S Korea - more deaths than births in 2020..environmental lifeline?

[413x]

For the first time every for S Korea there were more deaths than births. This is not a covid thing.

It seems.
- house prices/cost of living
- work life stress/culture
- woman's rights

Have tipped S Korea into population decline

This trend is happening across the 'developed' world.
S Korea are paying people to have kids, but it's obviously not enough.

The case study says she wanted a famil , but due to the reasons above is priced out.


Obviously this has environmental benefits - massive ones
At the expense of economic stability.

Or is this happening at the right time , naturally, as automation begins to take jobs ?

The government are concerned but it is this actually an inevitable natural and needed trend ?

To me it seems natural for the system we have. Without a reset costs are spiralling. There's a ever increasing cost of end of life/retirement support.
More people have less assets (home ownership is declining)
This taxes will need to increase

Kids are expensive,

Anyone here not having kids due to cost who want them?

BBC News - Alarm as South Korea sees more deaths than births https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55526450

 

[413x]

It was 2.5 billion in 1950, so the growth since then has been mental.

It's unsustainable.

we can't give the world the standard of living the west have.

We certainly couldn't afford our cheap electronics if it wasbt paid for with basically slave labour

 

[413x]

With the big families in deprived areas you get the population increase within that demographic.

I expect the median salary group are tightest where reduced birth rate is occurring most? Complete guess.

I feel Fortunate that I don't want kids. The impact on my finances would change my level of comfort considerably. Must be very hard of you want kids but struggle to justify the cost

 

[413x]

We're only projected to grow by about 9% over the next 25 years (per ONS). Approx 3/4th of that is net migration (the remainder being births vs deaths, of course)

It's not a lot, and much of it is really down to an increase in older people (the over-85 being set to double in those 25 years, for example).

It's also very predictable - so services failing to cope is a political choice in not preparing.

And Brexit might very well mean the net migration part of that drops. We'll be struggling with that old population overhead.

It's bound to mean no state pension eventually. What other solution is there?
Without robotics/AI someone has to pay for your pension

If the older demographic is too numerous services/pensions have to give

 

[413x]

It baffles me that we don't give more money to people to encourage having kids. Instead, we take away child benefit from the middle classes, and punish the poorer working classes and non-working classes for having more than 2. And then need immigration to make up the difference. Which we also try really hard to discourage.

Not really sure how you get around it. I feel. You'd have to give a massive hand out to make people not having kids for financial reasons change their mind (see S Korea)
Probably too much for short term politics vote winning


The curve ball for me is automation. Will we need that many people if automation takes too many jobs? Yet to see this happening.