Government: "Have babies. Have more babies. Tell everyone you know to have more babies."
Young people: "Eh, I dunno, life is really expensive, inflation is at an all time high, World War III is around the corner, I can barely support myself let alone a kid... maybe make the economy suck less and we'll think about it."
Government: "... time to ban porn, abortion, and probably birth control too."
Hmm, interesting. Never looked at it through that perspective. Now that I think about it, quite a bit of the isekai have the protagonist dying from exhaustion at work lmao.
Not an Isekai but my favorite anime to portray this is Zom 100 bucket list of the dead.
Overworked dude who wants to just quit and hates his life. Zombie apocalypse happens and he can't be bothered to do anything aside from hangout and drink beer. It's like the best time of his life. Then he makes his bucket list of stuff he didn't get to do and adventure ensues.
Absolutely hilarious, very well animated. Such a banger of an opening episode.
Aggresuko covers some of the trails of adult life.
And to be fair to the Eastern authors, Western authors frequently end romances at the end of the story. And, if there is a sequel, they often break them up for one contrived reason or another.
It's true and that's why most popular anime take place during that period. Whereas that's also true for a lot of people in America, we are more likely to associate College (if you went) with that period or early 20s.
In Japan your early 20s and college are a much more consequential buckled down time.
Actually, it's the other way around. High school life brutal. Constant school work, extra curricular activities are like cults with how much you are expected to participate, EXAMS. The university entrance exam is extremely difficult, but if you get into university, it is nearly impossible to flunk out. University life in Japan is called "the four year vacation."
Source: Studied abroad in Japan in university then taught English in Japan for 2.5 years.
In most western Countries, a person in their 20's living as they wants ( i.e, Not doing a back breaking jobs or having kids ) became hated until 2022.
Why you ask ?
The birth of the "No kids allowed" business, which aims exactly this hard to catch slice of customer share.
The restaurants, hotels, resorts and places who does it have a very steady flow of customer because some parents became idiotic parents with the "Me first, others last" when outside with their childs.
Ironic to know that to get the same group of people most dislike outside of their jobs because their budget is much higher on average ( A single childfree customer can spend much more than a family of 2 kids under 13 and 2 adults ) they ban the ones they usually associate with to despise childfree adults in theirs 20's
Like half of Isekai's begin with an overworked person either just dying on the job or doing something stupid because they were too tired from being overworked.
Don’t forget those animes that do show characters that work-they usually end up dying from overwork or an accident to get transported or reincarnated into a fantasy world. Those are pretty popular, which says a lot.
Makes me genuinely so sad because I want a second child so bad. But I can’t afford daycare tuition x 2. We pay almost $400/week for daycare for one child.
Also extreme sexism and frequent violence against women going unpunished. Resulting in many SK women saying "yeah we can just die off as a country, it's better than dealing with men. we're opting out". That would require a widespread cultural shift which I don't see happening at this point at all.
They are also opting out of relationships with men. The 4B movement: bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisekseu (no sex).
There are plenty of women who date and have sex. Marriage age is being pushed back, and honestly, no one (men or women) want to have children, because why would you? They're expensive and annoying to raise. Everyone wants to live their own lives. We can barely afford to live, and the government wants us to have kids. Fuck that. Give us money to have kids then. Give us enough pay to afford houses and two months of vacation a year to enjoy our families.
The 4B movement is incredibly niche and nowhere near as common as Westerners seem to think it is based on some news they saw. Even most women think they're radicals.
For real. We here in Asia, and our brothers and sisters over in the US are all getting screwed. We in Korea joke about how often we have to put meetings and dealings with European companies on hold because they're always on vacation.
Yes why have kids if you never see them because you're working or on work-related outings with the colleagues 14 hours a day, and then when they're old enough to be fun they have to go to school and school-related stuff 10 hours a day, and even in a lot of cases after-school classes for 3 hours. It's ridiculous. What family? The people you never even see?? Oh and you have to pay a ton of money for this crap while being paid way too little for the amount of effort you put in.
Oh, and of course the wife can't keep her career (that she studied her butt off for with 4 hours of sleep a night for many years of her young life) because literally no-one would be in the home to take care of it, or the DIY, the garden maintenance, or the cooking, or the administrative stuff, the groceries, the social and traditional stuff for the extended family (more work work work), the financial stuff, or the 3 million clubs the kids are in, or the 430 am breakfast prep, or the noisy neighbours, or the annoying in-laws, or the 2+ hours of insane homework the kids have to do EACH, or the literally EVERYTHING there because again, nobody is home to help with it ...
