Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shortskirt_longjacket]

Article from today's Korea Herald:

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/05/09/200605090046.asp

Why is a low birth rate seen as a bad thing? Why must Korea (or any other country) maintain its population? I was under the impression that the world could benefit from a little population control.

Thoughts on this?

[Hanson]

Aging population, low tax base, not enough $$$ to take care of a lot of old people.

Population control should probably happen more in developing countries than the rich ones...

[Kuros]

Cheers to Korea for recognizing the problem and doing something about it...although it is hard for a country to do anything about a problem as serious as declining birthrates (or having too high a birthrate).

[shortskirt_longjacket]

Hanson, your response raises another question for me...does the gov't do much to take care of older people here? I'm not very educated on the matter...I was under the impression that families took care of their own elderly relatives. Also, I see so many old (like, really old...85+) men and women working crappy jobs (hauling recycling, sweeping up subway stations, collecting used newspapers on the subway, etc) that I guess I just sort of assumed that any social-security-type program is in no way enough to support an old person (in America, Social Security benefits hardly support the retired folks there, but you hardly ever see really old people working there).

[rapier]

[Moldy Rutabaga]

[....]

[Ya-ta Boy]

A declining birthrate would not be a bad thing if it were gradual. Very gradual. Korea could use 10 or so few million people. But the problem is that it is coming too fast. Who will support the elderly if the government won't, and the government here doesn't. Think of the old ladies on the street trying to sell their mountain weeds. They wouldn't be there if the government (or someone) would support them.

Where I'm from has a big problem. A hundred years ago or so the wolves were killed off. Then the laws restricting hunting of deer by humans were made stricter. Suddenly (20 years later), every third person is slamming into a deer while driving down the highway at night. This is not good. Slamming into a deer at 60 mph means your car can go spinning off the highway.

Regulated management of population growth and decline can be good. Precipitate growth and/or decline causes problems. With humans, BIG problems.

[canuckistan]

Either Korea offers more incentives for people to become parents of more children or they'll have to consider immigration.

Offering incentives doesn't usually work that well. So immigration it is--yet even many Koreans want to get out of Korea.

Which nation(s) should Korea favour as having prospective immigrant material?
I suspect for now this is a hard idea for them to have to think about.

[Hanson]

[JongnoGuru]

[Real Reality]

Population Density Ranks Third in World
... The nation's population density is as much as 10 times the world average and four times the average of Asian nations.
By Kim Jae-kyoung, Korea Times (July 10, 2005)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200507/kt2005071018134110220.htm

No kids, no problem: The choice against conception
... "If we were to have children, it would be our duty to give them our utmost love and care," she said. "But for us, the idea that a person has to have children is not a matter of course. We just think we would be happier without a child."
by Baik Sung-ho, Limb Jae-un, JoongAng Daily (October 12, 2005)
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200510/11/200510111651549839900091009101.html

Koreans Voice Bedroom Frustrations
Korean respondents ranked at the bottom in a survey on the sex life .... Korea was also in last place after Japan as for the frequency of sexual intercourse. 43.3% of Korean men had sex twice or three times a month, while 34.7% of women reported that they had sex only once or not at all.
Chosun Ilbo (February 9, 2006)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200602/200602090037.html

Women Take 11 Months After First Meeting to Have Sex
Chosun Ilbo (July 5, 2004)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200407/200407050030.html

Korean Men World's Most Selfish in Bed: Survey
Chosun Ilbo (March 23, 2006)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200603/200603230006.html

Survey Finds Alarming Number of Korean Men Impotent
Chosun Ilbo (June 13, 2005)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200506/200506130017.html

Koreans' sperm is found slack
JoongAng Daily (February 26, 2005)
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200502/25/200502252224458779900090409041.html

[desultude]

I have a all female class of graduate students of prime reproductive age- late twenties to late thirties. Most are not married and have no children. Whe we discuss the issue, it is clear that getting married is on their minds, but not in their hearts, and having children even less so.

Some of the students did a presentation on low birthrate and male and female attitudes. A high percentage of women in Korea think neither marriage nor children are necessary. Men have the opposite view.

This same thing has happened in Japan. Women get educated, want careers, etc.. Having a husband and children in Korea makes that very difficult. The women's attitudes about such things have changed, but the men's stay stuck in the mid-20th century.

I think part of the hysteria about low birth rates has to do with the discomfort with the changing attitudes of women. "Old" workers (late forties) are still forced out of jobs to make room for younger ones. It seems that extending the working life into the sixties gives a lot more time to adjust to fewer babies. My senior students are incredibly concerned about finding jobs. There are structural changes in Korea that could prevent a crisis of aging, but it will take the men changing their attitudes about a lot of things such as their role in the family, the situation of women, and the continued employment of people in the prime of their work lives.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Until someone figures out a way to make the 24-hour-a-day care and maintainence of small children for years on end fulfilling to more people, societies where people have control over the number of children they have will continue to face declining birth rates.

[khyber]

I'm not sure why everyone is complaining about the government. Is there even such a THING as a nursing home in korea?
Do old korean people get money from the state?

I've always been under the impression that old people go to live with CHILDREN (preferably theirs) or live by themselves.

[Troll_Bait]