specifically, from Kia and Hyundai...

[@cezaryadamski8786]

the US is a 3rd world country ,dont compare then with South Korea lol

[@KonzaCelt]

"It's 1998, and cell phones are shrinking in size..." I didn't even see a cell phone until 2001 lol.

[@Meh-i6b]

Damn 96% population drop off in 4 generations? Kim Joung Un should invest in diapers not in nukes and win the long game.

[@claravinas9265]

They are. The north is literally a more humane functional society

[@saultrujillo9501]

In what ways?​@@claravinas9265

[@RisingInTheFlesh]

I wouldn't say it's humane but it probably has a higher birth rate​@@claravinas9265

[@offworldrelocation]

@@claravinas9265 As long as you dont starve to death

[@stereomachine]

@@claravinas9265blatantly false

[@hydronpowers9014]

Government: Doesn't build affordable homes Also Government: Why is the birth rate falling?

[@Mikester88]

"invest money to encourage the nuclear family, but haven't seen any results..." I wonder how that encouragement is handled, i bet its not making the middle/low class more economically livable.

[@Narekz]

The goverment has lost control over Seoul as it is completly run by companies .You cannot build affordable housing if you sold all the land to companies and privat people 50 years prior. They will restart with a new capital in which they remain in full charge

[@daviddestefanis2989]

@@Narekz I am skeptical that the government is able to fix this problem. Just like governments don't normally fix any problems. If people just listened to the Catholic Church and didn't use contraception we wouldn't be in this mess.

[@NathdanielWalice]

@@daviddestefanis2989 bud this is about people not being able to afford all the things you need to raise a child, childcare, safe home, and the excess cost of clothing and educating someone for nearly two decades.

[@botanicalitus4194]

@@daviddestefanis2989if they listened to the catholic church they would be in a far worse mess

[@historyandeconomics6746]

You’re awesome keep it up!

[@CaspianReport]

Thank you! Will do!

[@singorocydia4286]

The graph at 5:39 is incorrect, none of those countries have a birth rate above 3/woman today

[@lokz1639]

how so just interested

[@anon2034]

Correct!

[@lughaidhmoutia3589]

i saw that , its 100% wrong

[@castheeuwes1085]

Yup, I had to stop, and check for France. 1.7, not over 4.

[@homyce]

I came here to see if anyone else noticed! The numbers in the graphs are totally incorrect and by a large margin!

[@thearpox7873]

The last thing you need if you're looking for affordability, is anything "cutting-edge".

[@ackwebde]

They would have literally been better off just investing in excellent public transport + really cheap and big flats (120m² and not over $200k). That already fixes most financial problems.

[@Praisethesunson]

if you are rich that idea only creates financial problems, for the rich. ​@@ackwebde

[@thearpox7873]

@@ackwebde They'd first have to figure out that "please make the housing cheaper" don't mean "pay premium cost with the taxpayers money". PS: Because we have plenty of examples of "cheap housing" being absolute tosh, yet still costing the government way too much to build.

[@davidblair9877]

To be fair, a lot of modern appliances and infrastructure can be made vastly more energy-efficient than even ten years ago. That is a massive cost savings in the long run.

[@thearpox7873]

​@@davidblair9877 Like? Because home appliances/cars are something people will buy themselves, electric buses are a risky dice-roll that may or may not pan out, building better power plants is a completely different project from a city, and I haven't heard of any major advancements in sewer drainage over the past decade. So I don't know what you're referring to, but regardless, the problem with any improvement that's less than ten years old is that all of the savings are projected, not yet proven. Most of the savings either just don't pan out, or turn out to be riddled with asterisks from marketers all too happy to omit details.

[@exharkhun5605]

"Everyone always has a plan, until they get hit in the face by a population graph." - Mike Tyson

[@ichifish]

So let me get this right.... Sejong is expected to have 1% of the population, most of them the wealthiest government officials, and that 1% is supposed to turn around the population decline?

[@Lawrence.Laurentius]

Doesn't make any sense.

[@deshaunjackson8188]

That's a lot of fucking

[@Praisethesunson]

The rich will take care of themselves and consider that good enough for all of society. They are wrong but by being rich they make sure they are never told so

[@adamperdue3178]

It could help a bit more than that if the people leaving Seoul for Sejong lowers the cost of living in Seoul enough that families there are also able to afford children.

[@Praisethesunson]

@@adamperdue3178 Price hasn't been based on demand for housing since 2008. Real estate is a "stable" tax shelter for the ultra wealthy. The fact the poors need basic shelter to live is irrelevant.

[@domenico_ginny6164]

They are over worked. No time for a hobby, no time for love.

[@elon1796]

Correct

[@therobro5089]

Bro in Finland where they are living apparently the best lives of all time they still don’t have kids gtfo outta here if South Korea fixed their work culture shit wouldn’t change at all

[@yonggeun4222]

@@elon1796I dont wonna hear excuses, just have a baby full stop. NO Excuses

[@amatulfulani6390]

@@yonggeun4222 People don’t want to be irresponsible. Why would you purposely have a child you can’t afford? Having a baby when they can barely afford rent. Then the child suffers. Seriously shut up. You don’t have to carry the baby, push him/her out, pay for their expenses for 18 plus years. Just sitting behind your computer talking nonsense. Telling people to have kids no matter what when it does not directly affect you is beyond absurd.

[@yonggeun4222]

@@amatulfulani6390 then how the fak do non koreans have babies? r they bloody rich? stop making freakin excuses

[@SSW56]

As a Korean, I can definitely say that sejong has already FAILED

[@jjdoe1900]

How so Please explain

[@FFFFFFF-FFFFFFFUUUUCCCC]

​@@jjdoe1900the city is already overrun by the giant spider army

[@SSW56]

Its primary purpose was reducing seoul centralization and moving the capital. However, seoul centralization got even worse. Additionally, Constitutional Court Opposed the transfer of the capital on the grounds of the customary constitution

[@Juyounngg]

fs

[@SweetPlain]

​@@jjdoe1900Sejong's birthrate is below 1

[@davidleahy6141]

A population of 500,000 breeding in Sejong at a higher rate will not make a dent in the larger scheme of things.

[@titanshifter2645]

That kinda lewd

[@SneakySnorunt]

Not to mention, the only reason they have a higher birthrate is because they're government employees and have benefits that allow them to be parents. Wouldn't these be the same ones having kids in Seoul? It just sounds like they're draining the people who can afford to have kids and moving them somewhere else. How does this help?