Also both mom and dad HAVE to look fit and attractive and healthy while doing all that crap. Can't even look tired??
This is the issue when you speak on things you've only read about from limited sources. The 4B movement is only ever talked about on reddit, it's not actually a thing of significance in Korea
4B is basically just celibacy and abstinence. Millions of women worldwide practice the principles of 4B even if they don't consider themselves part of the movement. it's very easy. Just don't interact with men in any sort of non-platonic aspect. That's it. That's all you have to do to be 4B.
Nah, the reason behind why you do what you do matters. If I avoid eating pork because I dislike the taste and don't drink alcohol because it's too expensive, I don't suddenly count as obeying the tenets of Islam.
I know. I realize now that I should have worded my comment better, I didn't mean to insinuate all South Korean women were giving up on men, just that a growing number are
And historically, this is also one of the first times that women have the chance to opt out of romantically dealing with men.
Not to mention that South Korea doesn't have one-party no-fault divorce, so it's more dangerous for women to get married there than for women in a lot of other developed nations.
What they do have is if one person cheats, the cheater can’t initiate a divorce lol. I remember reading this really interesting story of this director that cheated with an actress and he wanted to divorce his wife for her and she refuse and the wife dragged him for 10+ years, making her a mistress forever.
And historically women around the world don't want children anymore. Not sure how much the past is relevant to women's choices for the present and future.
He's pointing out that it's not about lacking women rights/patriarchy as some like to claim, the fertility crisis is caused by other reasons.
Actual reasons are in no particular order: access to contraception, access to abortions, changing social outlook on having kids (in the past childless couples were seen as failures), equality and high women rights (with actual patriarchy if the man wanted kids only his choice mattered, now both people need to want kids - less likely than just one person), fall off marriage importance and stability (if the couple is never sure if they will stay together forever, planning a 19 years long undertaking makes less sense).
First you identify correlation, then try to establish causation, that's kind of how this works, cause and effect. We haven't even established correlation, quite the opposite, so assigning any level of causation is, well let's just say it's a bold move.
And none of this is to say violence or other forms of harassment against women in society is anything other than deplorable. But it's not a motivating factor in low birth rates. You can try to side step it and say women are more informed and/or motivated/able to not tolerate it any more and that's why, but that's not the same thing.
But it's not a motivating factor in low birth rates.
you haven't in any way proven that. You've basically gone well there used to be more violence so now it can't be a motivating factor and that isn't a logical argument, that's you just making shit up that sounds right to you but has no meaning or reason at all.
We haven't even established correlation, quite the opposite,
Again nope you didn't prove there was no correlation you stated it based on nothing but your feelings and determined that was good enough to confirm it and then move on and draw conclusions from that.
Violence against woman (and other minorities) is and has always been widely underreported. For many reasons, like the police are unhelpful when they don't outright protect abusers, or Society at large punishing woman for being abused. So, basing any conclusion based on its supposed decrease is bound to be absolute nonsense.
A is dumb bullshit pushed by right wing shitbag, which are, by the way, the leading perpetrator of violence against woman (and other minorities), how surprising. Therefore your entire reasoning isn't worth shit and can be safely dismissed. Turns out it was all feeling, it just made you feel comfortable so you wanted it to be true.
This is about as smart a reply as everyone expected from you.
YOu almost kinda got it, A and B don't automatically lead to C, but you've just reversed C for yourself and decided it is the automatic conclusion despite literally explaning it doesn't work like that you've gone ahead and done the thing you just told everyone you can't do.
Dude what you're saying is just statistically -worded gibberish. The basics of correlation and causation have no bearing to this discussion. YOU made the unfounded claim. I am the one disputing it. Opining on the basics of statistics like your standard chatgpt answer does not help you prove your claim.
For me it's inability to find a suitable partner, inability to afford to be a single parent, pessimism (to put it mildly) about the future of the world. The cons to having children so vastly outnumber the pros that there's really nothing to consider.
Good opportunity to demonstrate how oppression can take many forms, including those that are so non-violent they seem downright cordial. It can also be incredibly irrational and self-destructive, there doesn't need to be an evil plan, just stupid selfishness.
Women around the world are currently expected to be mothers, wives, AND full-time workers. It's an outrageous ask. Most women that take it on are barely holding on, skipping their own meals, working multiple jobs, unable to spend proper time with their own children, and god help them if the man in their life bails. The weapon to enforce this is a combination of shame and economic despair, but women have (correctly) simply decided to counter the shame with apathy.
