South Korea’s fertility rate sinks to record low despite $270bn in incentives

RandAlThor@lemmy.ca to World News@lemmy.world – 212 points –
South Korea’s fertility rate sinks to record low despite $270bn in incentives
theguardian.com
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I love reading about how Korea and Japan are both having this problem and in each it boils down to: people are struggling to survive under capitalist oppression and refuse to bring children into the life of oppression

Added: and are also so racist that will not let in immigrants who will help replace the population that is aging.

At this point, even if either wasn’t so racist, I don’t think they’re in a position to suddenly receive millions of immigrants and properly integrate them into their societies.

"Integrate" isn't the goal, population replacement is. This is specifically why the governments DON'T want immigrants--they are afraid of losing cultural purity.

Why would their goal to be to replace their culture? Sure it might be the end result of mass immigration, but I wouldn’t call it their goal.

I think you misunderstand. I’m saying that what the governments don’t want to do is allow for replacement even if it’s the only solution. There is no integration, people enter and they remain themselves and their culture. This means that the country will change and evolve, which is scary for purists. In 25 years they would be vastly different places but based on the original cultures.

When I read stories like this, I think about another story about a bear whose bile was extracted for industrial use. The extraction is extremely painful for the animal. They're kept harnessed to the extraction machinery. This particular bear managed to escape its harness. And the first thing it did was to kill its own cub. So that it wouldn't have to suffer anymore. This happened in China by the way.

and refuse to bring children into the life of oppression

Close. It's their inherent racism that is causing their nations to fail.

I'm not sure why people took exception to this. The Korean government literally makes it impossible for foreigners to access certain services. Japan allows landlords and businesses to reject serving any foreigners, and will arrest any non-citizen for the crime of being outside of their dwelling without their passport in their pocket.

For South Korea this is unlikely to be the case. If you actually listen to the women, you'll learn that starting a family means becoming second class citizens, dogged by oppressive institutions and terrible mother-in-laws (which is a cultural problem too). It's common in many places. The men aren't better off either, the insane competition is stressful, alienating, and prevents them from actually experiencing family. Yes, this is also common in many places.

The problem is capitalism and conservatism, two sides of the same coin.