Korean Job Discussion Forums

[el_magico]

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/

Seems like an interesting read but it'll take little time to digest everything.

[Juregen]

Too many hyperboles and slightly generalizing.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I especially liked these two paragraphs about the consequences of the falling birthrate.

Either way, the profound consequences for the economy, the government�s finances and the nation�s social structure have barely begun to sink in; nor has the impact on families. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, puts it with only mild exaggeration: changing fertility patterns mean that �2,500 years of East Asian family tradition stand to come to an end with the region�s rising generation.� What will it do to people if many, perhaps most, of them will no longer have brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts or even cousins? As Mr Eberstadt points out, when family structures atrophy�even in a country such as South Korea where children are treated as fondly as they are in Italy�sturdy institutional alternatives will quickly need to be found to take on the role now played by family networks.

As the South Korean population ages, the country�s high savings rate is almost bound to decline, which will have an effect on both what the economy can invest and what the government can raise in taxes. As it is, the country�s national pension scheme and a long-term-care scheme for the old are only two decades old, and their funding structure is not geared to South Korea�s expected demographic transformation over the coming quarter-century, which will involve a rapidly ageing society, a shrinking workforce and a population in absolute decline.

[TexasPete]

It would seem that the Koreans should begin a campaign encouraging more children in families. Or, it would if this place wasn't so crowded already.

[Ya-ta Boy]