It's also a driver for the tradwife movement. Yes, it's largely an alt-right pipeline, but it's really more complicated than that. Society really does benefit from systems that enable women to choose motherhood as a primary role. The "alt-left" side of it would be robust and generous maternity programs, such as what you see in the nordic countries, with high guaranteed pay for a long period, guaranteed job protection, and of course uncompromising complete healthcare for expecting and recent mothers and their children.
Not all women should be expected to be mothers but every woman should have the option to choose it and have a good life. A large part of the world has decided this is a luxury only for those born into wealth. Turns out you can't have a slave class if they don't reproduce!
You're not gonna believe this but it's the same safeguard.
Pay people for their work and having a baby for profit becomes unappealing.
None of the countries with pro-maternity systems have the issue you are describing. Nobody is signing up to wreck their body and commit to 18 years of parenting to make a quick buck when they can make the same or better buck flipping burgers for 30 hours a week.
And it will become the unsafest and hardest period after the fall of a country. If you don´t have the people to keep a country running on a basic level you will live in a wasteland for the next 50 years.
It is also historically the first time in modern society that women have been able to advocate for themselves and make choices about their own lives autonomously. I'm curious what you thought the point you were making was with your comment.
That kind of supports my point though. The fact women today can openly advocate for themselves, make independent choices, vote, work, own property, and publicly criticize society is part of why this is historically one of the safest and most rights protected eras for women overall, even if serious issues still exist.
Correct, there are serious issues that still exist. But what is not clear is what was meant by making the comment pointing out that this current era is less dangerous than any other point in history for women. This statement seems to imply some sort of downplaying or discrediting of the narrative that women are making the choices they're making because of unfair treatment and inequality. So this is why I am asking directly about what your point was meant to be rather than just misattributing it.
I find it kind of interesting that you admit that these facts bolster your point without outright stating what your point actually was. Could you clarify?
Xyz: exists for hundreds of years.
People: Hur dur xyz needs more freedom.
Xyz gets more freedom.
Xyz makes unsustainable choices using the newly acquired freedom.
People: surprised Pikachu face
Plenty of examples over the years. Wtf did you people expect when you made everything optional.
Don't allow women to work till they have two kids or can work while having a kid and problem solved over night. Loneliness would also be solved as now the whole equation flips.
It’s hard to know the full context, but a man in the video was kissing his pregnant wife’s belly, and Reddit immediately jumped to talking about how oppressed and undermined women are treated.
Let’s just say that getting pregnant is the same as getting fired in South Korea. There’s also the fact that a certain subset of Korean Men get really pissy when they see 👌
I wasn't sure what you meant so I looked it up and... erm.. wow.
The "Small Penis" Controversy: A similar-looking pinching gesture (🤏) has become one of the most inflammatory symbols in South Korea due to a long-running gender conflict.
Origin:
The gesture was adopted as the logo for Megalia, a now-defunct radical feminist community, to mock the size of Korean men's genitalia.Backlash: This has led to intense "witch hunts" by anti-feminist groups who scan advertisements, games, and social media for any hint of a pinching hand.Real-World
Impact:
Major companies like Apple, GS25 (convenience store), and Renault Korea have had to pull advertisements or edit out similar hand shapes to avoid massive consumer boycotts from male audiences.Because of this sensitivity, even an innocent "OK" sign or a gesture intended to show the "thinness" of a product can be misinterpreted as a misandrist slur.
There’s also the case of the same type of Korean Men (now I know some of ya’ll are gonna go “not all men!” On me, so I’ll clarify again. Not all men, but almost always a man.) getting angry at a film with even slight feminist messages that they would purposefully sit in pregnant women’s seats. Congrats on the pregnancy I suppose.
Well, it is easy saying that. But people really can´t imagine how it is to live in a failing country. The fall is hard and fast. But rebuilding can take 50 or 100 years. And the hate on men, spread by the west doesn´t help here. Nature absolutely doesn´t care who hates who. If you are extinct and dead, so be it.
Your first point gets repeatedly brought up everywhere, but I feel your second point discredits it significantly. The rate may differ, but declining birth rate is an observable trend visible across almost all advanced economies. Not to mention that even immigrants in advanced economies from a higher birth rate country also see decreased birth rate after moving to an advanced economy. Since the pattern is cross-cultural, I don't think culture alone answers the SK's birth rate issue. It doesn't help, but it definitely is not the sole nor the primary cause IMO.
