Its always amazing to me that South Korea is economically and politically much more successful and in that result it "won" the cold war of the last 50 years with its Northern counterpart. But its population is going to disappear so not much of a victory.
oezi · 1d ago
Even a birth rate as South Korea's does not mean the population will disappear over night. It will shrink. It will mean things will change. Infrastructure will be overprovisioned and housing will be cheap. It will mean other things will be prioritized by politics (such as kindergardens and work life balance).
In any case it won't be a catastrophy as life in North Korea.
seanmcdirmid · 1d ago
A good analogy might be the Black Death: it didn’t destroy Europe, it changed priorities, freed the serfs, started valuing labor more, and ultimately led to a stronger Europe in the future.
oezi · 1d ago
If we consider that the world had 1bn people a bit over 100 years ago, it puts many things in perspective. We have generations of time to turn things around if we think it is necessary.
tuatoru · 1d ago
No, the Black Death is not a good analogy, because it killed all ages indiscriminately.
Our "plague" "kills" the young and productive - by their never being born in the first place. We are headed for something we have never seen, ever: a society dominated by old people in pure numbers terms.
The worry is that it is a design for stagnation and decay rather than greater strength. (There won't be money or people to maintain infrastructure because the elders will demand healthcare.)
I don't know what will happen and nor does anyone else really.
seanmcdirmid · 23h ago
It killed all but made people more valuable and, more importantly, valued in general. If kids become more rare, we will probably start treating and nurturing them better. We complain about childcare costs now but if kids are few enough society might just happily take up the bill.
tuatoru · 20h ago
If only it were that easy. Austria and Switzerland have nerly identical birth rates, but in one, childcare is almost free and in the other, it is very expensive.
South Korea and Hungary (among many others) have tried paying people to have children, without success. It pulls a few births forward in time, but then the birth rate declines again.
There is something more fundamental going on.
MaxHoppersGhost · 1d ago
Same thing is happening to most counties in Europe but they’re “fixing it” with immigrants. But the Germany filled with Germans will be disappearing just as South Korea is.
toomuchtodo · 1d ago
All countries will eventually experience population decline, it’s just the speed of each that is different [1]. Global fertility rate already appears to be below replacement rate. Even China appears to be below 1 at this time [2]. India and Africa will arrive there likely in the next ~5-10 years, depending on rate of empowerment of women.
People attribute it to empowerment of women, but I wonder if it's more correlation than causation. Women empowerment happened in the same time frame there was a large shift towards urbanization. The situation across the world before was like ~80% of people living in rural areas, and ~20% living in cities. Now those proportions are approximately flipped in many places. IIRC cities appear to be a net population sink for most of history, counting on an steady stream of people moving from the countryside each generation to replenish sub-replacement numbers. Raising children "free-ranging" is more straightforward in the countryside. In cities they demand a lot of micromanagement and resources from parents, because car-infested, cramped urban landscape is expensive and hostile to children. So perhaps the causation arrow flows from accelerated urbanization to both women empowerment and sub-replacement fertility rates, not necessarily from women empowerment to sub-replacement rates.
> Most demographers now say the population bomb has largely fizzled, and some predict that the long-term trend toward a smaller global population, with fewer consumers and a smaller human footprint on the planet, could benefit the environment.
> There appear to be other upsides to declining fertility. Along with growing individual freedom and economic empowerment of women, the U.N. study also found a rapid drop in the number of girls and teenagers giving birth.
> "The decline of the adolescent birth rates has been, I would say, one of the major success stories in global population health over the past three decades," said Vladimíra Kantorová, the U.N.'s chief population scientist.
(scholar of the global demographic system; urbanization is certainly a component in a declining fertility rate, but the primary driver is women choosing to have less children, delay having them, or not having them at all, while having the means to assert those choices)
algo_trader · 1d ago
> smaller human footprint on the planet, could benefit the environment.
This i highly doubt. Humans are able to increase per capita (resource) consumption at a far faster rate! Old age care/consumption can also grow to infinity
toomuchtodo · 1d ago
Remains to be seen, good longitudinal study over the next 100 years imho. Old age care/consumption isn’t infinite; it’s bounded by what will be provided via social systems or personal resources. If there’s nothing to give (or no personal resources on hand), it’s homelessness or poverty until death. Can’t spend what isn’t there.
algo_trader · 1d ago
> but I wonder if it's more correlation than causation.
Fertility fall in rural Africa is far faster than its rate of urbanization
As a quick primer. falling births seem to correlate/caused by:
a. increasing urbanization
b. increasing atheism
c. increasing women empowerment/education
d. increasing incomes
These factors re-enforce each other, and are scale free (we see the same effect at $1/day, $10/day, $100/day etc)
rstuart4133 · 1d ago
> People attribute it to empowerment of women, but I wonder if it's more correlation than causation.
Before going to far down the rabbit hole, have a look at the fertility rate of TSMC employees. TSMC employees make up 0.3% of Taiwan’s population, they are responsible for 1.8% of all babies born in Taiwan. [0]
The average TSMC woman is highly educated and highly paid, which eliminates most of the usual reasons touted for low the fertility rates in OECD nations. "All" TSMC does is make it possible for their female employees to have a career and raise a family, mostly by providing child care in-house and flexible working hours.
To pull that off TSMC must have a culture than prioritizes families and child raising over profit. In most industries with not be possible. Either their higher costs would lead to them being eaten alive by their competitors, or bought out by PE because their employees could be squeezed to pay out more profit to their owners. There isn't going to be a rash of companies with TSMC style family policies breaking out any time soon.
But a government policy could made it happen, which is another way of saying if a society or country decided they didn't want to wither away to nothing because of low birth rates, it could be done. They could mandate every company adopts TSMC style policies, or they could raise taxes and provide free child care (like they do for education), or more likely some mix that has the same effect. Everyone would have to be willing to be a bit poorer of course, because you are forcing people to spend less on fast cars and big houses, and more of child care.
But does seem like it could be done, so if South Korea (or any of the OECD) had the will, there is a way.
