South Korea: Can a Falling Population Enter a Death Spiral
It has been clear for many years that the earth’s population will soon peak and begin to decline. The number of countries with populations that are already decreasing is growing. The drop in birth rates seems to be universal, but not identical. Each national culture provides its unique fertility history, with all seeming to suggest that the decision to produce fewer infants is a voluntary choice, one that does not require economic, political, or environmental conditions to drive it. Gideon Lewis-Kraus provided a great survey of current thoughts on this phenomenon in a New Yorker article: The End of Children: Birth rates are crashing around the world. Should we be worried?
Lewis-Kraus provides perspective on current discussions and a quote from a well-regarded demographer.
“Anyone who offers a confident explanation of the situation is probably wrong. Fertility connects perhaps the most significant decision any individual might make with unanswerable questions about our collective fate, so a theory of fertility is necessarily a theory of everything—gender, money, politics, culture, evolution. Eberstadt told me, ‘The person who explains it deserves to get a Nobel, not in economics but in literature’.”
What was most interesting about the article was a description of the situation in South Korea, a country where the birth rate was not just decreasing, it was plummeting. Fertility is defined as the average number of children each woman produces. To maintain a stable population a fertility of about 2.1 is required. Currently, South Korean fertility is so low that any group of three women is likely to produce one child. That is demographic collapse at an incredible rate.
“South Korea has a fertility rate of 0.7. This is the lowest rate of any nation in the world. It may be the lowest in recorded history. If that trajectory holds, each successive generation will be a third the size of its predecessor. Every hundred contemporary Koreans of childbearing age will produce, in total, about twelve grandchildren. The country is an outlier, but it may not be one for long. As the Korean political analyst John Lee told me, ‘We are the canary in the coal mine’.”
Does the experience of the Korean population represent something unique to that nation, or is it perhaps something that could be inevitable for populations that willingly decline? Some South Korean history is necessary.
“A decade after the Korean War, the country’s per-capita G.D.P. was below a hundred dollars—less than that of Haiti. People ate tree bark or boiled grass, and children begged in the streets. After a military coup in 1961, the new authoritarian leadership tied its economic program to the cultivation of a citizenry that was smaller and better educated. It was an all-hands-on-deck approach to the labor force. Social workers fanned out to rural communities, where they encouraged women to have no more than three children. The government legalized contraceptives and pressed for the use of IUDs. These initiatives dovetailed with an emphasis on ethnic homogeneity and traditionalist values. Biracial children of American servicemen, along with the children of unwed mothers, were shipped abroad for adoption, and Korea became known as the world’s largest “exporter” of babies.”
“The program was regarded as a smashing success. In the span of twenty years, Korea’s fertility rate went from six to replacement, a feat described by Asian demographers as ‘one of the most spectacular and fastest declines ever recorded.’ A crucial part of this plan was the educational advancement of women, which the same demographers called ‘unprecedented in the recent history of the world.’ Far fewer Koreans came into existence, but those who did enjoyed a similarly improbable rise in their standard of living. Parents who remembered hunger produced children who could afford cosmetic surgery.”
The government took note of the “less is better” fertility results and seemed to conclude that even less would be even better.
“When Korea neared replacement, in 1983, its leadership might have reconsidered its policies. Instead, it doubled down with a new slogan: ‘Even two are too many.’ By 1986, the Korean fertility rate reached 1.6. This remained stable for about a decade, then fell off a cliff. The government has now devoted approximately two hundred and fifty billion dollars to various pro-natalist efforts, including cash transfers and parental-leave extensions, to no avail.”
What is it like to live in a country that knows its population is heading towards zero?
“Korea’s demographic collapse is mostly taken as a fait accompli. As John Lee, the political analyst, put it, ‘They say South Korea will be extinct in a hundred years. Who cares? We’ll all be dead by then.’ The causes routinely cited include the cost of housing and of child care—among the highest in the world. Very little in Korean society seems to give young people the impression that child rearing might be rewarding or delightful. I met a stylish twentysomething news reporter at an airy, silent café in Seoul’s lively Itaewon district. ‘People hate kids here,’ she told me. ‘They see kids and say, “Ugh”.’ This ambient resentment finds an outlet in disdain for mothers. She said, ‘People call moms “bugs” or “parasites.” If your kids make a little noise, someone will glare at you’.”
