South Korean universities have courses that make it mandatory for students to date their classmates. Students have to date each other in three randomly assigned pairings.
Courses on dating, sex, love and relationships are trying to increase coupling and eventually birthrate.
Most young korean woman and men don’t want to have kids. They reason it would be too difficult to balance family with work pressures. They would consider trying to have children “if the economic conditions were right.”
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs estimates that by 2100, nearly half of South Korea’s population (48.2%) will be 65 or older.
Singapore’s government support data services among many pro-child policies
Singapore efforts to increase the number of children include:
* Extended mandatory paid paternity leave from one to two weeks
* cash for babies. Families receive $14,000 (Singaporean; almost US$9,900) for their first child and are eligible for the same amount if they have a second; they receive S$22,000 for a third child, as well as for a fourth, and S$28,000 for each child beyond that.
* A housing initiative pushes first-time married couples to the top of the list for government-built apartments, where 80 percent of Singaporeans live, but they must be expecting a child or already have one under the age of 16.
* The government sponsors dating services to help with the first step: finding a partner.
Singapore’s fertility rate is among the 10 lowest in the world. The average number of births per woman in 2015 was 1.24, according to government statistics. That’s well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I wish the whole world introduced such courses. Then there would be less dating disasters, perhaps. At least this is what I think. But you might correct me if you wish.
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Have followed this site for years and have frequently been thankful for Goatguy’s technical analysis, but I think this post might be his most insightful of all!
Well, I don’t want to state too much about US Universities, since I hear some US Universtities are crazy (I mean, deplatforming? Really? And look, I hate Ben Shapiro, but he’s allowed to speak). But I do believe in combating sexual harassment and rape, since these are two big problems. I also believe however, in not letting ourselves go nuts with a moral panic… And I think you could be talking about this latter aspect.
As for Worker’s Rights, I am refering to how, in both Japan and South Korea, in most companies, women who become pregnant are the next ones shown the door, not due to incompetence, but due to being pregnant, among other things. If people aren’t fired for getting pregnant, people will have more children. It works in Sweden. Also, the Welfare State is more benefitial all around when it comes to child-raising.Call it expensive, call it what you will, but the world’s best states to live in are in Northern and Central Europe. Also, when I said it makes too many assumptions about people, I was refering to their life goals, their life plans, their sexual orientation, etc. I am an Individualist, the Individual Will above Societal Expectations.Sidenote: Allowing lesbian couples to access legal IVF could also give a little bump.My apologies for taking a long while replying.
Well, I don’t want to state too much about US Universities, since I hear some US Universtities are crazy (I mean, deplatforming? Really? And look, I hate Ben Shapiro, but he’s allowed to speak). But I do believe in combating sexual harassment and rape, since these are two big problems. I also believe however, in not letting ourselves go nuts with a moral panic… And I think you could be talking about this latter aspect.
As for Worker’s Rights, I am refering to how, in both Japan and South Korea, in most companies, women who become pregnant are the next ones shown the door, not due to incompetence, but due to being pregnant, among other things. If people aren’t fired for getting pregnant, people will have more children. It works in Sweden. Also, the Welfare State is more benefitial all around when it comes to child-raising.
Call it expensive, call it what you will, but the world’s best states to live in are in Northern and Central Europe. Also, when I said it makes too many assumptions about people, I was refering to their life goals, their life plans, their sexual orientation, etc. I am an Individualist, the Individual Will above Societal Expectations.
Sidenote: Allowing lesbian couples to access legal IVF could also give a little bump.
My apologies for taking a long while replying.
My initial reaction is to scoff at the idea that the average university class would provide good guidance for dating.But then I realised that1. They are almost certainly better at it than I was at that age, or for that matter now.2. The alternative, which we are currently operating, is to give our culture’s dating protocol education policy over to the predators and perverts of Hollywood.3. Any common set of protocols at all is probably better than the current scheme of “it depends on what sort of movie and TV show you each watch, and you’ll have to work it out. By the way, if it all goes horribly wrong you’ll have your academic career destroyed (if you are male) and it could appear in congressional hearings decades from now.”
