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Why South Korea's Fertility Crisis is Unsolvable (Unless They Make This One Change)
In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm and Simone delve into the complex factors contributing to South Korea's alarmingly low fertility rates. They explore how the country's unique chaebol system, extreme meritocracy based on measurable statistics rather than efficacy, and hierarchical culture have created an environment that discourages having children. Malcolm proposes a unconventional solution that could potentially fix the problem in a single generation, but acknowledges the cultural resistance it would face. The hosts also touch on the loss of Korean culture and cuisine that will occur if the fertility crisis remains unaddressed.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] a lot of people see South Korea and North Korea as being a almost antithetical to each other. When that really isn't the case, what South Korea is a collection of North Korea's competing against each other under a capitalist the broad economic rule system.
And that's what the chiabols are And Korea is also an extremely meritocratic system, but meritocratic in regards to measurable statistics, not in regards to measurable efficacy.
And this is the core of what will cause Korea to fail as a culture and what makes it unsalvageable, . And I'll get to why, because it may seem like such a small thing you want to fix the entire Korean system, I'll tell you how you fix it.
You can fix it in one generation, Korea. Listen to me here. You freak the f**k out if you do this, but it would fix things
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! [00:01:00] We are so excited to be joining our audience today with the newest member of our family. Many people know that I worked in Korea, I lived in Korea for a year, and it was where I started caring about fertility rate issues but before I get further on that, I want to introduce our audience to an alternate country. Now, in this alternate country, they've done everything right.
In this wonderful, conservative country, same sex marriage is still illegal in the year 2024. Porn is illegal in the year 2024. Abortion was illegal until just this year. Three years ago, there's almost no immigration and total ethnic homogeny. Women are permanently underclass citizens. And for the last 20 years, the government has spent over 200 billion dollars trying to increase fertility rates.
In this one serval country, Companies will pay their citizens [00:02:00] 75k to have kids. Of course, this is a joke. The wonderful country I'm describing here is, in fact, South Korea. All of these things are true about South Korea. They have tried both the fever dream fantasies of the right and the left, and it has not worked from cash handouts to ethnic homogenous state to banning abortion, to banning pornography.
This is why I always laugh when people suggest these things. I'm like, these things were institutionalized in Korea before their fertility started to collapse and have been there throughout the entire process. And people will be like, How bad is the situation in Korea really right now? The average number, and this I'm quoting here, the average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life cycle fell to a record low of 0.
72 from 0. 78 in 2022. Data from statistics on South Korea showed Wednesday. [00:03:00] And if you project this forward, South Korea is now projected to have a fertility rate of 0. 68 in 2024, and they are on track to meet that. That means that for every 100 South Koreans alive today, there will be 11. 6 grandchildren.
Not great grand children, Grandchildren for great-grandchildren, it's less than four, and this is assuming it doesn't continue to fall. And keep in mind it's falling by like it felt like 11.5% last year, like insane. And where most of the country is collated. Now in Seoul, the fertility rate's only 0.55.
That means you are shrinking the population to a quarter of its si
Published on 1 year, 8 months ago