[@FallingPicturesProductions]

It's not supposed to, this is machivelianianism with Confucian elements. Protect the government and piece by piece outsource every other aspect of your country to machines and automation. Then bet on every other country doing the same.

[@jgw9990]

​@FallingPicturesProductions It'll fail regardless. Urbanism is death to birth rates. Creating a new city will not save Korea, or any other country.

[@richdobbs6595]

Especially when they are still way below replacement rate.

[@dragosstanciu9866]

No wonder young men and women don't have time to raise children, too much stress, too much work, too little time for love.

[@miken3963]

More like no way to afford it. Getting kids is a choice these days and not just an inevitable consequence of having sex. Me and my partner have 2 kids. We're lucky to live in a country with maternity leave, universal healthcare, labor protection laws and earn above average salaries. There's no way in hell we'd have gone for the second kid if our parents didn't fund a big chunk of the price of our house. Kids are extremely expensive. More so in countries that don't have government subsidized childcare and parental benefits. Everyone and their mother have been screaming at our generation to make sound financial choices and are now surprised when we actually are.

[@Trickaz94]

They work/go to school for 11 hours a day, no wonder they don't want to have to raise children

[@ChristianDoretti]

We Gen Z are socially autistic, we lack a lot of empathy. That makes contact or even relationships much more unsustainable than past generations, Where they had that social stigma of dating and having children between each other. In modern society the obsession with productivity has become the worst and best friend for our hedonism.

[@LosRikos]

​@@miken3963totally agree. I have no kids and it's tough here even in the U.S. because there is hardly any wealth to begin with, let alone spread over more people in a place where every 4 years I have to worry about my govt doing a U-turn in politics. Just not the time or place to be able to plan for these things.

[@economiccrisis9267]

​@@miken3963why do so many poor countries have a higher birthrate then?

[@Grubnar]

"Our country is going to Hell in a handbasket! What should we do?" "Uhm, I dunno, build a new city?" - Egypt. Saudi Arabia. China. And now, South Korea. ... Am I the only one that fails to see how that is supposed to help solve anything?

[@lilemont9302]

Solve?? No, we just want more money

[@RoachV4]

It depends on the country ....for egypt as an example a new capital and multiple new cities away from the nile and on the sea shore is a must and an essential infrastructure for the growing population

[@sorosxu]

你看出来有个毛用，你们管理者需要包，你送不送？

[@rajahua6268]

Indonesia

[@saint8257]

Chinese cities actually work tho? Lol still stuck on the "ghost cities" propaganda of 2014?

[@drunkenslav2334]

its not "economic success" when your people dont have time to enjoy life, when your society has a gender-relations crisis and when your country is dominated by corporations.

[@Aksarallah]

It's because living standards are too high for people now. They are insistent on getting a white collar job with a degree instead of doing blue collar jobs. This is same case in my country India. A guy who went to college for 4 years earns less than a guy selling tea. But it's too shameful to be doing such jobs for them

[@TheBucketSkill]

@@Aksarallah thats psycho. literally no shame whatsoever in selling fuckin tea. india has the best tea.

[@DieNibelungenliad]

I remember the meme where North Korea is dark at night while South Korea is brightly lit at night. The meme tried to mock North Korea, but everyone mocked the meme because North Koreans get to sleep at night while South Koreans have to work and study overnight

[@Aksarallah]

@@TheBucketSkill lol just ask any indian dad if they would prefer their son selling tea compared to working in an office job. They would beat you up lol

[@TM-xw4lt]

당신이 틀렸어요. 한국은 인생을 너무 많이 즐깁니다...................그래서 아이를 갖지 않는것입니다.. 너의 선입견은 싸구려 수준.. 한국은 거리에 음식가게 . 술집가게. 카페가 서양보다 약 10배가 많습니다... 그것이 무엇을 뜻합니까??? 그 가게의 숫자만큼 많은 사람들이 먹고 즐기고 놀고 있다는뜻입니다. 당신이 한국에 와서 서울에 와서 한강 공원에 가보세요...........매일 매일 수많은 사람이 피크닉을 즐기고 놀고 있다는것을 알게 됩니다... 만약 즐기지 않는 인생이라면 그렇게 많은 음식가게, 술집 가게. 카페가 없겠지요 ??

[@todtnau]

A car-centric city would have called been "cutting-edge" in the 1960s. NOT IN 2024! Young people are soo done with high priced, car-centric hellholes.

[@KiwiCatherineJemma]

Of course they THOUGHT of public transport in advance. They deliberately left it out so folks, just like in many USA cities, would be forced to buy cars and drive. This was DELIBERATE. I bet the Korean car manufacturers gave big envelopes full of cash given to the city planners. Follow the money, mate. Fix it NOW ! Rip up half those blimmin' roads and lay down railway/subway etc. Otherwise all you'll ever have, is a Korean version of Los Angeles (except with a wicked cold Winter climate).

[@kenw.4539]

They need third places, good public transit, and affordable housing and child-care.

[@jaegyunkim4287]

Dude Korean Public transportation system is way better than those in NY or CA.

[@Tubbyfedcop808]

The plan is for the city to be fully automated driving pods. The way its described is like calling for an elevator to take you to your destination. Cuts down on cars and pollution.

[@Empdizz]

This video is a really strange way to say "late stage capitalism is killing the human race."

[@lupsastta90]

Korea is hardly the most capitalist country in Asia, did you even watch the video? Most high paying jobs are from the government. The real problem is urbanization, people are not supposed to live in dense cities, their instincts make them stop having children.

[@trgscorpion9532]

Modern industrialization is doing it not capitalism. The only places left in the world with above replacement birth rates are sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Mongolia, and Israel.

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

"Late state capitalism" was said to have been achieved in the early 20th century.

[@beberforumer9715]

its not a strange way to say that. it confirms the superiority of communism over capitalism, or the superiority of the north korean society

[@_CuriosityCorner_]

Most people I know are in their 20s and 30s and whether they're Italian, Japanese, American, Uruguayan or Australian - the answer to why they don't have kids always comes back to housing. How is it that every industrialised nation can experience a population that's vanishing AND a housing crisis simultaneously? Do they not contradict? I hear Trudeau, Sunak, Albanese, Macron, Scholz, etc blamed for the housing crises in their countries, and the opposition promising to swoop in and fix it - but they can't all be to blame if it's occuring in multiple continents simultaneously. Fix the housing and people will breed.

[@IgnasV]

Most people I know have no huge issues with housing, but rather, they have not been able to find a partner.

