The peril of falling birth rates far outwieghts the dangers of climate change. This video explains how S Korea, a gleeming technological wonder, is totally doomed with no way to recover. It is getting harder for people to ignore the dangers of falling birthrates.
But, it could be a major plot device in your next novel.
If humanity’s history proves anything, it’s the ability to recover from totally doomed crises with no apparent way to recover.
Right now the birth rate is starting to go up. Admittedly not by much but it is still better than it was and has been increasing for the last few month.
Survivorship bias is for the good of all of us except the ones who are dead.
@auxbuss Fast forward a century and most likely whoever reads this will be dead. [1]
This information may not age very well after the introduction of eternal life, though. ↩︎
Could be but it is not enough. They are past the point of no return. They would have to take very drastic measures to remediate the situation, measures that I doubt they have the will to do. At least not now. Things like: ban abortions and contraceptives. Take females out of the work force and tertiary education. Eliminate the female vote.
The Chinese could do that as they are in the same boat but a lot more authoritarian. But it would be hard for S Korea to do that unless there was a coup. But who knows what might happen if things deteriorate enough. They may just decide to eliminate all old people, but that would be a hard pill for them to swallow as they are a Confucian society with high regard for the elderly.
Yes, the pheonix will rise out of its own ashes.
Why? It’s an almost ideal starting position right now (and for the next decade, at least). With some necessary tweaks. The sun going supernova tomorrow — now that would be a point of no return!
Having only half of the current population by the end of this century? Well, that would still be 25 million people. Twice as much as in 1925 (in the whole country back then).
Sure, with a problematic age pyramid, we can agree on that.
The issue with this video is that it simply extrapolates a trend, assuming that absolutely no parameter changes (that in itself is a red flag), people die lonely, and that’s the end of the story.
That’s not how populations work, though. Or societies. Or the world.
E.g. will there even be enough work in 50 years for the amount of people that work right now? Nobody knows. And without knowing that it’s impossible to predict if all those people would even contribute to the social security systems. Or drain them.
A shrinking population exonerates the housing market. That in turn creates better conditions for starting a family. Smaller school classes mean better education (and less need for expensive tutoring). Old people also have time to care for young people. More old people, more time.
Do you know how (un)healthy old people will be in 50 (or even 100) years from now? I don’t. They may just work in their eighties or nineties and don’t even need pension, extensive medical, care, etc. Or they may start a second family at the age of sixty.
Too many unknown variables. Societies adapt. Supply and demand. Everything changes, always.
Have you even tried to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve misogyny or forcing people to do something they’d love to do under slightly less frustrating conditions?
This is one of the arguments for a relatively liberal immigration policy.
(South) Korea is a very safe country compared to the US or Europe and it appears that it doesn’t want to change that.
In the US, at least, immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native born citizens. (Anti-immigrant propaganda notwithstanding.)
Tell that to the Native Americans. They mysteriously vanished at peak liberal immigration policy. Maybe a coincidence.
Done right, it can help pushing the problem further into the future. But under the same conditions those people also stop having babies. So you have to constantly import more people to keep up the numbers. (And what culture will it even be some decades later?)
Additionally, the more countries develop — and invariably face the same birth rate problem — the harder it gets to attract new immigrants. The emerging nations of today will be the most attractive destinations of tomorrow. Until they run into the same wall.
Wow!
That’s a very Trumpian fascist and authoritarian view. All the way to Gilead there. Not something that I would want imposed on any country let alone South Korea.
Yeah, I agree with @kewms. Making the country attractive to immigrants and having appropriate pathways to immigration would a more logical first step!
I’m afraid humanity is much like nettles on an allotment. In theory, quite fragile and easily removed, but…
And the winner of the golden facepalm is…
What about making a country attractive for everyone already living there?
Affordable housing and education, the prospect of not having to work yourself to death and still ending up worse than your parents (and your potential children worse than you…), etc. are coincidentally the same conditions that are attractive to babies and immigrants.
Yes, to state the obvious… the best way to make a place an attractive place to move to is to ensure it is a nice place to live.
And without making light of the situation in South Korea (of which I confess I am largely ignorant), affordable housing and education, not having to work all the way to death (I’ve had more people leave my current employer because of this than from retirement), and the prospect of living in a better world than your parents are things I wouldn’t mind coming to a movie theatre near me soon, either.
The problem with that is two fold:
1 Countries like Korea, Japan, and China prefer monocultures.
2 Birth rates are falling across the globe. You can check that here
“Civilisations are not murdered, they commit suicide.” Toynebee
I suspect that you are too optimistic. Societies also collapse and dissapear. Here is a well researched YouTube channel dedicated to the subject.
You’d be surprised how rarely I hear that. 
I’m stupid enough to make predictions five or ten years into future, but beyond that it’s more like reading tea leaves. Actually, I already outlined a lot of my thoughts in this earlier reply. (Short version: Too many unknown variables.)
Adjustments are necessary. They can still be made (proven on a local level to completely upend the national trend). That’s all I’m certain of. There’s no way you can keep a society alive that doesn’t want to, though.
And if we don’t get rid of the A.I. arms race soon, all of this will be the least concern.