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How to fix Korea's birthrate? Put girls in school earlier, controversial report argues
(koreajoongangdaily.joins.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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This idea is a complete non-starter from a practical standpoint. Parents would complain about it either way. Either they wouldn't want girls in school early or they'd want boys in school early, too.
It's just much easier to treat children all the same.
Also, I personally think this plan would backfire. Girls graduating wouldn't want to have to be adults earlier than boys, so they'd stay in school longer. And from what I've heard, the most reliable way to reduce birth rates is to educate women more.
I think everyone also knows how to ethically increase the birth rate. Make having children easy and affordable. Lots of government assistance. Make sure everybody has access to cheap or free childcare.
And there's also the generational problems. Young adults can see the problems that the previous generations caused. You can't go back in time to fix those. It will be expensive to change this sort of thing.
But quick fixes aren't going to change the underlying problems.
The best way to increase birth rates in advanced countries is: Work life balance. Restore the traditional tax rates on the rich.
Work life balance meaning one parent can stay home and raise the children without needing that second income to put food on the table.
If both parents work, the birth rate is always going to be lower, even with better work life balance.
Even with a parent at home people weren't having enough kids to renew the population from the moment they had access to birth control methods.
For real man. We were so overworked when both of us had a full time job and no kids. Now we have one kid and one full time job. It is easier, hard in another way but somehow easier. Soon I'll have to go back to work and I don't even know how we will survive. We would love to have another kid but we either can't afford it or we will go insane trying to afford it.
The other part is that stupid part time career pit. Ideally we would both work half jobs, but this will mean none of us can have a well paid job (per hour). But this also means that if my husband is laid off while I am at home, were fucked. Job security is a huge factor in work life balance.
But also, we are the "risky" ones. Most of my friends from school wanted to wait until they are "settled" financially. I don't have one mom friend from school/university. They are either still settling in their careers or have given up on feeling settled and now have fertility issues.
Just for context, our kid arrived shortly before I turned 30. My friends are in their 30s and 40s. None of them is really "financially secure" since job security is just not a thing anymore.
Not just work life balance, but also the cost of living. I can barely afford to take care of myself, so I'm completely disinclined to go and create a whole new person that will be absolutely dependent on me to provide for it for years. If people can afford to live reasonably comfortably and conditions give them confidence that conditions will remain stable for the next 10-20 years, I bet you'll see them start having kids. When they're worried they could be homeless next year if things worsen and their retirement plan is advocating for the right to end one's life on their own terms, it shouldn't be a shocker that people don't want to add kids into the mix.
Also, perhaps decades of social stigma that said having a bunch of kids is something only poor, ignorant people do that represents a moral failing amongst the upstanding daughters of decent society is a bad thing to maintain when you want folks to keep cranking out more kids to feed into the meat grinder of the workforce.
"cheap or free childcare" No
"stay at home parent" Yes
Lower the work hours per week with same wage so both parents can be there for their children: inconceivable
Why has birthrate been lower than 2 in most developed countries starting in the 60s/70s even if there were social programs and people were able to afford to have a family with a single salary?
Maybe people who don't have access to birth control have accidents and they need to deal with the consequences and in fact, when given the choice, people don't have enough kids to renew the population? Crazy, right?
Really, there's nothing specifically wrong with having a low birth rate. On a large scale, we have an overpopulation problem, and there's not really a negative for each person having fewer children. Of course, smarter people will decide to have fewer kids. But eventually, it will all balance out.
Exactly my point in another message, there are people desperate to get out of their overpopulated country and countries where they need new people yet leaders can't do the math.