[@redstone5062]

The reality is large cities are where nations go to die. Building more tiny condos in mega regions won’t encourage people to raise children but accelerate the collapse. No babies, no future. All of the nations that have abandoned rural life or small cities are in terminal decline.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

Wrong. There have been govt. programs to address affordability all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it. In Japan house prices even DECLINE over time btw. People have literally been polled about how many kids they want to have - the answers are almost always either 0, 1 or 2. The replacement rate is 2.1 fyi, and in the past families could be as large as ten or more. We also have a natural experiment that shows housing isn't the issue - all over the world orthodox communities have higher birth rates than their liberal counterparts of similar socio-economic status. The religion differs, but the one thing in common is that they all adhere to traditional gender roles. And the result is more kids, housing affordability notwithstanding. This is not being caused by house prices, it precedes it.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@ArawnOfAnnwnNot to mention there are some developed countries where housing is quite affordable and government builds a lot of housing so that it remains relatively affordable for citizens such as Singapore and Austria. Yet their birth rates remain very low. Singapore in fact has the world’s second lowest birth rates after South Korea

[@Moosa27]

@@thomasgrabkowski8283 Housing in Singapore is affordable ?!! Since when?

[@manwiththeredface7821]

This might be gross generalization but I feel like S-Korea and Japan are willingly working themselves to extinction. I mean who in their right mind stays in Seoul and rather commute everyday for multiple HOURS each way than just move where their job is? These people don't seem to value sparetime all that much (even though time is the only resource no one can get back), they'd rather be on the move all the time. I'm no psychologist but there has to be a reason for that in the national psyche.

[@andreibalaban3643]

Agreed, at this point it seems to me more like a work psychosis and lack of desire for children in the people than a fault of the state itself

[@krunkle5136]

It's really not that simple. Japan used to have a six day work week and still had a higher fertility rate then. The problem is addiction to media and little effort to make family creation appealing/easy.

[@stereomachine]

@@krunkle5136 Agree with your take. Koreans are increasingly becoming isolated in their social lives and filling the gap with technology. People talk about various economic factors, and they do matter, but if you have a great social circle a lot of these problems feel more managable. Alone it's bleak.

[@b_seovin]

It's because Seoul has everything. Good infrastructure, all the shops, newest trends, cultural hotspots, and all your connections you have. Why give that up to live in a newly built desolated urban hellscape with no soul?

[@natecollins9331]

They Have Other Thriving Cities like Daegu, Gwangju, Ulsan, Busan, Daejeon, and Chucheon. But then again, Korean Mindset and Narrow Thinking that leads them to their own concequences. Tbh, The case is not the same as Japan. Japanese might see Tokyo as a Capital and eveything arounds it feels wonderfull. Yet their Infrastructure in other cities like Kyoto, Keihanshin, Sapporo, Kobe, Fukuoka, Nagoya , and yadda yadda were also advanced. Not all Japanese want to live and pursue materialistic things ans only want to go to Tokyo, some just want their cities that they lived there for so long to thrive too.

[@jeems2066]

SK society is extremely toxic and overly competitive don’t forget about that

[@jirislavicek9954]

It sounds like a nightmare. Artificial city for state bureaucrats, full of surveillance. No soul, no transportation. Korea will need workers in the future, not bureacrats.

[@16thdemon]

And what exactly is it that gives the city "a soul"? Calling something "soulless" is one of the dumbest phrases of modern internet.

[@Acolith]

​@@16thdemonEvents, culture, food, art, history, tradition, architecture, and many other factors. If you cannot understand it, maybe you should call yourself "dumb"

[@Acolith]

@@stereomachine I don't say anything like this. I'm just answering the question above

[@Acolith]

@@stereomachine My point was to highlight the fact, there are the cities in the world which are soulless (e.g. Dubai) and cities, which are full of character (e.g. Seoul). I've never been in Sejong, so I don't have my opinion about it, but I hope for the best for this project and for South Korea.

[@sinoroman]

South Korea will have more US military personnel than Korean workers in the future

[@ninjam77]

It feels kinda absurd that a city of 500,000 should be the solution to a the fertility crisis of a country of >50 million. Sejong is nothing but a drop in the bucket. Sejong has achieved a minor improvement in fertility rates if it did anything for that at all (other factors such as lower cost of living and government employees being more concentrated there might also explain it). However even if Sejong had a fertility rate of 5, that'd not change much about Koreas crisis.

[@IgnasV]

I'm hoping that's not their solution, I'm hoping this is just an experiment to see what works. Although, it just puts young people in a new city, so obviously fertility gonna be a lot better. People willing to move will be more adventurous, and will likely want to take a risk and have kids.

[@jonathanguzman3044]

Capitalist countries often tend to put band aids over huge societal problems rather than opting to fix them by undergoing massive systemic/societal changes. Everyone knows the system is fundamentally broken but the successful people have all the power to maintain the status who while the impoverished, unsuccessful masses have no power to change anything just like in America, the UK and any other hyper capitalist nation

[@asdasdasddgdgdfgdg]

Exactly, its a numbers game. High fertility rate in a city of 500k = nowhere near enough to replenish a country of 51 millions.

[@ironstarAcles]

Do you really believe goverments soleve things or they just find retarded ways to spend your tax money. I mean only retarded bureaucracts that want to look smart will build a city rather than compare the 1 variable that counts. Just compare fertility in north korea to the fertility in a muslim country and the fertility of a conservative comunity like the orthodox jews. If they cand produce a conclusion then.i guess they need to build more cities.

[@iambicpentakill971]

@@IgnasV Or people willing to move will be less likely to want to be tied down. A quick Google search didn't answer this

[@TheTeodorsoldierabvb]

The problem isn't the city, the problem is the ridiculous work culture, extreme feminists, incel armies and low living standard. Building a new city won't fix that.

[@varsik289]

Damn, same problems as Japan

[@shmuelparzal]

I'm South Asian, the traditional family in most cultures is the EXTENDED family, not the nuclear family (response to statement at 9:00 in the video). A nuclear family is the western idea of a family (US and western Europe). An extended family allows parents to earn a living, while the children are cared for by the extended family. Nuclear family puts too much pressure on the parents, especially in societies where there is a lot of economic pressure, and so puts people off having a family

[@SaffariRose]

Good point! Same applies to Africa as well as the middle east. The burden of care is shared around so everyone is participating in family building in some ways. Meanwhile, in a nucleated setting, childcare is either exported as an additional service that starts to cost money or one parent has to sacrifice a potential income source by staying home. But available housing might help if it means being able to buy/rent larger spaces that extended family can stay in to help take care of each other.

