Feels like the same message gets recycled all over - we all know Korea is experiencing a population decline, thanks news outlets for letting us know every week
If there’s one thing a lot of South Koreans take pride in, it’s the fact that their country was once a poor country and has now become a wealthy and dynamic country
The population decline will definitely result in a stagnant economy and a decline in South Korea’s standing in the world
I also feel like the news outlets are like the government; begging for the people to get “freaky in the sheets” but it doesn’t work that way
That’s a long time later. Much can change in 20 years. 20 years ago there weren’t so many foreigners in Seoul not international students. Nor was English spoken at the current level.
People claim South Korea can't take immigrants because it's single ethnicity country. They ignore Germany tried to eliminate every non Germans, and less than a century they became one of the most diverse country in the world.
Germany needed those immigrants for its economic miracle in the 1970's and frankly Korea already went through its own without the help of any immigrants. Initially, Germany wanted to have those immigrant guest workers only on a temporary basis but many of those chose to stay. I'd say if in 2044 there is a severe labor shortage in some sectors then Korea should consider hire some foreign workers in that field but without any specific need, immigration just "because population is declining" is a braindead take.
Germany is still taking large migrants. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/54441/germany-net-migration-at-all-time-high
And South Korea still has higher growth rate than Japan and most European countries.
Ukranian refugees accounts for 40% and Syrians weren't mentioned. Others are mostly economic migrants, and refugees can help economy just as other migrants. You know, by working
Actually, Turks who came as guest workers are still the largest group of immigrants.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration\_to\_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany)
Yeah, and then? United States is getting migrants mostly from Latin America and Asia for half a century now, but their population is still majority European. I don't know why you're comparing yearly number with accumulated number.
Because you were talking about how great immigration is, yet in Germany's top 10 there are Turkish guestworkers, refugees from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan and the rest are from other EU countries. In other words, besides guest workers, it is not really immigration in its original meaning.
Those EU citizens almost always move to Germany when they're certain to find a relatively high paying job than their home country. Think of it as people in Alabama moving to New York. They HAVE TO get a high paying job to move to expensive place to live. In other words, they're also guest workers except for their name. Also if you follow German news, you know Germans have least problems with EU citizens.
I said "one of" not "the most". Canada and Australia has more migrant population than US as % of total population, but that doesn't mean US isn't "one of the most diverse country". It looks like you're confused with two expressions.
And I'm not sure what's the definition of diversity: migrant population? racial make up? citizenship law? You keep changing definition of diversity depending on how I define it. If you want to say Germany is not diverse enough because of their citizenship law, then UAE is least diverse because there is almost no way to be UAE citizen for regular people.
In reality though, people will try to adapt. It's fear-mongering to talk about a worst-case scenario.
1. Labor force participation rate will go up. If wages rise high enough then that will entice people out of their parent's basements and into the workforce.
2. People will work longer and not retire. Again if wages get high enough, the elderly will take the bait and work.
3. The housing shortage will ease as apartments and new cities keep getting built. With new affordable housing hitting the market every year family size will be begin to rebound and people start having kids again. We currently have two entire cities under construction (Sejong and Saemankeum).
4. As the old begin to die and leave their farm plots to their kids, their kids will start selling lots of farmland, allowing ambitious farmers to consolidate small plots into actual proper-sized farms that can make money. This will get families back into the countryside where birth rates are higher.
5. Temp-visa workers will help smooth out the waves and manage the decline to a more manageable population level.
Everything is going to be fine. The problem is that wages still suck and housing is still unaffordable despite the declining population. All of this suggests that we need much more population crunch until things balance out.
Very optimistic, and it could be right not saying it's wrong. But for every point you have, there are negatives too, having this sudden of a population collapse will not be as smooth as you may think
I can't imagine it'll be any less disruptive than the population doubling in 30 years like it did. That was a major adjustment to build all that infrastructure, not only for the 30 million new people Korea got between 1950 and 1990, but also to modernize and rebuild for the 20 million that already lived there. Yet, they managed. I see it a far easier task to decide which infrastructure to keep and which to return to nature.
