South Korea only had 18,988 births in May, 2023 which is the lowest births since the agency started compiling the data in 1981. This was a drop of over 5% from May 2022. The number of deaths in the country moved up 0.2 percent over the period to 28,958, resulting in a natural decrease in population by 9,970. South Korea is losing about 120,000 people per year and the total birth is about 230,000 per year which is down from 705,000 from 1990 to 1994 and 669,000 from 1995 to 1999. However, after the 1997-98 Asian Economic Crisis, the number plummeted to an average of 500,000 in the early 2000s.
Korea’s fertility rate dropped to a new low of 0.78, the lowest among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and possibly the world. The latest fertility rate for Korea is 0.70. This means all women the country have an average 0.70 children and are replacing themselves with 0.35 daughters. This means in 20 years the next generation of fertile women is massively reduced. The collapse in breeding women is forty to sixty years before the main collapse of the population. Korea had 56,087 newborn babies in the second quarter, a 6.8 percent drop from the same period last year.
South Korea’s total fertility rate fell to a record quarterly low of 0.7 in the third quarter of 2023, in yet another grim milestone for the country struggling with rapid aging and a falling birthrate. The average number of expected babies a woman bears in her lifetime came to 0.7 in the July-September period, down 0.1 from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. It marked the lowest figure for any third-quarter readings since the agency began compiling related data in 2009. The number of babies born in South Korea fell 11.5 percent on-year to 56,794 in the third quarter of 2023, the lowest for any third-quarter figures since 1981. The number of deaths grew 2.1 percent on-year to 87,143 in the third quarter. The number of marriages also fell to a record third-quarter low of 41,706, logging an 8.2 percent on-year fall.
Korea would need to triple its annual births to 700,000 per year to maintain and stabilize its population.
Statistics Korea expected people aged 65 and above will take up 20 percent of the population in 2025, marking a sharp rise from 18.4 percent estimated for this year.
The Korean government sees the next five years as critical to increasing fertility and salvaging the country.
Korea’s government is considering easing the burden of gift taxes exclusively for newlywed couples, by raising the minimum amount of cash they can receive from parents without being taxed to either 100 million won ($76,000) or 150 million won.
Several municipalities have also introduced similar programs. Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, held two couple matchmaking events in July for unmarried men and women who either live or work in the region. As a result, 39 couples found a match.
Guri City in Gyeonggi Province has launched a dating show on YouTube hosted by the city’s mayor.
Donghae, Gangwon Province, recently decided to pay up to 3 million won to pregnant women. Yeongwol, Gangwon Province, pays 1 million won for giving birth to a first child, 3 million won for giving birth to a second child, and 10 million won for giving birth to a third child.
Japan and China’s Population Crisis
The number of new births in China have been falling for decades, and last year deaths outnumbered births for the first time in six decades, with the overall population falling by 850,000 to 1.4118 billion. Last year, Chinese mothers gave birth to just 9.56 million babies, representing the lowest total in modern history and the first time the figure had dipped below 10 million. This year (2023) might see only 7-8 million babies in China. Annual deaths will increase to about 15 million per year by 2030 and 20-25 million per year in the 2030s.
China could start losing 10-15 million people per year in the 2030s.
Chinese governments have been rolling out various measures to boost births, including financial and housing support and more parental leave, but actual results have been inconspicuous.
In addition to a more comprehensive and affordable childcare system, inclusion of assisted reproductive technologies in medical insurance, better publicity of the three-child policy, more policies should be reinforced, including financial support for grandparents who take on childcare responsibilities.
Japan is the world’s first “hyper-aged” country, where at least 21 percent of the population is older than 65, with projections predicting 40 percent of the population will be over retirement age by 2050.
Japan’s government failed to head off the population crisis despite Japanese demographers forecasting a crunch since the late 1970s. This is a warning for the rest of East Asia and the world. As of 2023, Japan’s fertility rate was 1.367, far below the 2.1 children per women replacement level necessary for population stability. South Korea suffers from the lowest fertility rate at 0.78, but Taiwan about 1.0, China at 1.18.
Poland, Spain and Italy all have shrinking populations.
In 2010, Poland’s population was over 38.5 million. The population is falling despite a policy of bonuses for families with many children that the right-wing government launched after taking office at the end of 2015.