[@theEtch]

just because it is in your culture doesn't make it most cultures

[@shmuelparzal]

@@theEtch Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Southern Europe, South America, all indigenous and native cultures..........

[@recoil53]

@@theEtch And yet it doesn't matter what applies in most cultures. The video is about South Korea, an Asian country.

[@doujinflip]

Traditional extended families are even more expensive since there needs to be housing for them all, in a locale they agree to and can reliably reach each other within. Nuclear families are an adaptation to an industrialized economy where workers have to be more mobile to reach opportunities as they arise.

[@kylewhitt587]

Stop using AI to make your graphs and double check them yourself.

[@jaysonemile6633]

Does it really matter? I’m just here for the information.

[@moravianlion3108]

@@jaysonemile6633 They talk about visual information. Same thing. I've seen many times people saying wrong thing just to slap a quick visual correction, because they don't want to re-record the whole narrative passage. What is said information here was said incorrectly and the graph was the right one?

[@jaysonemile6633]

@@moravianlion3108 oh ok I understand.

[@mariusvanc]

@@jaysonemile6633 And the graphs are what, a screen saver? If you say "X", but clearly illustrate "Y" as you say it, what am I to take away? What is correct? This is even worse, because experienced youtube viewers know editors will often insert a quick video correction when the information in the script is wrong, rather than rerecord the audio.

[@WythenshawePhil]

He has no problem putting false information out there, and when it is brought to his attention, and he acknowledges that he was wrong, he still leaves the video up. Doesn't edit and reupload. You can't trust what this guy says.

[@john_doe_not_found]

After WW2 many nations experienced a Boomer population. This was fueled by cheap housing that any 22 yr old on his first job could afford. And all of those young men were employed at jobs that payed well enough to let them afford a house and a car at a young age. Their wives did not have to work, and in every Western nation there was a population boom. So that is the formula: Jobs that pay enough that only one income earner is required to afford a home with some space. Simple. Some of the wealthiest people have the largest families. There are many multi-millionaires with 6+ children. Some have huge families of 12+ children. Because they can afford it and they have the room. Give people space and resources, and they will procreate.

[@wamnicho]

The difference between then and now is that women stayed at home. Nowadays women compete with men for jobs which lowers wages and pushes the prices of everything up, if a couple divorces, now you have two people that need separate homes, this ups the home prices, colleges can charge more because there’s high demand for a degree due to women going to college.

[@Anderson_Se7en]

I think the truth lies in these two comments. The loss of good jobs for unskilled workers, the lack of affordable housing, economy driven mandatory two person incomes, less time at home, and women’s empowerment (sorry it is a factor quoted by several experts) is gonna decline birth rates every time in every country. Equality is a gift and a curse. I mean who knew desegregation in America would lead to black people having less economic prosperity and opportunity, but that’s exactly what happened. Desegregation took the most able black bodies out of black communities, leaving behind poverty stricken areas where they had been a positive influence.

[@ss-ds2dn]

Women did work more than people think. And when soldiers came back from ww2 women were literally shoved out of their jobs to make room. Many liked working rather than having to rely on substances to get through the day. Also something that no one wants to talk about is the fact that the birth rate starting dropping when bc was wildly available, showing that previously MANY women were having more babies then they would have chosen to. Also the baby boomers came of age and joined the workforce starting in the 60s but everyone just wants to blame stagnating wages on women rather than that and the decline of unions. If society wants motherhood it needs to be shown more respect and compensation. But it'll never happen. Statues for women who died in childbirth? Nah, but war monuments as far as the eye can see!

[@zsqduke]

except this is proven completely wrong. The reality is literally the opposite. The poorest countries have the highest fertility rates.

[@saharkhalili5303]

Because in poorer countries they use children as a labour resource for the family

[@davidtsw]

Wait, they designed a new city that was supposed to be family-friendly, and they forgot about public transportation? Wow

[@KiwiCatherineJemma]

NOT FORGOTTEN ! Of course they THOUGHT of public transport in advance. They deliberately left it out so folks, just like in many USA cities, would be forced to buy cars and drive. This was DELIBERATE. I bet the Korean car manufacturers gave big envelopes full of cash given to the city planners. Follow the money, mate. Fix it NOW ! Rip up half those blimmin' roads and lay down railway/subway etc. Otherwise all you'll ever have, is a Korean version of Los Angeles (except with a wicked cold Winter climate).

[@selohcin]

@@KiwiCatherineJemma You're obviously not from Korea. Sejong has trains and buses. It's not like the city has no public transportation.

[@baihuiye]

Republic of Samsung and Democratic Republic of Kim. These are at late stage of two extreme ideologies

[@widodoakrom3938]

Lol

[@technobloode9709]

A bourgeoisie state is in complete contradiction to communism

[@ernimuja6991]

@@technobloode9709It is however the end state of communism because communists still have not figured out the fix to how to prevent the power vacuum they create from being filled by tyrants. Once you guys figure that then maybe real communism can be achieved.

[@jason4275]

South Korean Youth: It's too expensive to have kids. South Korean government : We will build a new City.

[@justsefa1843]

Yeah no. Unless we revolutionize our modern lifes, you aint getting +2 children per family in industrial nations. -Too little time -Too costly (heck +340k is still a stupid number for anyone in the middle class). -Usually both partners have to work, further feeding into "too little time" A new city may reduce the money burden, but it is still there and you still have too little time to raise a child. Increasing productivity, taxing the rich and lessening mandatory work hours, while lessening the economic burden for families is a much more meaningful intervention here.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

LOGIC! something antifeminists & conservatives hate

[@morowenidi4621]

Sejong is quite clearly made for rich government officials and corporate elite, lack of public transport is showing. It's not going to help, only worsen already big economic divide.

[@Jesussaves-od8ho]

Thanks!

[@CaspianReport]

You bet!

[@RealityCheck6969]

Hmm, we have a saying in my culture: "The living inherits the world."

[@anon2034]

Were are you from?

[@cyberninjazero5659]

I still can't believe that North Korea is the one with people that actually want to continue themselves

[@ChristianDoretti]

@@cyberninjazero5659North Korea also has low birthrates, the problem is that they lack resources and are not industrialized. Only China can boost them, if China is smart enough they would support Russia and North Korea so they can play the long game and catch the societies in decline due to the American model.

[@cyberninjazero5659]

@@ChristianDoretti You can say a lot of things about North Korea but it absolutely is Industrialized. Communist sphere countries tend/tended to be as a rule NK included.