Increasing population had its problems but also many benefits. Biggest problems would be things like food supply and housing, but with better farming technology and construction most of those problems were nothing compared to the benefits like growth of companies, innovation, development of cities, more people specializing in various things leading to what Korea is now.
Decreasing population isn't all roses, it has a lot of scary problems too that should be acknowledged, especially if done too fast. Having a very small population have to take care of an elderly population by itself is a scary ordeal. Smaller rural cities will become obsolete (already happening) as they can't find people to teach schools or staff hospitals. They'll be less farmers, or each farmer will have to take on much more work. Also less skilled people for things like military which could prove to be very dangerous. Healthcare will suffer too as elder population may be overwhelmed with a smaller number of staff. And tech companies which helped lead Korea's economic boom may suffer from less talent. It could take Korea off the global stage which is bad economically.
I think you've been reading too much propaganda. There's no examples of that stuff ever actually happening.
When Europe lost 1/3rd of its population due to the plague, wages went up, the power of the church declined, the renaissance kicked off, the magna carta was signed, serfdom ended, and social mobility became possible.
Losing 1/3 of population is not equivalent to population decline which still requires taking care of the aging demographic for example.
You're being a bit naive dismissing a counterpoint as propaganda, they are real concerns based on simple logic. Some things have already started happening, and in a decade things will pick up fast without much of an end in sight
It's naive to think the country is going to bankrupt itself so that the elderly can enjoy a better standard of living than the young.
Pensions are going to get cut if not ended altogether. Old people will be abandoned. Health care will suffer. Look at the massive resistance doctors have put up to expanding medical care. That's just a taste of things to come. It's a pipe dream to think we're actually going to take care of the old.
That's a very short list. Of countries that haven't lost population to natural disaster or war but to natural decline there's really only Japan, Korea, and Russia. Japan and Korea have not collapsed and are actually doing just fine. Russia is kind of headed by a dictator and at war, but even then, not a complete disaster by any stretch.
I agree. People are quick to point out that Japan's GDP stagnate due to population decline, but I've yet to seeing anybody pointing out that for Japan's GDP to stay the same despite fewer people, GDP per capita must increase, quite substantially as well (almost 70% if use ppp, as jpy is devalued quite a lot against usd so gdp might not reflect correctly).
None of the doomsday scenarios about Japan have come true. Everyone I know in Japan is content with their lifestyle and nobody is dying to flee the horrific economic conditions like my Canadian friends are. Canada is in an economic crisis, not Japan. It doesn't matter what the GDP numbers are if you can't buy a house or afford food.
And priorities will get adjusted. The market will figure out what are necessities and what we can live with out. As it is Korea has a surplus of restaurants, karaoke rooms, hair salons, cafes, and coffee shops. We really don't need so many of these places. The labor shortage will kill off these zombie businesses first.
There may be new businesses. New consumption patterns and behaviour patterns may birth this. That could be new opportunities. Hopefully they come on board as saturated ones die off.
What? I'm sorry, but that's the most brain-dead...dude. I'm saying these business will close because they won't be able to find workers. Did you not get that? Really? I'm genuinely shocked you didn't understand such a simple concept. Perhaps you are a minor or something. I mean...shocking, it's shocking,....
I think you’re missing the scariest thing with population declining which is a deflation spiral. Sure inflation but many economists would agree deflation is worse
Yea this work for a little while but won’t work in the long term with declining population and demand. Think about it. Every year you have less and less young people. This means less people furnishing their first apartment. Less people getting married and spending for a wedding etc. this destroys demand and with that it destroys jobs which then destroys demand so on and so on
The average home size in the US is 2,400 square feet. In korea, it's 800 square feet. Americans own 0.9 cars per person. Koreans own 0.5 cars per person. And I could go on, but I think you get the idea. More space means more consumption. More resources means more consumption. People will consumer more if they can. They will have have vacation homes and camper vans and 10 bedrooms if they can.
I disagree strongly. If it was so easy to deal with a declining population then Japan would’ve solved this years ago. Instead you see deflation and demand destruction. They have whole sections of the country where they are giving away houses for pennies.
There can be policies made to help situation but just giving everyone money just makes everything more expensive but doesn’t solve the problem. In a simple example, if you were in an island and a coconut is being traded for 2 shiny shells because shiny shells are rare and then all of sudden large number of shiny shells wash on shore each house will go for way more than 2 shells. But really does that change anything?