“In the southern city of Gangjin, I stopped at a coffee shop and encountered a sign on the entrance that read ‘This is a no-kids zone. The child is not at fault. The problem is the parents who do not take care of the child.’ The doors of Korean establishments are frequently emblazoned with such prohibitions. The only children I saw on Seoul’s public transit were foreigners.”
Lewis-Kraus tries a summary statement for the causes of population decline.
“For most of human history, having children was something the majority of people simply did without thinking too much about it. Now it is one competing alternative among many. The only overarching explanation for the global fertility decline is that once childbearing is no longer seen as something special—as an obligation to God, to one’s ancestors, or to the future—people will do less of it. It is misogynistic to equate reproductive autonomy with self-indulgence, and child-free people often devote themselves to loving, conscientious caretaking.”
But, developing disdain for children and mothers is too startling. One can’t help but feel that some fundamental change has occurred in South Korea, and we need to understand what it is.
Lewis-Kraus provided some intriguing references, with the first coming from the Norwegian demographer, Vegard Skirbekk.
“Two decades ago, Skirbekk helped contrive a thought experiment called “the low-fertility trap hypothesis,” which proposed the possibility of an unrecoverable downward spiral. Ultra-low fertility meant far fewer babies, which meant far fewer people to have babies, or even to know babies; this feedback loop could even shift cultural norms so far that childlessness would become the default option.”
“This eventuality had seemed remote. Then it more or less happened in Korea. When I asked Skirbekk if other countries might follow suit, he replied, ‘Quite a few, possibly’.”
A second insight was provided by a Finnish demographer.
“Rotkirch, the Finnish demographer, underscored the notion that reproductive cues are social. ‘In a forthcoming survey, I want to ask, “Have you ever had a baby in your arms”?’ she told me. ‘I think in Finland it’s a sizable portion that hasn’t’.”
Humans evolved over millions of years while living in groups. Success of these groups would require that members be capable of collective action and be able to provide resources and an environment in which newborns can become adults. Traits that would support group success can be expected to develop. Two that seem relevant here are the hormonal responses generating affection for infants, and peer pressure that encourages members to follow behaviors of the majority.
Humans became wired to appreciate and be pleased by human infants. Females are born with a consuming interest in babies and mothering. Men and women both experience hormonal surges in the presence of an infant. Females excrete more of the bonding hormone oxytocin than males, while males also experience a drop in testosterone level when near an infant. Evolution has provided these effects to ensure that enough infants will survive to further the species.
We evolved living in groups where babies and children would be as plentiful as resources would allow. It is easy to see how evolutionary physical responses could develop. We now live in small family groups. If, as in South Korea, the most probable outcome is one-child and no-child families, children could easily live most of their lives, or at least their formative years, without ever physically encountering an infant. Could these hormonal responses to infants fade over time if they have never been activated?
We, of a certain age, grew up in societies where families with children were the norm. A crying child on an airplane invites feelings of sympathy, initially, at least. But if the norm has flipped and the majority has no experience with raising children, and no understanding of why a child might be crying are how difficult it is to control the crying, then disdain for the poor parent might be the first response. It is never easy to be a disruptive minority in any society. Disgust and intolerance can soon follow.
Have we created societies where the economic and social interests in having children are disappearing, and we are now relying on subtle hormonal surges that may also be disappearing to get us interested in parenting?
Have we stumbled upon yet another existential threat to human civilization? If Koreans seem unconcerned by the fact that their population will essentially disappear in a few generations, is it surprising that people seem to prefer to live in the moment and not worry about climate change which is coming upon us in a few generations as well, or that more and more plastic particles are entering our bodies?
Here’s a final thought. If we don’t have children, why worry about the future?
You can learn a little about a lot of things or you can learn a lot about a very few things. Guess which is the most fun.
Source: http://letstalkbooksandpolitics.blogspot.com/2025/03/south-korea-can-falling-population.html