> To pull that off TSMC must have a culture than prioritizes families and child raising over profit. In most industries with not be possible. Either their higher costs would lead to them being eaten alive by their competitors, or bought out by PE because their employees could be squeezed to pay out more profit to their owners. There isn't going to be a rash of companies with TSMC style family policies breaking out any time soon.
So the problem is really capitalism run rampant.
MaxHoppersGhost · 1d ago
Israel has a fertility rate of 3 and is very advanced so not all countries. It’s a cultural thing. We’ve given up religion and values for doomscrolling and dopamine hits.
> In 2020, the total fertility rate among ultra-Orthodox women in Israel was 6.6, while the rate among Arab women was 3.0, and among secular women, it was 2.0— still well above the OECD average— according to a report from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research.
(dopamine and doomscrolling are just as bad as religion and traditional values, for different reasons, imho)
> Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in 2001,[64][65] making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.
pona-a · 1d ago
You quoted the number but skipped the part where MacKellar says the whole premise relies on treating 3rd- and 4th-generation citizens as “not French.”
> While the ethnic demography of France has shifted as a result of post-WWII immigration, scholars have generally dismissed the claims of a "great replacement" as being rooted in an exaggeration of immigration statistics and unscientific, racially prejudiced views.[12] Geographer Landis MacKellar criticized Camus's thesis for assuming "that third- and fourth- generation 'immigrants' are somehow not French."[63] Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in 2001,[64][65] making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.[63]
dijit · 1d ago
Feels weird to call them ethnically French, especially when the context being presented is religion.
The assumption being made is that they’ll ditch the religion after four generations? I don’t see data for that assumption, maybe it is not 100%, but its certainly not as low as 20% apostacy.
Thus I would take serious issue with that statement, it is evidence of an ethnic or religious replacement.
pona-a · 19h ago
Religion isn’t ethnicity. Did England become less British after Catholics fell from a vast majority to ~10% post-Reformation?
And the actual numbers still don’t show a majority shift. Even if every Muslim in France kept their religion, they’d be ~10% of the population — far from "replacement".
wagwang · 5h ago
The real comparison, which idk why you didnt make, is the islamic control of iberia, to which the answer is, YES!
Also anglicism is like, catholicism without a pope... also it was created by the king, not imported from another continent.
dijit · 19h ago
Take that up with the author of the article.
Also, you missed the point entirely if the topic is “the population of x has gone from 1% to an estimated upper of 12.5% in 20 years” and your answer is “its below 10% right now”.
Not only are you potentially immediately wrong, since the number today could exceed 10%, it also doesn’t speak to how those demographics might be shaped by disparities in birthrates or continued migration.
But, you know that, you’re just trying to argue for some reason.
dijit · 7h ago
funny, my votes went from +4 to -1 inside of 5 minutes despite this comment being at +4 for 11 hours.
Either that’s a strong coincidence or vote manipulation is rife here.
oezi · 1d ago
Fear mongering.
Current net immigration inflows into Germany are below 0.5% of population.
The big immigration waves of the last 20 years can be directly linked to devastating wars: Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine.
How many generations did it take for the Germans to become Americans in the US? Did it make Americans disappear?
palmotea · 21h ago
> How many generations did it take for the Germans to become Americans in the US?
It's not a question of generations. There were a lot of German-speaking towns in the US, but World War I-driven xenophobia pushed them to Americanize.
MaxHoppersGhost · 1d ago
Germans mostly assimilated and culturally were similar to existing Americans, sharing the same religion and similar values. Can’t say the same for Muslim immigrants at all.
disgruntledphd2 · 16h ago
What about the Irish in America then? Culturally, they were not Protestant and were regarded as very different for a long time. How come we don't hear about this as an issue in the US today?
dyauspitr · 1d ago
Why is fixing it in quotations? There are generations of Turkish, arabs, and Indians, that are very well integrated into European society.
lossolo · 1d ago
Maybe because from a strictly evolutionary point of view, that’s a failure: they won’t pass on their genes (maybe also culture, values etc.), and other gene pools will take over the resources their lineage worked to secure.
dyauspitr · 23h ago
That’s always happened in history.
lossolo · 23h ago
"Always" is overstated. Populations have been reshaped before (e.g. farmers absorbing foragers in Europe, steppe migrations, Arabization of North Africa, the Americas after 1492 etc). So turnover isn’t new, but this mechanism is different. This pattern stems more from our system and choices (schooling, careers, costs, contraception, culture etc) than from violence/war, disease, forced moves, so in that sense it’s self driven, and historically unusual.
dyauspitr · 22h ago
Unusual maybe but the outcomes are the same. Why grasp so tightly to a genetic window a handful of centuries old?
lossolo · 22h ago
> Unusual maybe but the outcomes are the same.
That’s an oversimplification. Dying of old age and being murdered both end in death, but we both know they’re not the same.
> Why grasp so tightly to a genetic window a handful of centuries old?
I believe I explained that in my first comment.
johnnyanmac · 1d ago
They'll do anything but pay their workers, and not overwork them. Almost like when you need to use 80% of your paycheck to pay rent that people can't think much farther than next month.
wagwang · 1d ago
No don't you see, we just need more migrants to be a permanent underclass to do our labor
HPsquared · 1d ago
"We" being the actual decision-makers, the owners. The class who wants GDP to go up, but doesn't care about GDP per capita.
Edit: I'm undecided if it's capitalist ownership class, or a "late stage socialism running out of other people's money". Still undecided. It's probably both, which is why we're doomed.
wagwang · 1d ago
The liberal order(consensus between both sides) of the past 50 years have decided that GDP is the only thing that matters and we should trade everything for it.
tomp · 1d ago
German salaries are not bad, nor amazing.
I actually think they pay their workers too much though - for not working.
I think standard unemployment on full salary is 2 years, even if you quit your job yourself!
Generous benefits invite abuse…
nielsole · 1d ago
> I think standard unemployment on full salary is 2 years, even if you quit your job yourself!
You lose 3 months of unemployment money if you quit rather than being fired.
dijit · 1d ago
If you follow much of the USSR, you’d be aware that the nations surrounding Russia were the most heavily invested in, at least those that were front facing.