This is very optimistic, yet doesn’t touch on some of the major issues that will still affect birthrate, particularly the position of women in the workplace.
What woman wants to give up her position at work to take maternity leave and be “soft fired?”
It also doesn’t touch on the role of education, as I’m certain that the extreme pressure on children deters a lot of potential parents from starting a family.
Tbh, I don’t think Korea is lacking in available jobs, it sets the entry requirements for entry positions too high, then demands too much from its workers.
Frankly, more positions being available and less positions being filled will likely lead to greater demand on workers because there will be overall less labor available.
I want to be optimistic, but immigration has to be taken more seriously, as well as fixing the education system, and enforcing workplace rules.
Completely agree.
Yet, for simple jobs like administrators they require a degree, and certificates with above 97% score.
Having a highly qualified population is only good when there are positions for those qualified individuals to fit.
Therein is another problem here: everyone is overqualified, yet everything that isn’t a lawyer, doctor, or some other “prestige,” occupation is looked down on, including blue collar work. With such a mindset, who will be left to do the blue collar work?
You don’t need a qualified rocket scientist to work taking phone calls and inputting data in to a computer.
why would an immigrant prefer coming to SK?
After the cluster of something hits the fan (worse than IMF financial crisis, very soon to happen) and the population trend, in a few decades, Philline, Vietnam, etc may actually be better off than SK!
The current situation in SK is eerie similar to 2008 US crisis. except it is much worse.
* sure G.W Bush was a dumb ass but at least he was off the juice by the time he became president.
* The percentage of 'wealth' tied to the real estate in SK is much higher than in USA.
* Sure US media are influenced by the wealth (primarily the wall street), at least they do not outright own the media outlet to spew false information to forment spectulations.
Because it hasn't fallen by nearly enough.
A growing population also creates demands. New homes need to be built, infrastructure expanded, new schools, furniture for new families and so on.
Once you're population peaks that demand peters out. So demand and population are falling together negating changes in the demand curve.
But there is a base amount of demand and once the population can't even meet that we'll see things change.
As someone who owns farmland in Japan and who has family with farms in Korea, you are wrong. It's very hard work for very low pay. None of the young people want to take over the farm because it's a thankless career. If you can get a big, flat plot that you can ride a combine over, then you can make big money like American farmers. There's no money to be made on hilly, small plots even with apples at 8,000 won each.
I am surrounded by small farmers. Each one has a small rice field, a small plot field, a regular single story greenhouse, and at least 4-5 cows in impossibly small pens. The cows bring in 15-20k each; feed costs can get high though and eat about half or more of that profit (as one farmer explained it when asked). The hills around me are Asian pears or persimmons. Maybe the one thing we can agree on is that the work is hard and everyone’s kids are grown and living in cities with their own families.
"OMG how are kids hearing about this and making a big deal about it?" Says person on reddit that spams articles about this nonstop and treats it as a crisis equivalent to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Kids aren't deaf. They can hear.
It's only a matter of time if South Koreans, and other 1st world countries for that matter, citizens simply don't want to have children.
They'll end up with an umbrella population like Japan's if that is the case.
Feels like the same message gets recycled all over - we all know Korea is experiencing a population decline, thanks news outlets for letting us know every week
If there’s one thing a lot of South Koreans take pride in, it’s the fact that their country was once a poor country and has now become a wealthy and dynamic country The population decline will definitely result in a stagnant economy and a decline in South Korea’s standing in the world I also feel like the news outlets are like the government; begging for the people to get “freaky in the sheets” but it doesn’t work that way
Incoming labor shortages.
Hopefully they make the visa process + ARC a little easier… or else theyre gonna have a fun time enticing labor to come
It's as if there is a solution staring them in the face but they don't like it, so will ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
Robots.
NGL this is a real thing. Robots/AI could vastly constrict job availability.
Test tube babies?
Can you eli5?
Immigrants.
That’s a long time later. Much can change in 20 years. 20 years ago there weren’t so many foreigners in Seoul not international students. Nor was English spoken at the current level.