[@ChristianDoretti]

⁠@@cyberninjazero5659It is industrialized but also Centralized, their government has a full control over them which makes these industries non-competitive and limited. Their industries apart from the military industries are very underdeveloped. One of their second most important sectors is Cyber Security and it is still irrelevant as this doesn’t not help them to grow economically. North Korea offers nothing to China apart from being a geographic barrier against American influences and geopolitical plays.

[@ssjj4314]

No, we don't have a plan. Especially our current government.

[@fabio4465]

The plan is to set another human trap for koreans, further away from Korea´s legit gov.

[@Praisethesunson]

The plan is the same as always. Take care of the financial interests of the rich. Everything can fend for itself(as long as doing so doesn't threaten the interests of the rich)

[@FromTheWombTotheGrave]

Your women hate Korean men

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

@@Praisethesunson Antinatalist Fact: ANYBODY who DEFENDS BREEDING/NATALISM has NO FUCKING RIGHT to complain about how ANY person turns out: Communist, Marxist, Socialist, Feminist, Animal Rights Vegan, pro-war, anti-war, pro-abortion rights, pro-drug freedom, anti-nationalist, rapist, terrorist, soldier. THAT is the RISK YOU ACCEPT when you defend NATALISM IN GENERAL.

[@Winger520]

Why do you keep using images from China throughout the video? Please check your sources.

[@sorosxu]

因为没得说

[@davianoinglesias5030]

To make matters worse it has one of the highest rates of emigration,professionals are moving out due to escape Korea's superficiality, bullying, high costs of raising kids etc. Korea has to fix its social aspects too

[@MustraOrdo]

Korea has to fix its social aspects *first and foremost.

[@IgnasV]

Korean emigration rate is nothing compared to eastern europes lol.

[@WasntYourFaultYouHaveToLetMeGo]

​@@IgnasV Eastern Europe contributes nothing so it's alright.

[@Sterren-ws6jc]

I think countries need to adapt policies that will make having children an advantage, not a financial burden. In history, people had children because they were an advantage, a free labor to work on a farm. I am not smart enough to come up with these policies myself, but I do think making policies that make having multiple children an advantage rather than a disadvantage is the only way to get a fertility rate above 2,1. Maybe starting with free housing for families with 2+ children and heavily reducing taxes for families with 3+ children would be a good start.

[@rhs5683]

1) Dont encurage nihilism in your culture. => damn pron and feminin men everywhere 2) Family centrered culture an a family is a monogam, permanent, fruitful union. => cant say in public 3) Formal female education specially in "modern non-applied fields" is also disrupting. => let student pay for themself 4) Rat-cage cities arnt a magnet for kids. => Long therm transportation an decentralised jobs 5) Less income tax and more individual freedom 6) Social transfere systems are also punishing winners and state retirerment like in europe is a ponzy sceme.

[@johnl.7754]

Correct but current citizens (therefore politicians) probably don’t want to sacrifice for the greater good in the future of the country.

[@saturationstation1446]

lolol. well, all well off people are trained to view everyone with less wealth than them as parasites who are trying to get a piece of your fortunes. you cant even get employers to feel like its their duty to pay workers enough to remain alive at all. we expedited slavery for europeans and made slaves literally disposable for them. now they expect that treatment in perpetuity and refuse to acknowledge the cost of civilization because they've been conditioned to believe civilization/society arent even a real thing and the only thing that is real is the numbers in their bank accounts..

[@bm6110]

I ain’t paying for that shit

[@alqash6749]

​@bm6110 then start making babies if you dont wanna?

[@holkholkman]

Hello from Turkey. Turkey's birth rate also dropped to 1.53. This is very low for a developing country. Houses are very expensive due to inflation, the minimum wage is 500 dollars, but the cost of marriage varies between 15-30 thousand dollars. New houses are always built for foreigners, and those who buy a house for 400 thousand dollars are given citizenship as a gift. Foreigners live in luxury sites and developers try to sell houses to foreigners with foreign currency. For Turkish citizens who do not have a house, houses with affordable payment options are not built.

[@fuzinho1]

this shocked me aswel as an outsider, developing, traditional culture country, considering a lot of immigrats from middle east and kurdish families who looked like they were having more kids. Seems like Turkish new generations caught up with "western world economies" in terms of social media and new values, before even having a strong middle class.

[@taiocruz2499]

Designing a city in east Asia without an adequate public transit system is the fastest way to see your project fail

[@weltarchiv4]

Public transit is negative for raising the birth rate as it allows people to live without a car and indirectly without having their own house. Car ownership and home ownership increase the birthrate and need to be incentivized. Generally, everything making single and childless life pleasurable needs to be disincentivized or abolished. South Korea needs radical solutions for this problem. Paying people to have children will not work/ will not work on the people that you want to have children. - No promotions to management-level jobs for childless people (like South Africa requiring a minimum rate of Blacks in management-level jobs) - No university degrees for childless people. Generally people should first learn a craft after high school, work manual jobs, get married and have children when they are young. ONLY THEN some of them go to university to become managers. This might have the positive effect of decreasing the amount of bullshit office jobs. - Parents receive extra votes for their children until they become 18 - People that cannot have natural children need to adopt underage children to be exempt from these restrictions

[@Ohnonono123]

​@weltarchiv4 right because 100 years ago ago when the birth rate was many times higher they were all driving cars lol

[@weltarchiv4]

@@Ohnonono123 Obviously public transport has not caused fertility decline alone and I never made that point. Generally though, urbanisation has been a major driver of fertility decline. Urbanisation is made possible through public transport. The post-war baby boom was a lot about about de-urbanisation (moving to the suburbs). Suburbs are car-dependent and family-centered. Good public transit is a driver of yuppie urbanist lifestyle which causes fertility decline. In a country with a healthy fertility situation I would support investments in public transport. In the West and East Asia definitely not, as they are in fertility crisis.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@weltarchiv4Not to mention among developed countries, the most car oriented countries like US, Australia and New Zealand have higher fertility than the rest of the developed world which are more public transit oriented(with car oriented and low fertility Canada and public transit oriented but high fertility France being the exceptions)

[@sanitygone-l9y]

@@thomasgrabkowski8283 The US, Australia and New Zealand do not have high fertility rates. They are all around 1.6 births per women. Their populations are supplemented by immigration.