Estonia for example had quite a lot of investment, you’d be surprised what a regime will invest in to ensure that the optics are positive.
Not saying that happened here, but it is something that has happened.
manuel_w · 1d ago
I'm not sure I understand. Estonia invested a lot? In what? Military? So the optics are positive?
dijit · 1d ago
Estonia was part of the USSR, and the USSR put a lot of money into Estonia to make communism look like it was working. At the expense of other parts of the USSR.
rr808 · 1d ago
Sorry which regime? You mean the USA put money into Estonia and SK?
dijit · 1d ago
Russia put money into Estonia.
USA/EU might be putting money into SK.
Both to “prove to the other side” that their ideology is the right one.
ethbr1 · 1d ago
The US spends about USD$4.5B per year on US troops and facilities based in South Korea.
And funded what looks like ~USD$35B in post-war economic assistance. (Plus other UN funding)
For that, South Korea went from being devastated by 2 wars to around the 13th largest economy in the world. Not a bad return.
China and Russia were welcome to invest in North Korea...
rr808 · 1d ago
OK sorry yes that makes sense. Berlin too both side lavished funds to make them look better.
fwsgonzo · 1d ago
Yeah, I'm watching people walk around in SK and JP and I really want to visit one day. One day before it's too late. Both countries will evaporate.
mytailorisrich · 1d ago
Japan's population was 44 million in 1900, it is 123 million now.
South Korea's population was 25 million in 1960, it is 54 million now.
We need to stop going over the top with claims of "population collapse". The 20th century to this day was abnormal at historical scale in that human population exploded like never before, and perhaps like never again and probably for the best considering how we have brought the planet to its knees.
derektank · 1d ago
South Korea's birth rate is 0.7, which means for every 100 grandparents there will be only 12 grandchildren if things don't change. At the current pace, the South Korean population will be 32 million in 2075 and 11 million in 2125, and most of the people alive will be old. That's nearly as massive a change in the opposite direction as the drop in childhood mortality in the 20th century.
mytailorisrich · 1d ago
Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless.
We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population because the explosion that has happened is unsustainable and so are current global population levels. That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment.
This does not mean that population should or will collapse to extra low levels...
nec4b · 15h ago
>> Extrapolations over a century into the future are worthless.
Its just math showing the trend and it's not worthless as it should give you something to think about.
>> We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population
Of course, but it will be painful.
>> That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment.
That simple math, which you deem worthless also tells you this is impossible. There will be a small number of young active people having to support a big group of elderly. They will not have the time to solve world problems. In fact a lot of knowledge will be lost as economy will contract and there will be less people available for specialization.
UncleMeat · 14h ago
> Its just math showing the trend and it's not worthless as it should give you something to think about
"The second derivative of population will remain constant for the next 100 years" is just as silly today as it was in 1925.
nec4b · 10h ago
I don't know what point are trying to make, beside being sarcastic. Knowing that each succeeding generation will be a 1/3 of the previous one has huge influence on how to prepare a society to function when population pyramid will be so inverted.
UncleMeat · 8h ago
But you don't know that.
nec4b · 4h ago
If they don't change something drastically this is exactly what will happen according to science. It's like there is a comet on course with Earth, but you are saying, knowing it would be meaningless because something might change it's path. I still don't know what your point is.
mytailorisrich · 14h ago
It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable. Even with a constant population this will happen if people live long.
We need to embrace this and use existing and new technologies to cope. We have AI, automation, robots progressing fast, this is exactly what we need in addition to investing in education.
The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
nec4b · 10h ago
>> It is not impossible. It is going to happen and it is unavoidable.
Based on history it hasn't happened. How do you know it's going to?
>>The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
That is absolutely not the only alternative. One would be to have a stable population at the current size. Another on would be decreasing population slowly and not as drastically as it will happen in Korea. A third one would be growing it slowly. The fourth one would be oscillating around the current size, etc.
MaxHoppersGhost · 1d ago
I suspect there will be some equilibrium reached but maybe not.
UncleMeat · 14h ago
Yeah it is baffling to me that people are already on the "we are doomed" phase for this.
50 years ago people were saying "we are doomed" because of overpopulation. We had people saying that the optimal number of humans on the planet was just one billion and that we had to engage in extreme measures of international oppression to force as much of the unavoidable starvation on certain populations and not others. Now we are seeing "the world is doomed" because of underpopulation (despite the fact that the world population is still growing) and we are starting to see the proposed extreme measures of rolling back women's rights in order to address this.
general1726 · 1d ago
Well the problem is people in retirement, caring only about size of their pension outnumbering working age people and effectively creating positive feedback for populist parties to constantly increase pensions despite the constantly shrinking working population and tax revenue.
This system can't work. This system is going to collapse. Just matter of time.
notTooFarGone · 1d ago
Please do the math. We will likely see the collapse of SK.
There will be less working people than people in their retirement.
We don't know how a society can work that way as it's a first time.
thisislife2 · 1d ago
You miss the point - a larger population isn't necessarily good if most of them are not economically productive (i.e. don't have skilled working class). Are people supposed to work even in their old age, till they die?
xboxnolifes · 1d ago
Neither country will evaporate in your lifetime.
dyauspitr · 1d ago
There are people born today that will see it evaporate.
pessimizer · 1d ago
South Korean politics is an absolute disaster, there's a non-zero possibility that 30 years from now, long after the Kims, people will be fleeing to the North.
tpm · 17h ago
I would actually bet in 30 years the Kims will still rule the North.
franczesko · 1d ago
We should ask ourselves a question, if the system we're living in is not rewarding having kids, is a good system at all?
socalgal2 · 1d ago
Personally I think the culture has changed. It's got little to do with costs or insentives or support and everything to do with changing wants/desires. Rather than devote 20+ years of a person's life to kids, most people would rather socialize, party, dance, netflix-and-chill, youtube, tiktok, travel, game, raise a pet, hobbies, etc....
Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns.
