Every hundred South Koreans today will have only six great-grandchildren between them. The rest of the world can learn from Korea’s catastrophe to avoid the same fate.
The most uncomfortable implication is that this is a national security crisis, not just a social policy problem.
South Korea spends ~$50 billion annually on defence. But North Korea’s TFR of ~1.8 is more than double the South’s 0.75. The Kims have accidentally achieved demographic stability through poverty. No career-vs-family tradeoff when there are no careers.
The conventional assumption is that a wealthy South eventually absorbs a collapsed North. But run the projections forward: by 2100, populations converge. By mid-century, the South may lack the fiscal capacity and conscript base to absorb anyone. The window for reunification on Southern terms is perhaps 20-30 years, and closing.
The ultimate beneficiary is China. Every scenario ends with Beijing’s influence expanding over a weakened peninsula. The 70-year aberration of Korean independence from Chinese orbit ends not through invasion, but through patient demographic gravity.
This reframes the policy question. What’s the point of $50 billion in tanks and jets if there’s no one left to crew them? A fraction redirected to housing, childcare, and eliminating the hagwon arms race might do more for Korean sovereignty than any weapons system.
The article is right that pro-natalist policies can work. But when only 28% of unmarried Koreans even want children, you’re facing a cultural transformation that policy alone cannot reverse.
Perhaps the honest answer is what Japan is attempting: accept decline, automate aggressively, restructure for 30 million people rather than pretending you’ll stay at 50 million.
Demographic decline with dignity beats demographic collapse in denial.
The insane way South Koreans raise their kids is not the cause of those kids' scarcity but the result of it. An only child of parents who are only children themselves represents all of the eggs in one basket.
Asian conformist thinking combined with the country's status as a satrapy of the American managerial state resulted in a typically overzealous implementation of American managerial antinatalism, which was insane in the first place. So South Korea leads the race into Mouse Utopia.
And, I'm sorry, but "let's raise subsidies so that we can increase fertility rates from 0.7 to 1.1 and push off the extinction of Korean barbecue and K-pop for another 15 years" is just not a very compelling call to action.
Play stupid gender war games, win stupid prises. Have you HEARD Korean men talk about women? The incel rate is like 80%. No sane woman would connect themself to life for such a man or such a country.
The west will reach the same point, if they progress in the same direction.
Having decided not to have kids at an early age I've only confirmed it's the right choice for us as I get older. It may not be a tutoring arms race here but the amount of time and money poured into children's sports and then paying for educations and maybe even housing after they graduate is a drain I don't miss.
A seemingly logical solution: open it up to correct the imbalance. Allow immigration only of young women; there are many such from desperately poor countries who would jump at the chance to be married to a South Korean man.
This has been happening for 2 decades with rural korean men marrying women from SE Asia. It doesn't work that well so it's trending down. The marriages are unstable and the mixed kids lag behind on many metrics.
Wow, Terry. It ought not to be surprising that your interests are so wide ranging as to be engaged with South Korean fertility issues. I am interested in South Korea from a totally different standpoint but I read and tried to absorb the statistics which South Korea keeps. Staggering. I’ll try to apply a few of the issues raised into my alternate South Korean interests.
The problem with immigration as a solution to this is that it undermines your culture: crime rises and racial tension appears. Korea could solve most of the adverse selection issues by giving immigrants no welfare whatsoever and aggressively deporting anyone who causes problems (as Europe has been failing to do). But that still results in culture shift and a growing population of non-Koreans in Korea, which from their point of view is very undesirable.
A possible solution: the limiting factor in Korean fertility is women. Not only is there an actual male surplus, but more men want to get married and have children than women. They could open their borders to any woman age 18-35 (who is not a known terrorist, carrying a contagious disease, etc.), or just make it very easy for Korean men to bring in "mail-order" brides. This would result in babies that are genetically half Korean, and culturally with one Korean parent and raised in a Korean society, thus bypassing most of the issues with immigration. This is actually more efficient than boosting the fertility of the existing population, because the entire age range of Korean men could get fertile young wives this way.
"Only 28 percent of unmarried South Koreans aged 19–49 now say they want children, while 51 percent of childless Americans aged 18–34 say they want children."
The difference in age ranges and sampled subpopulation ("unmarried" versus "childless") makes it hard to draw conclusions from these numbers. In Korea, those who want children need to marry. Samples of an unmarried Korean subpopulation will overrepresent those who don't want children. The US sample is simply of childless women. The age range is also very different; if you extend the US subpopulation to include childless women 35-49, my guess is far fewer than the 51 percent cited want children; if they wanted children, they've probably had at least one by now. I don't know the age distribution within the sample, but that also might confound the statistics.
The most uncomfortable implication is that this is a national security crisis, not just a social policy problem.
South Korea spends ~$50 billion annually on defence. But North Korea’s TFR of ~1.8 is more than double the South’s 0.75. The Kims have accidentally achieved demographic stability through poverty. No career-vs-family tradeoff when there are no careers.
The conventional assumption is that a wealthy South eventually absorbs a collapsed North. But run the projections forward: by 2100, populations converge. By mid-century, the South may lack the fiscal capacity and conscript base to absorb anyone. The window for reunification on Southern terms is perhaps 20-30 years, and closing.