[@AbdulKhader-786]

not having at least 2 kids per married couple is suicide for any society

[@VVayVVard]

Actually that would be 3 children. Only around 70% of the populations of most developed countries have children, and most people tend to have 2 per couple, which yields a fertility rate of 1.4 (0.7 × 2 = 1.4). This is around the rate for native Swedes, for the Japanese (slightly lower here, since fewer than 70% have children), as well as for Caucasian Californians. In contrast, in order to preserve a population, a rate of 3 children per couple would suffice, although only barely (0.7 × 3 = 2.1).

[@Aksarallah]

or... bring immigrants

[@VVayVVard]

@@Aksarallah That's just a shorter path to societal regress. With the modern-day West serving as a prime example. Migration causes the price of housing to rise further (because migrants, for some reason, require housing, which is a limited resource) which causes indigenous fertility rates to plummet further. Over time you'll see slums develop, the residents of which are unable to speak the local language and thus end up relying on social benefits and illegal activities. Still further down the road you'll start seeing societal institutions get taken over by the newer arrivals and their sympathizers, and this is predictably followed by a sharp increase in cross-group tensions. The jury is still out on what will happen next. But based on the fact that people in the West have started advocating CRT, it seems likely that the situation will eventually develop into something akin to 1930s Germany----i.e., with the more competent parts of the populace being persecuted by their less-competent peers. Large-scale migration only ever had a positive effect during the post-Enlightenment era of expansionism. And even then it only worked because it involved the migration of more developed populations to less developed areas. Which is impossible currently, due to dysgenic fertility trends.

[@Aksarallah]

@@VVayVVard You are completely wrong. It's not because of immigration but because of poor systems and laws Just look at the middle east for example, more than 50% of many gulf countries are already immigrants. But they are still considered the safest countries in the world with traditional values intact. It's only lack of laws and systems. Laws in the west suck, they are all man made laws after all. Not followings God given laws.

[@Mjkimkr1]

It's not worth it to give a birth like using a child labor in your third world country so stfu

[@Deashh]

I was living in Daejeon, which is 1 hour driving to Sejeong. As author said it is a ghost town, boring and empty, while Seoul is a massive city with unique culture and vibe. And I don't really understand how 1 city can fix such demographics issue with 52 million people population.

[@FrugalPCOG]

Sounds like N. Korea just needs to wait them out and before long theyll be able to just walk in and inhabit the place.

[@paulluka2029]

North Korea has the same problem although a bit slower but definitely the same path.

[@shindavid6484]

SK isn't going to evaporate in 10 years though... we talking centuries of waiting?

[@thearpox7873]

My thoughts exactly. And the ironic thing is that it'd give Kims the status boost to declare victory and move back from hard-line communism.

[@ChristianDoretti]

Not walk in, but in 40 years, they will lose so much as their economy will shrink, so their economy will have to focus on not dying rather than innovating on their army and tech.

[@abumefak2]

@@ChristianDoretti At that time they will have a society that is mostly elders who can't work.

[@pollutingpenguin2146]

It’s completely doomed and the halving by 2100 seems very optimistic. They are probably looking at having between 15-20 million people by then. With two thirds being over 60.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

And that’s assuming current birth rates are constant. Unfortunately for South Korea, the current young generation entering child bearing years(Gen Z) in the country are historically disinterested in having children according to polls. Young South Koreans are also less interested in having children than any other nationality of young people

[@cadeellis2415]

​@@thomasgrabkowski8283Gen Z are not interested in having children because they are STILL in high school or college. You should have asked Millennial and younger Gen X (44-49) if they are interested in having children.

[@assistantref5084]

The countries with the lowest birthrates are those who got rich before they got liberal. South Korea has the lowest birthrate because it has the strictest gender roles and the least tolerance for non-traditional family structures. Meanwhile, countries in Northern Europe have comparatively higher birth rates, because they have a more egalitarian culture and strong state support that makes it easier for women to have and raise children. It turns out that once they get rich enough not to have to have kids as an insurance policy against future starvation, women don't have much interest in having kids in systems that make it miserable for them. Who would have guessed?

[@mariusj8542]

Finance a full salary split between the mother and father and mandatory split of the childcare. Let employers encourage employees to stay at home with the child, work when you can. Without acceptance from society, it will not change, this is mostly a culture problem.

[@spiritualantiseptic]

What's funny is that birthrate in North Korea is much higher at 1.8 (still not enough though).

[@arishokqunari1290]

From the outside,Korea is always seen as a positive example. Here in Germany, many complain about the high costs of living, the taxes, how expensive it became to build a house, about the immigration and public transport being a mess. South Korea is then seen a a positive example that does all of this better. But then Koreans who study here say that their country isn't doing as great as many think

[@ruocore]

I think that's because the politics are ignoring the actual reasons why people aren't having children. Only this year, many and many protests took place all around the country as they are now having to work even more hours weakly, the politicians who barely work refused to make their weakly working time shorter and also refused to increase minimum wage so they work so much to barely make ends. More than this, a lot of women have been murdered for advocating for human rights for women, both korean and the foreign women who committed the mistake of marrying korean men and going to live in SK without knowing they barely had any rights there. The government doesn't want to listen to women even though their movement is getting more and more power since 2016, and korean men prove all the time these women are right.

[@arishokqunari1290]

@@ruocore Women get murdered in South Korea for being feminist?

[@EvilWeiRamirez]

The problem is capitalism punishes you for having children. Our culture needs to change to prioritize people, families, giving time to be a parent and a child.

[@yamazaki997]

Education and emancipation - dumb people who treat females like cattle have lots of kids. Educated female focuses on career not on opening legs whilst living like a cow in her masters house. If one thing is sure - propaganda will again change culture and things will go full 180 ° again. Humans - always go round and round

[@MikaJarvi86]

8:30 slight correction to add here. Hungary has reversed their falling fertility rate trend. This has been made possibly by similar models from the 1930's Germany, to incentivize couples on getting married and having kids.

[@eoinoconnell185]

Even if the population halves, it's still larger than the 1960 level. Perhaps the population fall is a natural return to equilibrium.

[@anon2034]

I suspect so.

[@bubbajones6907]

Even at 50 million people South Korea is mostly empty.

[@lordkonzilla7890]

The problem is not that the population is shrinking but that its aging

[@rhs5683]

All the statistics he use, are a little bit tilded. Idealy he would use kids/woman between 16-35 Its the core demografic and above this age defect are quite normally. If you've the half of the population with educated lonly seniors and compared to married couples in their 20ies and 30ies its a big ifference.