Some of them have a short term effect but none of them get the numbers up to replacement levels and the numbers keep going down.
It's hard to blame it on any one thing. Some might say "suburban car centric culture" but that doesn't explain Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc....
I can't personally imagine the numbers going back up.
Do you have sources of such countries? I know at least one case - russia (before the war) - where they gave out cash and really cheap mortgages and it caused a little baby boom so it worked. I have not heard of any such programs in the developed world…
tpm · 17h ago
In France, the policies are measurably motivating having more children according to some studies (can't link them right now). The effect size is on the order of +0.3 to the TFR rate or something like that.
The are many programs like this all over the world; the issue with them is they don't give out enough money/resources to have a measurable positive effect - they should be much much more funded. Incidentally the biggest baby boom in my country (Slovakia) was during the largest buildout of cheap accomodation for young families in the history, also the maternity leave was increased to 3 years and there were various subsidies. So I think policies like that work if they are properly funded.
>> Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns.
Those incentives are usually meaningless. Like 100€ monthly cash bonus. Could cover food, but nothing more. A year of child leave is good, but what to do during next 5 years untill you can put kids into the school system?
And don't forget massive opportunity costs. Instead of having a single kid, woman can have few more years of advancing in career. Instead of putting all time into one kid, woman can upskill, get a degree, etc.
And with second child it's three times harder.
Also turns out, many baby boomers are not eager to be present in life of their grandkids. If you pregnant - you are screwed. You and the father-to-be will take a massive hit in every aspect of life.
noah_buddy · 1d ago
I think the failure in extrapolation is that the numbers will absolutely go back up, eventually. Subcultures that incentivize high birth rates culturally will have more kids, and eventually come to dominate society.
If you want to see what culture will look like in a few hundred years, try and figure out what’s common between Mormons, Amish, and Muslims.
cyberax · 1d ago
The US resisted that for much longer, due to a higher level of suburban population.
But it's getting there, now that dense cities are the only places with decent jobs.
maxglute · 1d ago
Shortterm, SKR probably the only country with culture of civil service, loathing for immigration, and enough gender drama for misandrist men to eventually roll out coercive family planning system onto females (that hate them) to force family formation.
TBH need someone to attempt very illiberal effort to make babies because every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR > replacement. At this point it should be abundantly clear that short of religion, carrot policies cannot reward their way to 2.1+ TFR. Or I guess embrace immigration.
hax0ron3 · 1d ago
Russia has been putting a lot of government effort into increasing the fertility rate for years now and it's still below replacement. Granted, the modern Russian government is incompetent in many ways so maybe that is not a good example, but are there any modern examples of specifically authoritarian but not full-on totalitarian policies significantly raising fertility rate? By specifically authoritarian, I mean policies that would not be possible in a liberal system. It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism. Now, full-on totalitarianism could clearly raise fertility rate through draconian measures, but at what cost? It would be horrible to live through.
maxglute · 1d ago
> It seems that fertility rate laughs at mere authoritarianism
IMO the problem is fertility rate also laughs at everything "liberalism" and wealth has thrown and true authoritarian measures have not been taken. As in every liberal / pro natal policies (Nordics) have failed to raise TFR >2.1, usually settle at 1.7. I think more illustrative is wealthy MENA countries where culture, religion, resources align but those countries are either <2.1 TFR or declining to <2.1 TFR, i.e. if you have all the government subsidies and families regularly hire maids/nannies from ample cheap migrant workforce (something even most wealthy liberal societies don't have ubiquitous access too) then the carrot solution itself is not enough.
Stick policies, which only authoritarians or societies in extreme fertility stress can even start to contemplate, would be increased taxation / limited wealth transfers, i.e. if you want to inherit anything from your parents or grandparents (including real estate) you better have at least 2 kids. And in case of east asian societies, ban pets / AI relationships that's been eating at relationship formation. Peak authoritarian methods would be civil service that requires women to start making babies (in conjunction with massive support), state orphanage programs to basically raise new bodies and engineer/manage demographics (i.e. women don't have to keep kids but my spend 1-2 years doing state surrogacy). There's also increasing lifespan, i.e. workforce participation duration, but still hits ultimate limits of needing to replacement TFR.
Or again... engineer society to accept immigration.
tpm · 17h ago
> And in case of east asian societies
And in the case of east asian societies, cancel capitalism. Pets / AI relationships are only the escape vents.
ponector · 1d ago
>> every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR
Because that policies are bluff to say politicians support family without actually spending much of the budget.
Like give a 100€ rebate for a childcare while it costs 1000€ per month. And also it is closed for a month in summer, so you should care about the baby by yourself.
Real pro-maternity policies will be like this:
1. Free childcare.
2. Free healthcare, including all medicine and vaccination.
3. Free public transport for kids and adults with them.
4. Subsidized shops with items for kids: from nappies to clothes.
4. Subsidized costs of housing for families with kids.
5. Subsidized costs of sport activities.
6. Fully paid maternity leave untill children can be full day in daycare.
Even with generous European policies, having one kid is a huge hit to the lifestyle and savings. But we need to have 2-3 kids to keep the population.
maxglute · 8h ago
>have 2-3 kids to keep the population.
Yes, I think even "real pro-maternity" policies not enough. I written more in comment below, but my gut feeling is to get enough family formation that has 2-3 kids rather than 1-2, you need... basically UBI + slave labour tier support. Think UAE/Qatar, 20% locals doing 30hr/week make shift jobs, access to cheap labour, i.e. living in maid. Their TFR still declining fast, 4->3 in last 10 years but there's a chance they'll settle above 2.1 / replacement. Short of that level of "abundance" I think most will choose less than 2 kids and societies stuck with backfilling with immigration.
ponector · 3h ago
Ubi will make no difference, as it will just hike prices for everyone. Free child-related services could make a difference, together with heavily subsidized housing, healthcare and transportation for people with kids
tpm · 17h ago
> TBH need someone to attempt very illiberal effort to make babies because every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR > replacement. At this point it should be abundantly clear that short of religion, carrot policies cannot reward their way to 2.1+ TFR. Or I guess embrace immigration.
