this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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186
How to fix Korea's birthrate? Put girls in school earlier, controversial report argues (koreajoongangdaily.joins.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/world
98 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"Notably, Chang's report claims that biological females develop earlier than males do, so requiring girls to enter school at younger ages will create classes in which the two sexes are of more equal maturity as they age. This, the author posits, makes it more likely that those classmates will be attracted to each other, and marry and have children further down the line."

(...)

"The report does not include evidence of any correlation between female students' early enrollment and the success rate of their romantic relationships with men. The author also does not detail specific mechanisms by which his proposed policy would increase romantic attraction or birthrates."

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[–] AA5B 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Rebalancing is only a temporary solution. Birthdate in developing countries is also dropping: they may still be in the “good” part of the stop, but there’s no reason to expect it won’t keep dropping. Predictions vary widely but in about half a century, the overall population will start dropping, regardless whether you rebalance.

The thing that really hasn’t been tried is to value parenthood, value children. Sure, we may culturally and may even give a few incentives, but it has always been a huge burden on parents. Very few countries with the possible exception of a couple Scandinavian ones, do much to help make this easier

US is particularly bad at this

  • parental leave is minimal
  • healthcare is expensive
  • childcare is even more expensive
  • many jobs don’t give flexibility to take care of kids (especially since schools insist on you going there during their business day)
  • pre-school is mostly not public, expensive
  • college is extremely expensive
  • housing is extremely expensive, especially trying to fit more people
  • if a child has special needs, now all of these are even more expensive, and may be needed for their entire life

I’ve read estimates that parents spend on average $250,000 to raise a kid, and that’s an old number so I don’t see how it’s anywhere near that low. Who can afford that?

And that’s not counting the work, the attention, the hardship of raising kids. I always wanted kids and regret not having more than 2, but raising them is neither easy nor cheap, and society does very little to help

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How come Scandinavian countries don't have a higher birthrate then?

How come you can see birthrate fall at an alarming rate the second birth control becomes easily available even in the 60s when traditional families were still the norm?

How come millionaires don't have bigger families than poor people if they don't have the financial burden or the need for both parents to work?

Valuing children also means educating them and you know what happens the more people are educated? That's right, birthrate drops.

The truth is, we're not going back to numbers over 2.1 unless we take away women's freedom and I'm sure no one with half a brain wants that.

[–] TheFonz 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. I think more people actually do want to have families but the systems in place just aren't set up to enable that. This is anecdotal, of course.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

But the system has changed quite a lot during the last century yet birth rate has been going down even when things were going better.

Hell, you see it extremely well in Canada, the second the pill becomes available, fertility starts dropping. That's in the 60s, people were still able to afford to raise a family with a single income.

It's extremely short-sighted to just look at today to make an opinion.