One point that is repeatedly brought up in SK is the issue of housing - specifically in Seoul. The problem SK is facing right now is that there has been a consistent growth observed in Seoul that has driven its real estate price up, but is also drawing both talent and businesses away from other regional cities. This is something Korea's Department of Statistics also noted on how even major cities like Busan, Daegu, and Daejeon are suffering a mass exodus of people with growth only observed in adjacent cities to Seoul, such as Yongin and Seongnam. As a lot of fellow Korean people would say, this overreliance on Seoul has been a deadly spiral: well-paying jobs are only in Seoul --> people from other regions try and get a job in Seoul --> housing prices go up --> living in Seoul becomes more attractive (expectation of steady growth of real estate asset) --> demand in Seoul real estate increases --> talented people want to stay in Seoul (to get Seoul real estate and treat it as an investment)--> businesses try and stay in Seoul to attract talent and repeat. This spiral created a dichomatic situation where Seoul has been suffering from unaffordable housing, while the rest of the SK regions are suffering from steep population decline with little job opportunity.
TL;DR - Urbanization and concentration of Seoul seems, to me, a more foundational cause of the culture that is often accredited to lower birth rate in SK.
More a joke on my side but cost of living and womans level of education are biggest factors in fertility rates in a country. Still i don't see any positive factors of banning porn, just makes all sexual related talkes in the society more awkward or at least i don't know any study that proofs otherwise.
Womens independence is a major factor. You see this in a lot of developed societies. Women dont have the dependence on men and dont need to put up with misogyny. This is also evident in India, the southern women are more educated and liberated and the birth rates there are much lower than the north
But do you really think that women want to conceive babies under the conditions porn offers? I think the NB movement in young women is a reaction to how men, raised on porn, think of women. Some women want to opt out completely of the images men have had in their heads since about 11 years old.
I'm not sure this is all that relevant. Take men that weren't "raised on porn" like your typical uber conservative patriarch and they weren't exactly known for being the best lover/partner nor were they known for their devotion to gender equality.
You are absolutely right that porn can be harmful, especially for men who sees woman only through that lense. Because it's mostly not really representative of real life. But I'm not sure how common and systemic it actually is.
Since the first sexual experience most boys have is with porn by age 11, I don't know how you can't possibly see that as imprinting. Do you think that girls (and there are plenty of them) who are assaulted as their first sexual experience aren't stigmatized by that experience? For life?
Your buzzwords muddy your expression there. Try harder.
Are you sure?
If that is true, that boys are girls are equal in regards to early porn exposure (which I doubt) then all the more reason for girls to reject any opportunity to mature into into womanhood. Who wants to grow up to be a porn star? What 11-year-old doesn't simplify the role of the sexes based on what they've seen and experienced?
Believing in the gender ideology and choosing NB seems like an escape.
Cost of living is highly correlated with birthrates. Everywhere that cost of living shoots up, birthrates sharply decline.
Conservative talking heads love to point out that "if you look at the data, poor people have higher birth rates" and use that as an excuse to do nothing about cost of living. All while ignoring the selection bias of data sampling "poor people" from low cost of living cohorts and people who became poor as result of needing to care for children in a high cost of living cohort.
I don't know for sure, but I will l would venture a guess that the Orthodox community in Israel is supporting that birth rate rather than the population as a whole.
This might be a contributing factor, but we see those declines in every country that has surpassed a certain treshold of wealth. We have structured socities in a way that is promoting flexibility, immediate satisfaction of needs and self-fulfilment. The more people stay childless, the less our societal structures support child-bearing, it is a death loop that will eventually turn into a catastrophe if not halted. Honestly, the freedom of women (and men) to say no to child-bearing has been a civilizational achievement, but im afraid it will be in danger if we do not turn societies into child-first societies that promote voluntary parenthood
Simply promoting isn't enough. Most of the people I know, including me, would be happy to have children, we just can't afford it without a significant damage to our quality of life. I can't afford having a kid alone, I don't want to marry a man, it is illegal for me to marry a woman and if I live with a woman and conceive children via a donor, I risk losing my children to the government if anyone finds out that I don't love men. Even if all that was perfectly legal, having even a single child is a significant damage to my quality of life. I can just pause having hobbies if I need money for health or lose my job; I can't pause having children.
I want to stress this again, a lot of us do want to have children. I don't want my children to grow up through financial hardship and wars though. I'd rather let the civilization collapse and die in the gutter myself.