The ultimate beneficiary is China. Every scenario ends with Beijing’s influence expanding over a weakened peninsula. The 70-year aberration of Korean independence from Chinese orbit ends not through invasion, but through patient demographic gravity.
This reframes the policy question. What’s the point of $50 billion in tanks and jets if there’s no one left to crew them? A fraction redirected to housing, childcare, and eliminating the hagwon arms race might do more for Korean sovereignty than any weapons system.
The article is right that pro-natalist policies can work. But when only 28% of unmarried Koreans even want children, you’re facing a cultural transformation that policy alone cannot reverse.
Perhaps the honest answer is what Japan is attempting: accept decline, automate aggressively, restructure for 30 million people rather than pretending you’ll stay at 50 million.
Demographic decline with dignity beats demographic collapse in denial.
By that time, it seems unlikely that either will still need to be crewed.
The insane way South Koreans raise their kids is not the cause of those kids' scarcity but the result of it. An only child of parents who are only children themselves represents all of the eggs in one basket.
Asian conformist thinking combined with the country's status as a satrapy of the American managerial state resulted in a typically overzealous implementation of American managerial antinatalism, which was insane in the first place. So South Korea leads the race into Mouse Utopia.
And, I'm sorry, but "let's raise subsidies so that we can increase fertility rates from 0.7 to 1.1 and push off the extinction of Korean barbecue and K-pop for another 15 years" is just not a very compelling call to action.
Play stupid gender war games, win stupid prises. Have you HEARD Korean men talk about women? The incel rate is like 80%. No sane woman would connect themself to life for such a man or such a country.
The west will reach the same point, if they progress in the same direction.
Having decided not to have kids at an early age I've only confirmed it's the right choice for us as I get older. It may not be a tutoring arms race here but the amount of time and money poured into children's sports and then paying for educations and maybe even housing after they graduate is a drain I don't miss.
The resources you have are a mean to a end, not the end itself. The end goal is to raise your children. Life doesn’t know other purpose.
Appeal to nature fallacy.
Great post. I had a comment in my head near the top… And now that I’ve reached the bottom I have forgotten it.
Brutal for the guys being forced in the military service, and then struggling against diminishing numbers. What a terrible dating market to be in.
A seemingly logical solution: open it up to correct the imbalance. Allow immigration only of young women; there are many such from desperately poor countries who would jump at the chance to be married to a South Korean man.
This has been happening for 2 decades with rural korean men marrying women from SE Asia. It doesn't work that well so it's trending down. The marriages are unstable and the mixed kids lag behind on many metrics.
Ah, didn't know that. Still seems like, from a Korean man's perspective, better than nothing.
The world's population is shrinking due to urbanization and medical science.
EVERYWHERE
Interestingly, it's usually the same crowd that complains about falling birthrates as well as warning about robots making people redundant.
It's called fear mongering.
The world's population is not shrinking due to medical science.
Unless you consider the introduction of contraceptives decades ago "medical science".
sometimes all you can say is...
DUH
…but it’s clearly not solely that, given how many decades they’ve not only been around, but used by most of the planet also for decades.
Nor is urbanization a particularly recent trend.
So while obviously each is a big component of TFR reductions, they don’t come close to explaining the rapid decrease in the last 20-30 years.
Mandatory euthanasia to cut costs
Wow, Terry. It ought not to be surprising that your interests are so wide ranging as to be engaged with South Korean fertility issues. I am interested in South Korea from a totally different standpoint but I read and tried to absorb the statistics which South Korea keeps. Staggering. I’ll try to apply a few of the issues raised into my alternate South Korean interests.
The problem with immigration as a solution to this is that it undermines your culture: crime rises and racial tension appears. Korea could solve most of the adverse selection issues by giving immigrants no welfare whatsoever and aggressively deporting anyone who causes problems (as Europe has been failing to do). But that still results in culture shift and a growing population of non-Koreans in Korea, which from their point of view is very undesirable.
A possible solution: the limiting factor in Korean fertility is women. Not only is there an actual male surplus, but more men want to get married and have children than women. They could open their borders to any woman age 18-35 (who is not a known terrorist, carrying a contagious disease, etc.), or just make it very easy for Korean men to bring in "mail-order" brides. This would result in babies that are genetically half Korean, and culturally with one Korean parent and raised in a Korean society, thus bypassing most of the issues with immigration. This is actually more efficient than boosting the fertility of the existing population, because the entire age range of Korean men could get fertile young wives this way.
Good article! But I'm surprised and confused about the claim that Korea files the most parents in the world? That doesn't seem to be the case: https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents
Yeah, this is clearly wrong.
Maybe the author got confused by most patents per GDP?
The article seems highly credible otherwise. Seems a shame to mar credibility with a blatantly wrong statement of fact.
"Only 28 percent of unmarried South Koreans aged 19–49 now say they want children, while 51 percent of childless Americans aged 18–34 say they want children."
The difference in age ranges and sampled subpopulation ("unmarried" versus "childless") makes it hard to draw conclusions from these numbers. In Korea, those who want children need to marry. Samples of an unmarried Korean subpopulation will overrepresent those who don't want children. The US sample is simply of childless women. The age range is also very different; if you extend the US subpopulation to include childless women 35-49, my guess is far fewer than the 51 percent cited want children; if they wanted children, they've probably had at least one by now. I don't know the age distribution within the sample, but that also might confound the statistics.
Really interesting piece