My initial reaction is to scoff at the idea that the average university class would provide good guidance for dating.
But then I realised that
1. They are almost certainly better at it than I was at that age, or for that matter now.
2. The alternative, which we are currently operating, is to give our culture’s dating protocol education policy over to the predators and perverts of Hollywood.
3. Any common set of protocols at all is probably better than the current scheme of “it depends on what sort of movie and TV show you each watch, and you’ll have to work it out. By the way, if it all goes horribly wrong you’ll have your academic career destroyed (if you are male) and it could appear in congressional hearings decades from now.”
Not a ban, as such. But the current university rules (In the US.) for determining when sexual harassment or rape has occurred are a really, really poor fit to normal heterosexual relations. Sufficiently bad to scare many men right out of dating.
How does it violate agency? It is incentivizing activity with cash rewards. The only people being forced to do anything is the tax payer who foots the bill for this social program. People don’t have to have kids, although society benefits from it. I don’t like government rewarding or punishing behavior with incentives or taxes, but this is not a violation of agency on the part of the recipient of the cash. How does “workers rights” improve people’s abilities to have children? If you mean more money to pay for said children…that’s what they are doing. ‘Workers rights’ is a euphemism. In order for government to mandate something for one group, another loses out and their liberties are reduced. Great solution. Education is usually how you end up making more money, but people usually have fewer children as income and education go up. Sloppy thinking all the way around.
This here is unnecesary, and a violation of agency. It makes too many assumptions about people. Want to improve birthrates, improve workers’ rights, discrimination protections and the welfare state. Many people want to have children but can’t, due to circumstances. Change the circumstances.
Oh seriously? Is there a ban on heterosexuality all of the sudden?Here’s how South Korea (and by the way, Japan) can solve their birthrate problems: Harmonize the Work-Life Balance for all workers, and stop workplace discrimination, and by the way, harmonize the financial situation of the populace. All without trying to force LGBT into a life they don’t want.There are enough people who want to have children in these countries, but won’t, due to work/financial situation. Funny how ”free-speech fighters” want state overeach in these situations. Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Love! … ‘Cause without it, people like us, we’re left alone with the darkness. That’s not good for anyone, is it? – Damien Darhk
Absolutely agree with that. We have one kid only, due to my being rendered sterile by cancer surgery, and not wanting to adopt until we were sure I wasn’t going to leave a widow. He’s a real brat, despite our best efforts at regular play dates with a friend’s only child. We call him the “drama prince”.That’s one of the things that makes me a bit scared of what China is going to be like in a few years, with a whole generation of single children and an out of wack sex balance.
Honestly, I could have used that in college, I might have gone on my first date before I was 40. Doing it under simulated conditions might have extinguished my trauma induced social phobia a lot faster.But the thought of present day SJWs of the sort who have turned universities toxic for ordinary heterosexual relations being put in charge of a class like this is terrifying. It might cause a population collapse rather than rebound.
I was thinking that with the low birth rate and the shutins that a little push maybe needed to get young people together. A little push to get them over their first hump (punny). In the old days the family would employ a match maker and once a match was found the family would make the arrangements. Maybe marriages shouldn’t be left up to chance.
Not a ban, as such. But the current university rules (In the US.) for determining when sexual harassment or rape has occurred are a really, really poor fit to normal heterosexual relations. Sufficiently bad to scare many men right out of dating.
“I feel opressed!” whenever there isn’t a suitable partner willing to gay up the make-believe date.
How does it violate agency? It is incentivizing activity with cash rewards. The only people being forced to do anything is the tax payer who foots the bill for this social program. People don’t have to have kids, although society benefits from it. I don’t like government rewarding or punishing behavior with incentives or taxes, but this is not a violation of agency on the part of the recipient of the cash. How does “workers rights” improve people’s abilities to have children? If you mean more money to pay for said children…that’s what they are doing. ‘Workers rights’ is a euphemism. In order for government to mandate something for one group, another loses out and their liberties are reduced. Great solution. Education is usually how you end up making more money, but people usually have fewer children as income and education go up. Sloppy thinking all the way around.
