Fertility rates in East Asia are plummeting at an alarming pace. Recent data highlight that Korea and Hong Kong SAR are among the most impacted, with their total fertility rates (TFR) – a measure indicating the average number of children a woman would give birth to during her lifetime – sinking to
Anyone have some kind of even handed analysis on hand that explains whether or not all this panic for decades about birth/fertility rates has legs? I only ever give it a passing glance and i accidentally clicked a video the other day and it was some rightwing guy talking about some retvrn shit
I asked bc like the article states: the real problem is the price of housing. It seems to me that falling birth rates are a symptom of capitalism's decline. However, many article writers seem to dance around that
Highly developed capitalist countries tend to have low birth rates because people are alienated and atomized and having children is an untenable burden for workers who are already working themselves to exhaustion and barely getting by.
agree and i appreciate it, I think I was just getting too internet brained and thinking how often the issue is presented disingenuously in a vacuum or tied to a loss of 'cultural values' or w/e
Yes of course it is an issue. When TFR reaches 1 for example, the next generation becomes half the size as the last one. You can't have a healthy economy with that. There's also every indication that more and more countries are reaching low fertility levels, and there's no precedent that it will reverse. Social democratic childcare policies haven't succeeded. Personally I think only socialism can achieve sustainable population levels now.
To be honest, I can't see anybody who isn't way too worried about phenotypes and skull shapes genuinely caring about birthrates, regardless of what else they write.
There are pretty straightforward, non-racist, economic reasons you be concerned about it. It's an issue China is grappling with very directly, and not because they're neo-Nazis.
Aren't they increasing automation in response? China also allowed provinces with larger minority populations to have more children than predominantly Han provinces, didn't they? I think they get a pass.
Your wealth or lack there of has no meaning unless there's people to perpetrate the capitalist cycle. Less people means less people without established capital. If your new people amount is lower than the dying out people amount you get empty housing which you therefore cannot pretend to have more value than it does. Furthermore, aging capitalists need a work force to take care of them. Humans live longer and longer, especially the rich. Without surplus of workforce it's hard to staff these positions. And so on and so on.