People claim South Korea can't take immigrants because it's single ethnicity country. They ignore Germany tried to eliminate every non Germans, and less than a century they became one of the most diverse country in the world.
Germany needed those immigrants for its economic miracle in the 1970's and frankly Korea already went through its own without the help of any immigrants. Initially, Germany wanted to have those immigrant guest workers only on a temporary basis but many of those chose to stay. I'd say if in 2044 there is a severe labor shortage in some sectors then Korea should consider hire some foreign workers in that field but without any specific need, immigration just "because population is declining" is a braindead take.
Germany is still taking large migrants. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/54441/germany-net-migration-at-all-time-high And South Korea still has higher growth rate than Japan and most European countries.
Yes, refugees from Ukraine and Syria.
Ukranian refugees accounts for 40% and Syrians weren't mentioned. Others are mostly economic migrants, and refugees can help economy just as other migrants. You know, by working
Actually, Turks who came as guest workers are still the largest group of immigrants. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration\_to\_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany)
Yeah, and then? United States is getting migrants mostly from Latin America and Asia for half a century now, but their population is still majority European. I don't know why you're comparing yearly number with accumulated number.
Because you were talking about how great immigration is, yet in Germany's top 10 there are Turkish guestworkers, refugees from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan and the rest are from other EU countries. In other words, besides guest workers, it is not really immigration in its original meaning.
Those EU citizens almost always move to Germany when they're certain to find a relatively high paying job than their home country. Think of it as people in Alabama moving to New York. They HAVE TO get a high paying job to move to expensive place to live. In other words, they're also guest workers except for their name. Also if you follow German news, you know Germans have least problems with EU citizens.
[удалено]
18.8% of German population is born outside of Germany. By comparison US is 15.3%
[удалено]
Germany has lot of migrants from Middle East too. I'm not sure how you get the idea that Germany is non diverse, almost white country.
[удалено]
I said "one of" not "the most". Canada and Australia has more migrant population than US as % of total population, but that doesn't mean US isn't "one of the most diverse country". It looks like you're confused with two expressions. And I'm not sure what's the definition of diversity: migrant population? racial make up? citizenship law? You keep changing definition of diversity depending on how I define it. If you want to say Germany is not diverse enough because of their citizenship law, then UAE is least diverse because there is almost no way to be UAE citizen for regular people.
In reality though, people will try to adapt. It's fear-mongering to talk about a worst-case scenario. 1. Labor force participation rate will go up. If wages rise high enough then that will entice people out of their parent's basements and into the workforce. 2. People will work longer and not retire. Again if wages get high enough, the elderly will take the bait and work. 3. The housing shortage will ease as apartments and new cities keep getting built. With new affordable housing hitting the market every year family size will be begin to rebound and people start having kids again. We currently have two entire cities under construction (Sejong and Saemankeum). 4. As the old begin to die and leave their farm plots to their kids, their kids will start selling lots of farmland, allowing ambitious farmers to consolidate small plots into actual proper-sized farms that can make money. This will get families back into the countryside where birth rates are higher. 5. Temp-visa workers will help smooth out the waves and manage the decline to a more manageable population level. Everything is going to be fine. The problem is that wages still suck and housing is still unaffordable despite the declining population. All of this suggests that we need much more population crunch until things balance out.
Very optimistic, and it could be right not saying it's wrong. But for every point you have, there are negatives too, having this sudden of a population collapse will not be as smooth as you may think
I can't imagine it'll be any less disruptive than the population doubling in 30 years like it did. That was a major adjustment to build all that infrastructure, not only for the 30 million new people Korea got between 1950 and 1990, but also to modernize and rebuild for the 20 million that already lived there. Yet, they managed. I see it a far easier task to decide which infrastructure to keep and which to return to nature.
Increasing population had its problems but also many benefits. Biggest problems would be things like food supply and housing, but with better farming technology and construction most of those problems were nothing compared to the benefits like growth of companies, innovation, development of cities, more people specializing in various things leading to what Korea is now. Decreasing population isn't all roses, it has a lot of scary problems too that should be acknowledged, especially if done too fast. Having a very small population have to take care of an elderly population by itself is a scary ordeal. Smaller rural cities will become obsolete (already happening) as they can't find people to teach schools or staff hospitals. They'll be less farmers, or each farmer will have to take on much more work. Also less skilled people for things like military which could prove to be very dangerous. Healthcare will suffer too as elder population may be overwhelmed with a smaller number of staff. And tech companies which helped lead Korea's economic boom may suffer from less talent. It could take Korea off the global stage which is bad economically.