This here is unnecesary, and a violation of agency. It makes too many assumptions about people. Want to improve birthrates, improve workers’ rights, discrimination protections and the welfare state. Many people want to have children but can’t, due to circumstances. Change the circumstances.
Oh seriously? Is there a ban on heterosexuality all of the sudden?
Here’s how South Korea (and by the way, Japan) can solve their birthrate problems: Harmonize the Work-Life Balance for all workers, and stop workplace discrimination, and by the way, harmonize the financial situation of the populace. All without trying to force LGBT into a life they don’t want.
There are enough people who want to have children in these countries, but won’t, due to work/financial situation. Funny how ”free-speech fighters” want state overeach in these situations. Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Love! … ‘Cause without it, people like us, we’re left alone with the darkness. That’s not good for anyone, is it? – Damien Darhk
Absolutely agree with that. We have one kid only, due to my being rendered sterile by cancer surgery, and not wanting to adopt until we were sure I wasn’t going to leave a widow. He’s a real brat, despite our best efforts at regular play dates with a friend’s only child. We call him the “drama prince”.
That’s one of the things that makes me a bit scared of what China is going to be like in a few years, with a whole generation of single children and an out of wack sex balance.
Honestly, I could have used that in college, I might have gone on my first date before I was 40. Doing it under simulated conditions might have extinguished my trauma induced social phobia a lot faster.
But the thought of present day SJWs of the sort who have turned universities toxic for ordinary heterosexual relations being put in charge of a class like this is terrifying. It might cause a population collapse rather than rebound.
I was thinking that with the low birth rate and the shutins that a little push maybe needed to get young people together. A little push to get them over their first hump (punny). In the old days the family would employ a match maker and once a match was found the family would make the arrangements. Maybe marriages shouldn’t be left up to chance.
Thanks Goatguy. I usually appreciate your technical writing, especially when you break down the tech stuff into English that a humanities dude like myself can understand. But this post on single kids was great fun, and almost a sociology essay in itself! 😉
“I feel opressed!” whenever there isn’t a suitable partner willing to gay up the make-believe date.
So it’s Speed Dating 101 for asocial freshmen then. As a pseudo matchmaker situation, guided lessons/training on this for siblingless kids as first glance doesn’t seem horrific. Think of all those introvert kids being pulled out of their shells (screaming internally) and having interaction experiences with similar age people. It beats social fraternities/sororities in safety and quality of guidance…
An acquaintance of mine from the U.S. here lives in South Korea, and her boyfriend is Korean. I would LOVE to see how that goes over with them. Probably not very well. xD
I’m guessing it’s more like pretend-dates, to make them more comfortable with the situation once it happens for real. Asking students to share a table for a meal and do some idle talk is hardly worth looking into as a human’s rights violation…And the fact that it happens on their private time is the same it would be if they has a regular assignment.In my opinion it’s both a bit tragic and funny that this is what things have come to.
My guess is that Warren The Ape would probably have benefitted from a class where women were forced to spend time with him, as it is hard for me to believe that any woman would willingly do so.
This thing in SK is a human rights violation. Compelling ppl to do things in their personal lives or be denied educational opps. is a simply wrong. What’s next, procreate or you don’t graduate?But for real, try this in the US and watch the law suits stack up and for good reason.
Thanks Goatguy. I usually appreciate your technical writing, especially when you break down the tech stuff into English that a humanities dude like myself can understand. But this post on single kids was great fun, and almost a sociology essay in itself! 😉
So it’s Speed Dating 101 for asocial freshmen then. As a pseudo matchmaker situation, guided lessons/training on this for siblingless kids as first glance doesn’t seem horrific. Think of all those introvert kids being pulled out of their shells (screaming internally) and having interaction experiences with similar age people. It beats social fraternities/sororities in safety and quality of guidance…
I can see this approach wouldn’t work in a modern decadent western nation.Not after the first class with a gay kid in it turned the whole thing into a shouting match.
well, so far, my single daughter is the most well behaved girl of her class. She has two sister cousins where the younger one is 100% more spoiled than her. I think it depends on education. She hears a LOT of “NOs”, which is quite rare for single children as well as for more children nowadays.first time parents who don´t say NO, who do not enforce their threats, end up having a spoiled child and fear having a second. And if they have a second it will also be spoiled.