Frankly this is a wrong take.
For one the TFR of religious countries is also trending downward and below replacement.
Immigration is a zero-sum game that won't help for long term.
And the issue is carrot policies just don't give out enough carrots (do the math and you'll see that easily). A really generous family support that makes having children wortwhile compared to the alternatives will have the desired result.
maxglute · 8h ago
>really generous
IMO take so far data is showing no amount of generous policies will convince people to have more than 1-2 kids (hit replacement TFR) long term unless they're living life of leisure + ample subsidies AND help. At some point stress/obligation of child rearing is going to eat away at other commitments (i.e. work). Hence highlighting MENA countries where religion+resource coordinate but TFR still collapsing and trending below 2.1 TFR.
The statistic exception being being REALLY GENEROUS, Fully Automated Luxury Communism leisure tier support i.e. living in maids, nannies, drivers -> UAE Emiratis and Qataris where locals ex migrant worker pop still has declining TFR that _may_ settle beyond replacement (currently around 3.1, still down from 3.7 10 years ago). But that requires functionally UBI, optional work i.e. state setups 30hr per week "public sector" for locals while expat / cheap / slave labour handles everything else. The latter being key, need UBI tier to be able to cover hiring other humans to do domestic work, maid, nanny, cook, driver etc.
Maybe a do-able level of "abundance" if we look other way on exploitation, already lots of migrant labours in west, but we tend to keep them in factories or fields, not civic/domestic realm. PRC trying to build their army of care taking robots. But IMO that's the minimum, if you can't ensure that level of support (not just money but labour), positive policies won't get past replacement TFR. If Emrati/Qatari TFR stabilize below replacement in 10-20 years, then it's sign to ceiling on human willingness to have multiple kids, i.e. can't subsidize way for locals to reach replacement TFR.
tpm · 6h ago
> IMO take so far data is showing no amount of generous policies will convince people to have more than 1-2 kids (hit replacement TFR) long term unless they're living life of leisure + ample subsidies AND help.
How long is the long-term data we have? Is the generous support at the start of the policy still generous relative to the changed conditions much later?
> If Emrati/Qatari TFR stabilize below replacement in 10-20 years
My guess is they will collapse too; their lifestyle is financed by oil buyers. This will not go on forever and more importantly they have more and more people to feed and pamper but not more oil to sell. And now that we have technologies that can broadly replace oil, they can't raise the prices too much either.
maxglute · 5h ago
> long-term data we have?
My rough understanding is we have 20-50 years of efforts in the Nordics. Long enough to form "Nordic Paradox" for situation where pro-natal policies still lead to below replacement rates. There's also weird dual cultural shift - Nordic countries women labour participation rate stagnated or even decreased - more wanted to become full time moms/homemakers - so there is desire for family formation. But second culture shift is the desire is still sub replacement level, i.e. people want 1-2 kids. Not enough people want 2 kids to replace themselves. Not enough people want 2+ kids to make up the people that want 1.
> go on forever
Yeah it's more to illustrate the levels of abundance in terms of pro social policies that could sustain culturally acceptable >2 TFR. Be religious. Have UBI. Ensure people work little if they don't want to. Ensure they have access to cheap labour that does all the work for them. Then maybe TFR could settle between 2-3. Right now the few exception are a few million people sustained by disproportionate fossil exports. That model can't scale without another source of abundance.
nis0s · 1d ago
Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did.
Besides that, at a cultural level personal worth and dignity and safety need to be divorced from monetary net worth as that makes it easier for someone to decide where is a comfortable place for them in their society, and then adjust their time between working and child-rearing.
That said, it's also hard to motivate some people to reproduce if there's no greater point to it than some basic primal instinct, which may not be that high in such people. It follows, I guess, that the more educated a populace gets, the less its participants are likely to thoughtlessly reproduce. Tax credits are helpful (said sarcastically).
eagleislandsong · 1d ago
> Hyper-capitalist societies need some counterbalance with social safety programs, e.g., as seen in the Nordic states and the blue states in the U.S., otherwise people choose not to reproduce if their children won't get anything out of society like they did.
Total fertility rates in Scandinavian countries (known for their very generous welfare) are falling as well -- not as catastrophic as South Korea's, but way below replacement rate nonetheless. E.g., Denmark's total fertility rate fell yet again in 2024 to 1.466. (Source: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer...)
nis0s · 1d ago
Yes, that's what I was alluding to in my last para. The blue states in the U.S. have relatively lower fertility rates than the red states. The second para is what I think would actually help with falling reproductive rates in such situations, but those conditions need to be met by social safety programs.
fruitworks · 1d ago
Do nordic states have sustainable fertility rates or are you just advocating for more free money
nis0s · 1d ago
I think they do? They’re currently in decline due to both local and global pressures, so I guess that change in behavior is a response which leads to their fertility rate being a “sustainable” one.
That said, social safety programs aren’t just about money per se, but about freeing up parents from working and investing time in child-rearing. If life is expensive and requires at least two incomes to sustain a household, who has the time to get pregnant, give birth and raise a child? Maybe this is a problem that gets resolved if children can be safely incubated outside a womb, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of who’s going to do all the work that needs to get done on a daily basis to run a household with kids.
farseer · 1d ago
After reaching peak prosperity, both Korea and Japan have decided to evaporate into oblivion. Japan grudgingly allows in a few Filipino and Vietnamese, so there is that.
forinti · 1d ago
Both these countries have really high population densities. Japan's is around 330/km2 and South Korea's is about 530/km2.
Just like the UK, they would probably be better off with less people, geopolitical considerations aside.
pyb · 11h ago
Have you been to Korea ? Or even the UK ?