[@mam0lechinookclan607]

a society just made up of old people makes a social state or working economy almost impossible

[@shooter2224]

''Why aren't our people having kids?'' *looks at psychotic work culture* Yea, wonder why

[@yusux]

literally looking at everything other than the main issue

[@jky780]

직장 문화는 개선되기 힘듭니다. 너무 오랜시간 고착되었고 노동부는 그걸 개선하라고 합니다 한국의 사회변화는 너무 빠릅니다

[@quepasaenlacasa519]

80000 hours is an amazing organization, thank you for collaborating with them

[@realscottsummers]

Building a new city from scratch and not thinking of trams or trains is so insane.

[@earlh]

in what world is 400k affordable housing? even if they have 5 kids per woman in sejong, how will that be replicateable in the rest of the country? sounds like they are not even trying to fix the issue, or nobody has the courage to do what has to be done.

[@aersn4locs]

You could always invade the north 😊

[@yuyoshida7359]

Populations: 📉

[@daviddestefanis2989]

What I don't understand is, if the population shrinks, shouldn't the price of housing go down? Less people, less demand for housing, housing prices should decrease. What is South Korea doing to prevent the invisible hand of the market from doing its job?

[@earlh]

@@daviddestefanis2989 From what I hear, there are tax incentives and laws that people in Korea use because real estate is a sure-fire way of guaranteed wealth. This has driven the real estate speculation to crazy heights. So not only are they not doing anything about it, their current practice guarantees that real estate is for speculation, not for living.

[@hre2044]

400k is in Sejong, and Sejong is a city mostly of government workers. Gov workers probably make good money.

[@serendipityismyfavoriteword]

Why would people want to have children? The cost of living is skyrocketing and it's harder for women to find jobs after having a child. It's hard to raise a child these days and sometimes, when a couple decides to divorce, only one parent is responsible enough to care for the child/ children and is left with all the responsibilities that two people are supposed to share. It's quite understandable why people don't want to have children anymore and some women don't even want to get married because of this. This is not just in Korea, this is happening in many parts of the world.

[@ThinYellow]

Wait, we have a plan? As a Korean, I didn't know we had a plan! Sounds like you understand us better than we do ourselves!

[@backintimealwyn5736]

plan will be like everywhere else: mass immigration from great countries that have many children. Enjoy.

[@LosRikos]

He keeps saying that sejong is proof its reversible. No. Reversible is 2.1 ratio Anything under 2.1 but above their current rate is just slowing down the trend, _in essence dragging it out over a longer time span._

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

Especially how they’ve only managed to raise it to a paltry 0.97, which is still less than half the replacement rate

[@hugo9618]

Another KZbin video about a country that is either dying or at the brink of collapse. This is happening every month.

[@giomtimyrovic109]

coutri South Korea is very teknoghi becous she sent help is USA coust in flats very many

[@StevenBara]

Soon we'll know if "shrinking yourself healthy" is a viable strategy on a national level.

[@gbickell]

We're consistently told there are too many people in the world so don't have kids. We work hard but still can't afford to have kids.

[@ericktellez7632]

Overpopulation had always been a myth

[@ryanelliott71698]

Back in high school 10 years ago I remember SK being used in class as one of many example. And even then I remember my teenage self thinking, “who in gods name would want to put their own child through this hell by sacrificing their childhood for the sake of productivity?” Turns out I was right.

[@gorilladisco9108]

It's the pressure of urban life, makes everybody too exhausted to raise children.

[@LoLMasterManiac]

this and feminism too

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

Also dense urban areas=small living spaces. Like imagine trying to raise a family with multiple kids in a 1 bedroom apartment. For many Seoul residents. This is the only kind of place they can afford

[@gorilladisco9108]

@@thomasgrabkowski8283 I just don't get it. If the expected residents of Sejong choose to live in Seoul and commute to Sejong back and forth every day, why don't residents of Seoul live in the periphery and commute to and from the city every day too? That will provide them with room big enough to raise family.

[@lilemont9302]

​@@gorilladisco9108Work 8-10 hours a day and commute 3 hours a day Won't help

[@rgi8426]

The irony: modern technology is one of the reasons the nuclear family is broken.

[@daviddestefanis2989]

Looks like the Catholic Church was right. They always condemned contraception and abortion. Looks like they had good reason to do so.

[@abumefak2]

@@daviddestefanis2989 Nah , religious BS that keep breeding and god will take care of everything has destroyed many countries with overpopulation and turned them to shitholes with poverty ,high crime rate and people risking everything to flee illegally. look at Egypt and other middle eastern /african/latin countries , people who barley can afford living are marrying at young age and breeding like rabbits.

[@warc8us]

This isn't just a problem in South Korea. It is an issue in almost all of the Westernized, Capitalist nations of the world. It is a serious problem, low birth rate, and something that will lead to economic and cultural ruin for many many countries over the next few decades to come. It is a critical flaw with the economic systems of these countries - Essentially vampire capitalists drinking the blood of their own nations youth inorder to horde more generational wealth. It is slow suicide on a national level, being repeated across almost all of the top countries in the world.

[@getalper]

There is little love for kids in Korea

[@FromTheWombTotheGrave]

More like men

[@bubbajones6907]

Their abortion rate is crazy.

[@oledshwfgk3068]

They're the chief export

[@larsstougaard7097]

Maybe they love kids and don't wanna bring children into that unhealthy society

[@StevenBara]

Plain wrong

[@yasirumer2893]

So they told that population growth was bad now they are worried that population is declining got it😂😂😂

[@ThemanlyTor]

Ok. Two things (one short and one long if you have the patience): I) 14:11 How do we know that the birth rate in Sejong isn’t higher than the surrounding areas just because it’s advertised as *the* place to rase a family, so that people who would get kids anyway just moves there? II)Shouldn’t the main focus be in how to minimise stress? F.ex. by not working so insanely much? My reasoning: This almost looks like a less extreme version of “the sink experiment” where where a “utopia” where created to mice/rats in a limited space. It was always a population boom followed by extinction. When I followed Robert Sapolsky‘s lecture of behavioural psychology it seemed to me that stress could be the leading factor of this effect. A lot of mammals either kill their babies, have natural abortion or choose not to get babies, when stressed. This, I think, should also apply for humans.

[@MrBCWalker01]

There is no solution in Modernity. You have to abandon Modernity to solve this problem.

[@force-f8i]

Don't worry about other countries. When have you ever been friendly to Korea? No expert has ever predicted the future of South Korea before... and that prediction has never been right. Most countries face crises. Even in more difficult times than now, South Korea has overcome them and come this far. South Korea is a country that becomes stronger as crises come. Don't worry about other countries and worry about your own country. Even when difficult times come, South Korea will overcome them just like before.