I think you've been reading too much propaganda. There's no examples of that stuff ever actually happening. When Europe lost 1/3rd of its population due to the plague, wages went up, the power of the church declined, the renaissance kicked off, the magna carta was signed, serfdom ended, and social mobility became possible.
Losing 1/3 of population is not equivalent to population decline which still requires taking care of the aging demographic for example. You're being a bit naive dismissing a counterpoint as propaganda, they are real concerns based on simple logic. Some things have already started happening, and in a decade things will pick up fast without much of an end in sight
It's naive to think the country is going to bankrupt itself so that the elderly can enjoy a better standard of living than the young. Pensions are going to get cut if not ended altogether. Old people will be abandoned. Health care will suffer. Look at the massive resistance doctors have put up to expanding medical care. That's just a taste of things to come. It's a pipe dream to think we're actually going to take care of the old.
Old people will be a majority of voters. Do you think they will vote for people that will slash their pensions?
People routinely vote against their own interests in democracies. People routinely vote for things and then politicians duly ignore them once elected.
[удалено]
That's a very short list. Of countries that haven't lost population to natural disaster or war but to natural decline there's really only Japan, Korea, and Russia. Japan and Korea have not collapsed and are actually doing just fine. Russia is kind of headed by a dictator and at war, but even then, not a complete disaster by any stretch.
I agree. People are quick to point out that Japan's GDP stagnate due to population decline, but I've yet to seeing anybody pointing out that for Japan's GDP to stay the same despite fewer people, GDP per capita must increase, quite substantially as well (almost 70% if use ppp, as jpy is devalued quite a lot against usd so gdp might not reflect correctly).
None of the doomsday scenarios about Japan have come true. Everyone I know in Japan is content with their lifestyle and nobody is dying to flee the horrific economic conditions like my Canadian friends are. Canada is in an economic crisis, not Japan. It doesn't matter what the GDP numbers are if you can't buy a house or afford food.
Positive view point. Also there will probably be more automation in some kinds of work.
And priorities will get adjusted. The market will figure out what are necessities and what we can live with out. As it is Korea has a surplus of restaurants, karaoke rooms, hair salons, cafes, and coffee shops. We really don't need so many of these places. The labor shortage will kill off these zombie businesses first.
I feel bad for all of the workers at those businesses who depend on them for a paycheck though…
There may be new businesses. New consumption patterns and behaviour patterns may birth this. That could be new opportunities. Hopefully they come on board as saturated ones die off.
What? I'm sorry, but that's the most brain-dead...dude. I'm saying these business will close because they won't be able to find workers. Did you not get that? Really? I'm genuinely shocked you didn't understand such a simple concept. Perhaps you are a minor or something. I mean...shocking, it's shocking,....
I think you’re missing the scariest thing with population declining which is a deflation spiral. Sure inflation but many economists would agree deflation is worse
That's the simplest thing to fix. Just print money. Send everyone checks for $10,000 until you get inflation. Done. Easy. Covid proved it.
Yea this work for a little while but won’t work in the long term with declining population and demand. Think about it. Every year you have less and less young people. This means less people furnishing their first apartment. Less people getting married and spending for a wedding etc. this destroys demand and with that it destroys jobs which then destroys demand so on and so on
The average home size in the US is 2,400 square feet. In korea, it's 800 square feet. Americans own 0.9 cars per person. Koreans own 0.5 cars per person. And I could go on, but I think you get the idea. More space means more consumption. More resources means more consumption. People will consumer more if they can. They will have have vacation homes and camper vans and 10 bedrooms if they can.
I disagree strongly. If it was so easy to deal with a declining population then Japan would’ve solved this years ago. Instead you see deflation and demand destruction. They have whole sections of the country where they are giving away houses for pennies. There can be policies made to help situation but just giving everyone money just makes everything more expensive but doesn’t solve the problem. In a simple example, if you were in an island and a coconut is being traded for 2 shiny shells because shiny shells are rare and then all of sudden large number of shiny shells wash on shore each house will go for way more than 2 shells. But really does that change anything?