HPsquared · 1d ago
They're free to choose the path they prefer.
thisislife2 · 1d ago
That "peak prosperity" thing is actually capitalism gone awry in my opinion. I'd include India too here - a common pattern that can be seen in all these three Asian countries is the unhealthy work-life balance. Couple that with the world-wide trend that two incomes are now necessary to raise kids in many of these "fast" growing or economically "prosperous" countries, most people are just choosing to have only 1 (or at most 2 kids), and there are some who are also opting not to have any kids. In India, the opposition leader has also lamented that we have already lost advantage of having a younger population because of poor economic planning and policies (by 2030, India will have the world’s largest youth population). Trump won, in large part, because many Americans are now struggling to feel secure with the wages that they earn - they can't afford to buy a house, which many feel is required to start a family. A course correction is required in the world economy, as, while capitalism-consumerism does seem to provide prosperity, it also seems to be consuming societies that adopts it.
In any case it won't be a catastrophy as life in North Korea.
Our "plague" "kills" the young and productive - by their never being born in the first place. We are headed for something we have never seen, ever: a society dominated by old people in pure numbers terms.
The worry is that it is a design for stagnation and decay rather than greater strength. (There won't be money or people to maintain infrastructure because the elders will demand healthcare.)
I don't know what will happen and nor does anyone else really.
South Korea and Hungary (among many others) have tried paying people to have children, without success. It pulls a few births forward in time, but then the birth rate declines again.
There is something more fundamental going on.
[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44851759
People attribute it to empowerment of women, but I wonder if it's more correlation than causation. Women empowerment happened in the same time frame there was a large shift towards urbanization. The situation across the world before was like ~80% of people living in rural areas, and ~20% living in cities. Now those proportions are approximately flipped in many places. IIRC cities appear to be a net population sink for most of history, counting on an steady stream of people moving from the countryside each generation to replenish sub-replacement numbers. Raising children "free-ranging" is more straightforward in the countryside. In cities they demand a lot of micromanagement and resources from parents, because car-infested, cramped urban landscape is expensive and hostile to children. So perhaps the causation arrow flows from accelerated urbanization to both women empowerment and sub-replacement fertility rates, not necessarily from women empowerment to sub-replacement rates.
> Most demographers now say the population bomb has largely fizzled, and some predict that the long-term trend toward a smaller global population, with fewer consumers and a smaller human footprint on the planet, could benefit the environment.
> There appear to be other upsides to declining fertility. Along with growing individual freedom and economic empowerment of women, the U.N. study also found a rapid drop in the number of girls and teenagers giving birth.
> "The decline of the adolescent birth rates has been, I would say, one of the major success stories in global population health over the past three decades," said Vladimíra Kantorová, the U.N.'s chief population scientist.
United Nations World Fertility 2024 Report - https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41225389 (additional citations)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40982392 (additional citations)
(scholar of the global demographic system; urbanization is certainly a component in a declining fertility rate, but the primary driver is women choosing to have less children, delay having them, or not having them at all, while having the means to assert those choices)
This i highly doubt. Humans are able to increase per capita (resource) consumption at a far faster rate! Old age care/consumption can also grow to infinity
Fertility fall in rural Africa is far faster than its rate of urbanization
As a quick primer. falling births seem to correlate/caused by:
a. increasing urbanization b. increasing atheism c. increasing women empowerment/education d. increasing incomes
These factors re-enforce each other, and are scale free (we see the same effect at $1/day, $10/day, $100/day etc)
Before going to far down the rabbit hole, have a look at the fertility rate of TSMC employees. TSMC employees make up 0.3% of Taiwan’s population, they are responsible for 1.8% of all babies born in Taiwan. [0]
The average TSMC woman is highly educated and highly paid, which eliminates most of the usual reasons touted for low the fertility rates in OECD nations. "All" TSMC does is make it possible for their female employees to have a career and raise a family, mostly by providing child care in-house and flexible working hours.
To pull that off TSMC must have a culture than prioritizes families and child raising over profit. In most industries with not be possible. Either their higher costs would lead to them being eaten alive by their competitors, or bought out by PE because their employees could be squeezed to pay out more profit to their owners. There isn't going to be a rash of companies with TSMC style family policies breaking out any time soon.
But a government policy could made it happen, which is another way of saying if a society or country decided they didn't want to wither away to nothing because of low birth rates, it could be done. They could mandate every company adopts TSMC style policies, or they could raise taxes and provide free child care (like they do for education), or more likely some mix that has the same effect. Everyone would have to be willing to be a bit poorer of course, because you are forcing people to spend less on fast cars and big houses, and more of child care.
But does seem like it could be done, so if South Korea (or any of the OECD) had the will, there is a way.
[0] https://www.boomcampaign.org/p/on-the-higher-fertility-of-se...
So the problem is really capitalism run rampant.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-birth-rate-remains-hig...
> In 2020, the total fertility rate among ultra-Orthodox women in Israel was 6.6, while the rate among Arab women was 3.0, and among secular women, it was 2.0— still well above the OECD average— according to a report from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research.
(dopamine and doomscrolling are just as bad as religion and traditional values, for different reasons, imho)
> Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in 2001,[64][65] making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.
> While the ethnic demography of France has shifted as a result of post-WWII immigration, scholars have generally dismissed the claims of a "great replacement" as being rooted in an exaggeration of immigration statistics and unscientific, racially prejudiced views.[12] Geographer Landis MacKellar criticized Camus's thesis for assuming "that third- and fourth- generation 'immigrants' are somehow not French."[63] Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in 2001,[64][65] making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.[63]
The assumption being made is that they’ll ditch the religion after four generations? I don’t see data for that assumption, maybe it is not 100%, but its certainly not as low as 20% apostacy.
Thus I would take serious issue with that statement, it is evidence of an ethnic or religious replacement.
And the actual numbers still don’t show a majority shift. Even if every Muslim in France kept their religion, they’d be ~10% of the population — far from "replacement".
Also anglicism is like, catholicism without a pope... also it was created by the king, not imported from another continent.
Also, you missed the point entirely if the topic is “the population of x has gone from 1% to an estimated upper of 12.5% in 20 years” and your answer is “its below 10% right now”.
Not only are you potentially immediately wrong, since the number today could exceed 10%, it also doesn’t speak to how those demographics might be shaped by disparities in birthrates or continued migration.
But, you know that, you’re just trying to argue for some reason.