An acquaintance of mine from the U.S. here lives in South Korea, and her boyfriend is Korean. I would LOVE to see how that goes over with them. Probably not very well. xD
Hey… I’m not sure it really matters whether people have kids or not. The only thing that is really certain is that to have only ONE kid is possibly the worst number a couple can work toward. A whole race (loosely used, perhaps clade would be better) of spoiled brats. Because in my rather long life of experience with kids, kids and more kids, it is the one thing that time-and-again comes through: only children are socially out-of-balance. They’ve always been kings and queens, princes and princesses. They’ve rarely had to compete with siblings or even these days, nephew and nieces. Single-child parents tend to run in families that also have other single-child related parents; none of them typically synchronizes the having of babies so that the nieces and nephews might grow up as a larger meta-family unit. And working with these poor singletons? Wow… talk about entitlement. Even the MOST WELL brought up only children have remarkable entitled chips on their lapels. The “I want” and “I think” could not be stronger. Very little sense of “we” and “our” in their opinions and thinking. As a proud parent of 3 kids and having an extended family for many years living at our house (making 5 kids total, all 1 year apart), I can say that growing up in those circumstances definitely leads to a different kind of social balance. A different patience with conflicts, compromise, synthesis and moving forward. A different kind of leadership and collective bargaining. I get why Singapore is willing to give $20,000 USD a kid to the 4th and subsequent sib. The dynamics of large families delivers powerful leadership and broad interdependency optimization. From this, one gets powerful leaders. Leaders who cut their teeth having to compromise endlessly with their siblings. Just saying,GoatGuy
I’m guessing it’s more like pretend-dates, to make them more comfortable with the situation once it happens for real. Asking students to share a table for a meal and do some idle talk is hardly worth looking into as a human’s rights violation…
And the fact that it happens on their private time is the same it would be if they has a regular assignment.
In my opinion it’s both a bit tragic and funny that this is what things have come to.
My guess is that Warren The Ape would probably have benefitted from a class where women were forced to spend time with him, as it is hard for me to believe that any woman would willingly do so.
I can see this approach wouldn’t work in a modern decadent western nation.
Not after the first class with a gay kid in it turned the whole thing into a shouting match.
Hey… I’m not sure it really matters whether people have kids or not. The only thing that is really certain is that to have only ONE kid is possibly the worst number a couple can work toward. A whole race (loosely used, perhaps clade would be better) of spoiled brats.
Because in my rather long life of experience with kids, kids and more kids, it is the one thing that time-and-again comes through: only children are socially out-of-balance. They’ve always been kings and queens, princes and princesses. They’ve rarely had to compete with siblings or even these days, nephew and nieces. Single-child parents tend to run in families that also have other single-child related parents; none of them typically synchronizes the having of babies so that the nieces and nephews might grow up as a larger meta-family unit.
And working with these poor singletons? Wow… talk about entitlement. Even the MOST WELL brought up only children have remarkable entitled chips on their lapels. The “I want” and “I think” could not be stronger. Very little sense of “we” and “our” in their opinions and thinking.
As a proud parent of 3 kids and having an extended family for many years living at our house (making 5 kids total, all 1 year apart), I can say that growing up in those circumstances definitely leads to a different kind of social balance. A different patience with conflicts, compromise, synthesis and moving forward. A different kind of leadership and collective bargaining.
I get why Singapore is willing to give $20,000 USD a kid to the 4th and subsequent sib. The dynamics of large families delivers powerful leadership and broad interdependency optimization. From this, one gets powerful leaders. Leaders who cut their teeth having to compromise endlessly with their siblings.
Just saying,
GoatGuy