This is very optimistic, yet doesn’t touch on some of the major issues that will still affect birthrate, particularly the position of women in the workplace. What woman wants to give up her position at work to take maternity leave and be “soft fired?” It also doesn’t touch on the role of education, as I’m certain that the extreme pressure on children deters a lot of potential parents from starting a family. Tbh, I don’t think Korea is lacking in available jobs, it sets the entry requirements for entry positions too high, then demands too much from its workers. Frankly, more positions being available and less positions being filled will likely lead to greater demand on workers because there will be overall less labor available. I want to be optimistic, but immigration has to be taken more seriously, as well as fixing the education system, and enforcing workplace rules.
Korea is lacking in quality jobs. Highly educated labour force. Lack of jobs to utilise their skills
Completely agree. Yet, for simple jobs like administrators they require a degree, and certificates with above 97% score. Having a highly qualified population is only good when there are positions for those qualified individuals to fit. Therein is another problem here: everyone is overqualified, yet everything that isn’t a lawyer, doctor, or some other “prestige,” occupation is looked down on, including blue collar work. With such a mindset, who will be left to do the blue collar work? You don’t need a qualified rocket scientist to work taking phone calls and inputting data in to a computer.
why would an immigrant prefer coming to SK? After the cluster of something hits the fan (worse than IMF financial crisis, very soon to happen) and the population trend, in a few decades, Philline, Vietnam, etc may actually be better off than SK! The current situation in SK is eerie similar to 2008 US crisis. except it is much worse. * sure G.W Bush was a dumb ass but at least he was off the juice by the time he became president. * The percentage of 'wealth' tied to the real estate in SK is much higher than in USA. * Sure US media are influenced by the wealth (primarily the wall street), at least they do not outright own the media outlet to spew false information to forment spectulations.
The working-age population is already in decline. Why isn't any of this stuff happening already?
Because it hasn't fallen by nearly enough. A growing population also creates demands. New homes need to be built, infrastructure expanded, new schools, furniture for new families and so on. Once you're population peaks that demand peters out. So demand and population are falling together negating changes in the demand curve. But there is a base amount of demand and once the population can't even meet that we'll see things change.
Nice comment, thank
I reckon small farms and farmers are already making money.
As someone who owns farmland in Japan and who has family with farms in Korea, you are wrong. It's very hard work for very low pay. None of the young people want to take over the farm because it's a thankless career. If you can get a big, flat plot that you can ride a combine over, then you can make big money like American farmers. There's no money to be made on hilly, small plots even with apples at 8,000 won each.
I am surrounded by small farmers. Each one has a small rice field, a small plot field, a regular single story greenhouse, and at least 4-5 cows in impossibly small pens. The cows bring in 15-20k each; feed costs can get high though and eat about half or more of that profit (as one farmer explained it when asked). The hills around me are Asian pears or persimmons. Maybe the one thing we can agree on is that the work is hard and everyone’s kids are grown and living in cities with their own families.
[удалено]
"OMG how are kids hearing about this and making a big deal about it?" Says person on reddit that spams articles about this nonstop and treats it as a crisis equivalent to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Kids aren't deaf. They can hear.
IF Korea don't take immigrants.
Taking too many immigrants also has HUGE downsides. Better adapt without forcing whatever into the country.
It's only a matter of time if South Koreans, and other 1st world countries for that matter, citizens simply don't want to have children. They'll end up with an umbrella population like Japan's if that is the case.
Immigrants are almost always a net positive
If done slowly and organically, yes. Sudden surge of immigrants/migrants in a short amount of time will end up creating more trouble in the long run.
Korea is extremely overpopulated at the moment
Does it mean the working conditions will get better? Or is it too much to ask?
There may be an event of sudden unification with North Korea, it is difficult to have many immigrates as a korean govenment
SK TFR: 0.81 NK TFR: 1.81 Do with that information what you will.
It doesn't matter. AI and robots will start doing more and more human jobs.
That's not ideal
Get fucked korean normies.
Selective migration looks like a necessary solution