Either that’s a strong coincidence or vote manipulation is rife here.
Current net immigration inflows into Germany are below 0.5% of population.
The big immigration waves of the last 20 years can be directly linked to devastating wars: Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine.
How many generations did it take for the Germans to become Americans in the US? Did it make Americans disappear?
It's not a question of generations. There were a lot of German-speaking towns in the US, but World War I-driven xenophobia pushed them to Americanize.
That’s an oversimplification. Dying of old age and being murdered both end in death, but we both know they’re not the same.
> Why grasp so tightly to a genetic window a handful of centuries old?
I believe I explained that in my first comment.
Edit: I'm undecided if it's capitalist ownership class, or a "late stage socialism running out of other people's money". Still undecided. It's probably both, which is why we're doomed.
I actually think they pay their workers too much though - for not working.
I think standard unemployment on full salary is 2 years, even if you quit your job yourself!
Generous benefits invite abuse…
I think three of these claims are wrong
https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/arbeitslos-arbeit-finden/arbei...
You get 60% of last salary, not full salary.
You get it for up to 12 months not 24.
You lose 3 months of unemployment money if you quit rather than being fired.
Estonia for example had quite a lot of investment, you’d be surprised what a regime will invest in to ensure that the optics are positive.
Not saying that happened here, but it is something that has happened.
USA/EU might be putting money into SK.
Both to “prove to the other side” that their ideology is the right one.
And funded what looks like ~USD$35B in post-war economic assistance. (Plus other UN funding)
For that, South Korea went from being devastated by 2 wars to around the 13th largest economy in the world. Not a bad return.
China and Russia were welcome to invest in North Korea...
South Korea's population was 25 million in 1960, it is 54 million now.
We need to stop going over the top with claims of "population collapse". The 20th century to this day was abnormal at historical scale in that human population exploded like never before, and perhaps like never again and probably for the best considering how we have brought the planet to its knees.
We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population because the explosion that has happened is unsustainable and so are current global population levels. That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment.
This does not mean that population should or will collapse to extra low levels...
Its just math showing the trend and it's not worthless as it should give you something to think about.
>> We need to embrace and adapt to a decrease in population
Of course, but it will be painful.
>> That's the best, if not only, way to both get rid of poverty globally and to preserve the climate and environment.
That simple math, which you deem worthless also tells you this is impossible. There will be a small number of young active people having to support a big group of elderly. They will not have the time to solve world problems. In fact a lot of knowledge will be lost as economy will contract and there will be less people available for specialization.
"The second derivative of population will remain constant for the next 100 years" is just as silly today as it was in 1925.
We need to embrace this and use existing and new technologies to cope. We have AI, automation, robots progressing fast, this is exactly what we need in addition to investing in education.
The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
Based on history it hasn't happened. How do you know it's going to?
>>The alternative is to keep pushing for an ever growing population and to end up in Soylent Green / Blade Runner.
That is absolutely not the only alternative. One would be to have a stable population at the current size. Another on would be decreasing population slowly and not as drastically as it will happen in Korea. A third one would be growing it slowly. The fourth one would be oscillating around the current size, etc.
50 years ago people were saying "we are doomed" because of overpopulation. We had people saying that the optimal number of humans on the planet was just one billion and that we had to engage in extreme measures of international oppression to force as much of the unavoidable starvation on certain populations and not others. Now we are seeing "the world is doomed" because of underpopulation (despite the fact that the world population is still growing) and we are starting to see the proposed extreme measures of rolling back women's rights in order to address this.
This system can't work. This system is going to collapse. Just matter of time.
We don't know how a society can work that way as it's a first time.
Many countries have tried giving every incentive possible. Cash bonuses, tax breaks, a year+ of mandatory child leave for both men and women, cheap child care, mandatory flexible hours, housing subsidies, cultural campaigns.
Some of them have a short term effect but none of them get the numbers up to replacement levels and the numbers keep going down.
It's hard to blame it on any one thing. Some might say "suburban car centric culture" but that doesn't explain Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc....
I can't personally imagine the numbers going back up.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman
The are many programs like this all over the world; the issue with them is they don't give out enough money/resources to have a measurable positive effect - they should be much much more funded. Incidentally the biggest baby boom in my country (Slovakia) was during the largest buildout of cheap accomodation for young families in the history, also the maternity leave was increased to 3 years and there were various subsidies. So I think policies like that work if they are properly funded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hus%C3%A1k%27s_Children
Those incentives are usually meaningless. Like 100€ monthly cash bonus. Could cover food, but nothing more. A year of child leave is good, but what to do during next 5 years untill you can put kids into the school system?
And don't forget massive opportunity costs. Instead of having a single kid, woman can have few more years of advancing in career. Instead of putting all time into one kid, woman can upskill, get a degree, etc.
And with second child it's three times harder.
Also turns out, many baby boomers are not eager to be present in life of their grandkids. If you pregnant - you are screwed. You and the father-to-be will take a massive hit in every aspect of life.
If you want to see what culture will look like in a few hundred years, try and figure out what’s common between Mormons, Amish, and Muslims.
But it's getting there, now that dense cities are the only places with decent jobs.
TBH need someone to attempt very illiberal effort to make babies because every pro maternity policy has failed to bring TFR > replacement. At this point it should be abundantly clear that short of religion, carrot policies cannot reward their way to 2.1+ TFR. Or I guess embrace immigration.
IMO the problem is fertility rate also laughs at everything "liberalism" and wealth has thrown and true authoritarian measures have not been taken. As in every liberal / pro natal policies (Nordics) have failed to raise TFR >2.1, usually settle at 1.7. I think more illustrative is wealthy MENA countries where culture, religion, resources align but those countries are either <2.1 TFR or declining to <2.1 TFR, i.e. if you have all the government subsidies and families regularly hire maids/nannies from ample cheap migrant workforce (something even most wealthy liberal societies don't have ubiquitous access too) then the carrot solution itself is not enough.