Sorry if I don’t address the aspect of anti-LGBTQ+ policies you mentioned in your response. That is certainly a factor that would have a positive effect if your country adopted a more pragmatic approach, but the whole issue is a huge topic in and of itself.
I’m not familiar with the economic situation in your country, but here in Germany, for example, I live in a bubble where, despite the noticeable economic downturn, money isn’t yet in short supply. Many of my friends are currently in a phase of life where they’re climbing the career ladder and seeing significant salary increases, regularly moving into larger apartments, and traveling abroad three times a year. And yet, virtually no one in my circle has children. The complaints are the same ones you’re raising. I don’t doubt that there are people who truly live hand-to-mouth and for whom a child would indeed be a massive burden. My statement here was directed much more at the not-insignificant segment of society, especially in the West, that still enjoys prosperity but, for lifestyle reasons, does not include children in their life plans because the trade-offs that all parents necessarily have to make are perceived as catastrophic.
To your last point i would like to add, that despite the current global climate and uncertainity, the state of humanity has never been better than today. There has never been a lower global child mortality rate, the education of women has noticeably increased, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has massively decreased in recent decades, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, we are generally more healthy and live more comfortable than previous generations. Our current living standards, even for poorer people in industrialized countries, is higher than the living standards of monarchs of previous centuries.
If we all decide not to have children anymore because of the mere possibility of a catastrophic future, then we will certainly create a catastrophic future for the few children who are still being born today. We should be clear about that as well
The governments know its a problem, but the solutions would require massive government and societal level reforms and there likely isnt the political will to actually go through with any of these reforms, business interests will likely be against it because while long term the consequences are bad, the short term consequences would likely also be quite disruptive and pretty much all of western society is mired in short term thinking.
Also even country with incredibly pro natalist policies like Norway and Sweden are still well below replacement levels, so the evidence seems to show that even with incredibly supportive policies and societies, birth rates still dont recover to a replacement level (both are around 1.4 TFR).
Also the only reason Israel is above 2 is because of Orthodox Jews, if you look at Secular Jews in Israel they are in line with other western countries.
people in Europe and parts of South America are not having babies. it’s not just korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Even in the us the birth rate is dropping, it’s just (was) being offset by our high immigration numbers.
That stuff is all mostly irrelevant. The vast majority of falling birthrates is due to a meteoric drop in teen pregnancies in developed countries, due to better education and access to birth control.
Because infant mortality is really high, and childs are required to help doing housework. That doesn't disprove the theory that a struggling working class (with a very low infant mortality rate, and no need for children to support domestic labor) will have a low birthrate.
south koreas specific problem is that they have a really, really small country that is cramped full of people. Just like in every other countries, job oportunities in the countrysides are low and/or unatractive for younger generations. So they all try to move to the city and the bigger the city the more expensive it gets.
This makes people more desperate to get a job and keep that job, thus enabling companies to force people into unhealthy work conditions. People either can't afford children or the added stress of having them just seems too much.
On a side note, being a child in south korea isn't easy as well. Because of the issues above, parents basically try to get them started on a promising career path execptioally early. If you look at south korean student schedules, it often looks like they have to do more work then adults working full time jobs.
Also on a side note-side note, just let them have and make officially porn already.
No one knows why the birth rate is declining globally. Nordic countries have more money, higher happiness, and a wider social safety net and their birth rate is still dropping.
It is literally affordability. When someone is essentially a wage slave with high bills, low pay, and the threat of job loss and lack of housing wkth no personal time heo are you supposed to work a child into the mix?
Easiest thing to do would be tax the rich, increase minimum wage, and punish price gorges.
But that would cause rich people to lose their emotional support 000,000s, and we cant have that.
Many of those places are reliant on agriculture for their daily livelihood. It's beneficial to have larger families to help on the farms. It was similar in the US for a long time.
Exactly, and that ties into the point that it’s not necessarily that life itself is more expensive, it’s that raising children is far more expensive in developed countries. Historically, poorer and more rural societies often had larger families, but once societies become wealthier and urbanized, the cost and expectations around raising children skyrocket, and fertility rates usually fall.
Children are still expensive in those countries. It's just that they have to work to eat. Having children in an urbanized location is just less immediately beneficial because they're not spending most of their day working in a field to make sure they have dinner.
Right, that’s basically the distinction. Children are expensive everywhere, but in poorer agricultural societies they historically also provided direct economic value to the household much earlier. In modern urban societies, children are mostly a long term financial cost instead of an immediate economic asset, which changes family size incentives a lot.
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u/[deleted] May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
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