[@sreekanthgolla4328]

Good documentary- thanku for making it. Agree with other comments on various factors may have contributed to not having tram

[@Jon-mh9lk]

So it's just the rich and powerful relocating to a city with an artificial beach.

[@StatusVolt-hi3ft]

Building a new city alone cannot solve the decline in birth rates if citizens are choosing not to marry and have children, as seen in places like Japan. People are placing more value on material things like career, social status, and financial stability, and less on building a family. If having a family were promoted as a positive and fulfilling choice, people might be more inclined to pursue it. The issue of low birth rates is becoming a global concern, as more people choose to stay single even when they can afford to have a family.

[@mni7019]

average people too stupid to understand that it s a cultural problem not financial,even videos talking about this theme in particular are so dumb and wrong

[@sandrag8960]

Not in muslim countries!

[@dominictarrsailing]

watching this thinking 120km? that's less than half hour trip on high speed rail! then I learn they don't even have a subway at their new city!?

[@thecabooseattheendofthetra9260]

It looks like governments around the world are willing to try all kinds of weird and wonderful things to raise their fertility; everything but the one thing that is known to actually work (patriarchy). Eventually, this reality will become so stark that it will be impossible to ignore.

[@keonkla]

Dude its so funny how scared economic/ geo world news centered content creators are about talking about population decline in korea and America and are all just blubbering and ignoring deep issues between the 2 genders.

[@Veylon]

What specifically would you like to see them do? If you could pass a bunch of policies, what would they be?

[@thecabooseattheendofthetra9260]

@@Veylon That one thing that will actually work is so politically impossible that it's honestly not worth even discussing. A country like SK will literally move their capital city to avoid even mentioning the elephant in the room. Things will change only after the pain of not doing the thing exceeds the pain of actually doing the thing.

[@mrgalaxy396]

Except even patriarchal countries are facing population decline.

[@thelight1385]

South Korea is a patriarchal society. Look how that worked out 2022 survey found that more women than men - 65 percent versus 48 percent - don’t want children. They’re doubling down by avoiding matrimony (and its conventional pressures) altogether. The other term in South Korea for birth strike is “marriage strike. President Yoon Suk-yeol, elected last year, has suggested feminism is to blame for blocking “healthy relationships” between men and women. But he’s got it backward - gender equality is the solution to falling birthrates. Many of the Korean women shunning dating, marriage and childbirth are sick of pervasive sexism and furious about a culture of violent chauvinism. Their refusal to be “baby-making machines,” according to protest banners I’ve seen, is retaliation. “The birth strike is women’s revenge on a society that puts impossible burdens on us and doesn’t respect us,” says Jiny Kim, 30, a Seoul office worker who’s intent on remaining childless. "

[@autuer833]

They didn’t forget the public transport system. A vast majority of South Korea’s economy is based on car manufacturing. The Cheboels wanted to maintain a car-focused society in order to maximize profits.

[@stereomachine]

is that why the vast majority of south korea's public transit is among the best in the world

[@doujinflip]

It's exactly the same mistake America committed itself to a century ago, as well as capitals of post-WW2 decolonized nations like Jakarta and Manila seeking to "modernize" itself when it paved over their extensive tram networks in favor of cars and buses.

[@KiwiCatherineJemma]

Of course they THOUGHT of public transport in advance. They deliberately left it out so folks, just like in many USA cities, would be forced to buy cars and drive. This was DELIBERATE. I bet the Korean car manufacturers gave big envelopes full of cash given to the city planners. Follow the money, mate. Fix it NOW ! Rip up half those blimmin' roads and lay down railway/subway etc. Otherwise all you'll ever have, is a Korean version of Los Angeles (except with a wicked cold Winter climate).

[@hajunj]

Sejong failed definitely, because of Seoul's hegemony. This is clear as daylight. How not to plan a public transportation? The planers were half-hearted. Because anyone in place of planing anything in Korea feeds his power by means of Seoul being overcrowded and overpriced. Life as a Korean is to be better, financially, than others. People ground their lives to own an apartment in Seoul, nobody wants to relieve the pressure that keeps the housing prices up in Seoul. It's religious like a holy grail that may not be falsified. Quality of life? who cares? It's hell anyway if you are behind the others. The notion is, if you're exlcuded from the mainstream, you are like ostracised.

[@impressand4592]

Before clicking on video I immediatly thought: "Korea Unification?"

[@widodoakrom3938]

That's not going to be happened

[@OlavEngelbrektson]

A half-baked thought: somewhere in Holy Scripture one can read something to the effect of: "You cannot serve God and Mammon". I think this is quite correct also in the light of falling birthrates. There is, of course, more to it than this, but try to take it as a poetic exclaimation. The issue of falling birthrates will be solved (or, biologically speaking, won) by people willing to make the most sacrifices on their own part. For whatever reasons, culturally immersed and/or convinced religious communities seem to contribute extraordinarily to population growth. There is a psychological and cultural aspect to that; there are "signals" in these communities which are essentially child = good. Most non-religious, or irreligious people tend to be far more cynical/realist about children. For example; cost + time - personal fulfilment + social pressure = child good or bad. A culture actively celebrating children as inherently valuable will logically have more of them. We are simply witnessing the inevitable breaking point of materialist culture. As everyone else can probably tell. Sejong will fail.

[@dylanthomas12321]

You missed the key point driving Korea's demograpic collapse, its conservative, patriarchal society, which young, well-educated women find suffocating. They have career ambitions of their own and are not interested in being shunted to the mommy track. There's plenty of expert literature on the subject specifically about Korea and Japan. One small city of government workers will change nothing, and it sounds really boring. Seoul is a vibrant and creative city, that's where young oeople want to be. Xi in China already tried this in China, spent hundreds of billions building a ghost city south if Beijing. With high speed rail, etc. Doesn't matter. Abject failure. Look it up. These old societies need to change. But they won't. They're in terminal phase. And nobody wants to immigrate.

[@oliverpapai6011]

Man, every nation be like: mmm lets build a new capital for like millions of people, lets build this new city, lets build 10000km of roads, all the while the highway next to my town is being built for 40 years now

[@iambicpentakill971]

The correct wealthy people probably don't own enough land in your town

[@oliverpapai6011]

@@iambicpentakill971 i live in eastern hungary so there is no such thing as "wealthy people" lol, but the country itself is so mismanaged it cannot be dscribed