Stick policies, which only authoritarians or societies in extreme fertility stress can even start to contemplate, would be increased taxation / limited wealth transfers, i.e. if you want to inherit anything from your parents or grandparents (including real estate) you better have at least 2 kids. And in case of east asian societies, ban pets / AI relationships that's been eating at relationship formation. Peak authoritarian methods would be civil service that requires women to start making babies (in conjunction with massive support), state orphanage programs to basically raise new bodies and engineer/manage demographics (i.e. women don't have to keep kids but my spend 1-2 years doing state surrogacy). There's also increasing lifespan, i.e. workforce participation duration, but still hits ultimate limits of needing to replacement TFR.
Or again... engineer society to accept immigration.
And in the case of east asian societies, cancel capitalism. Pets / AI relationships are only the escape vents.
Because that policies are bluff to say politicians support family without actually spending much of the budget.
Like give a 100€ rebate for a childcare while it costs 1000€ per month. And also it is closed for a month in summer, so you should care about the baby by yourself.
Real pro-maternity policies will be like this: 1. Free childcare. 2. Free healthcare, including all medicine and vaccination. 3. Free public transport for kids and adults with them. 4. Subsidized shops with items for kids: from nappies to clothes. 4. Subsidized costs of housing for families with kids. 5. Subsidized costs of sport activities. 6. Fully paid maternity leave untill children can be full day in daycare.
Even with generous European policies, having one kid is a huge hit to the lifestyle and savings. But we need to have 2-3 kids to keep the population.
Yes, I think even "real pro-maternity" policies not enough. I written more in comment below, but my gut feeling is to get enough family formation that has 2-3 kids rather than 1-2, you need... basically UBI + slave labour tier support. Think UAE/Qatar, 20% locals doing 30hr/week make shift jobs, access to cheap labour, i.e. living in maid. Their TFR still declining fast, 4->3 in last 10 years but there's a chance they'll settle above 2.1 / replacement. Short of that level of "abundance" I think most will choose less than 2 kids and societies stuck with backfilling with immigration.
Frankly this is a wrong take. For one the TFR of religious countries is also trending downward and below replacement. Immigration is a zero-sum game that won't help for long term.
And the issue is carrot policies just don't give out enough carrots (do the math and you'll see that easily). A really generous family support that makes having children wortwhile compared to the alternatives will have the desired result.
IMO take so far data is showing no amount of generous policies will convince people to have more than 1-2 kids (hit replacement TFR) long term unless they're living life of leisure + ample subsidies AND help. At some point stress/obligation of child rearing is going to eat away at other commitments (i.e. work). Hence highlighting MENA countries where religion+resource coordinate but TFR still collapsing and trending below 2.1 TFR.
The statistic exception being being REALLY GENEROUS, Fully Automated Luxury Communism leisure tier support i.e. living in maids, nannies, drivers -> UAE Emiratis and Qataris where locals ex migrant worker pop still has declining TFR that _may_ settle beyond replacement (currently around 3.1, still down from 3.7 10 years ago). But that requires functionally UBI, optional work i.e. state setups 30hr per week "public sector" for locals while expat / cheap / slave labour handles everything else. The latter being key, need UBI tier to be able to cover hiring other humans to do domestic work, maid, nanny, cook, driver etc.
Maybe a do-able level of "abundance" if we look other way on exploitation, already lots of migrant labours in west, but we tend to keep them in factories or fields, not civic/domestic realm. PRC trying to build their army of care taking robots. But IMO that's the minimum, if you can't ensure that level of support (not just money but labour), positive policies won't get past replacement TFR. If Emrati/Qatari TFR stabilize below replacement in 10-20 years, then it's sign to ceiling on human willingness to have multiple kids, i.e. can't subsidize way for locals to reach replacement TFR.
How long is the long-term data we have? Is the generous support at the start of the policy still generous relative to the changed conditions much later?
> If Emrati/Qatari TFR stabilize below replacement in 10-20 years
My guess is they will collapse too; their lifestyle is financed by oil buyers. This will not go on forever and more importantly they have more and more people to feed and pamper but not more oil to sell. And now that we have technologies that can broadly replace oil, they can't raise the prices too much either.
My rough understanding is we have 20-50 years of efforts in the Nordics. Long enough to form "Nordic Paradox" for situation where pro-natal policies still lead to below replacement rates. There's also weird dual cultural shift - Nordic countries women labour participation rate stagnated or even decreased - more wanted to become full time moms/homemakers - so there is desire for family formation. But second culture shift is the desire is still sub replacement level, i.e. people want 1-2 kids. Not enough people want 2 kids to replace themselves. Not enough people want 2+ kids to make up the people that want 1.
> go on forever
Yeah it's more to illustrate the levels of abundance in terms of pro social policies that could sustain culturally acceptable >2 TFR. Be religious. Have UBI. Ensure people work little if they don't want to. Ensure they have access to cheap labour that does all the work for them. Then maybe TFR could settle between 2-3. Right now the few exception are a few million people sustained by disproportionate fossil exports. That model can't scale without another source of abundance.
Besides that, at a cultural level personal worth and dignity and safety need to be divorced from monetary net worth as that makes it easier for someone to decide where is a comfortable place for them in their society, and then adjust their time between working and child-rearing.
That said, it's also hard to motivate some people to reproduce if there's no greater point to it than some basic primal instinct, which may not be that high in such people. It follows, I guess, that the more educated a populace gets, the less its participants are likely to thoughtlessly reproduce. Tax credits are helpful (said sarcastically).
Total fertility rates in Scandinavian countries (known for their very generous welfare) are falling as well -- not as catastrophic as South Korea's, but way below replacement rate nonetheless. E.g., Denmark's total fertility rate fell yet again in 2024 to 1.466. (Source: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer...)
That said, social safety programs aren’t just about money per se, but about freeing up parents from working and investing time in child-rearing. If life is expensive and requires at least two incomes to sustain a household, who has the time to get pregnant, give birth and raise a child? Maybe this is a problem that gets resolved if children can be safely incubated outside a womb, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of who’s going to do all the work that needs to get done on a daily basis to run a household with kids.
Just like the UK, they would probably be better off with less people, geopolitical considerations aside.