China’s population is falling as of 2022 and this updated information is not shown on some population tables.
The big shockers are that India and Bangladesh have fallen below replacement despite being poor and highly populous countries.
According to India’s most recent census data, India’s population stood at 1.03 billion in 2001 and 1.21 billion in 2011. The UN’s 2022 World Population Prospects (WPP) report, however, put these figures at 1.08 billion and 1.26 billion, respectively. Moreover, India’s National Family Health Survey indicated a fertility rate of 1.99 in 2017-19, in contrast to the WPP’s estimate of 2.16.
From 2011 to 2021, India’s infant mortality rate fell from 44 deaths per 1,000 live births to 27. The secondary-education gross enrollment rate rose from 66% to 78%, and the mean years of schooling among adults aged 20 and older increased from 5.8 to 7.2 years. The contraceptive prevalence rate rose sharply from 54% in 2013-15 to 67% in 2017-19. Consequently, India’s fertility rate may be as low as 1.6-1.7 in 2024, with its population ranging between 1.37 to 1.39 billion, compared to the 1.44 billion projected by the UN.
The UN could be overestimating the 2024 population of India by the entire population of France. 50 to 70 million people overestimated.
The WPP projects that India’s fertility rate will bounce back to 1.78 in 2050 before declining to 1.69 by 2100. But in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, the fertility rates of Indian populations are barely higher than those of Chinese communities.
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.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Huh, so there is a drawback to turning the population into worker drones. Who would have thought?
China might try eradicating the 996 work system. And the Japanese banning (and enforcing) more than a few hours of overtime a month.
Don’t forget the 10% drop in live births 9 months after the first covid shots.
Not many people know this but the far majority of Entertainers (such as movie stars and singers) in China, Japan, Korea do not have family or children. Just look up the most popular female entertainers in these countries and you will find 70% have ZERO children. Being a movie star in these countries is the fastest ticket to extinction for the next generation. In the US, almost 80% of these entertainers have family or families and one or more children. These elite entertainers and their lifestyles have an outsize influence on the behavior of the general population- especially the younger generations. If I am the government in these 3 countries I would definitely push for incentives to encourage the entertainers to have children and to proudly show them in public.
This is supported by Brazil fertility changing as TV (telenovelas) become available to the population.
TV (more than other media) alters the perception of the right age to get children, marry, how many children are desirable, etc.
China’s problem may be worse than we think:
“Zeihan believes that China’s collapse is imminent, with only 10 years remaining before potential disaster. The crux of his prediction lies in his assertion that China has misrepresented its population numbers, leading him to estimate that the country’s actual population is lower by 100 million than what the government has officially reported.”
Source:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-10-years-left-most-153312835.html
Saw this on facebook
The “Universe 25″ experiment is one of the most terrifying experiments in the history of science, which, through the behavior of a colony of mice, is an attempt by scientists to explain human societies. The idea of ”Universe 25” Came from the American scientist John Calhoun, who created an “ideal world” in which hundreds of mice would live and reproduce. More specifically, Calhoun built the so-called “Paradise of Mice”, a specially designed space where rodents had Abundance of food and water, as well as a large living space. In the beginning, he placed four pairs of mice that in a short time began to reproduce, resulting in their population growing rapidly. However, after 315 days their reproduction began to decrease significantly. When the number of rodents reached 600, a hierarchy was formed between them and then the so-called “wretches” appeared. The larger rodents began to attack the group, with the result that many males begin to “collapse” psychologically. As a result, the females did not protect themselves and in turn became aggressive towards their young. As time went on, the females showed more and more aggressive behavior, isolation elements and lack of reproductive mood. There was a low birth rate and, at the same time, an increase in mortality in younger rodents. Then, a new class of male rodents appeared, the so-called “beautiful mice”. They refused to mate with the females or to “fight” for their space. All they cared about was food and sleep. At one point, “beautiful males” and “isolated females” made up the majority of the population.
According to Calhoun, the death phase consisted of two stages: the “first death” and “second death.” The former was characterized by the loss of purpose in life beyond mere existence — no desire to mate, raise young or establish a role within society. As time went on, juvenile mortality reached 100% and reproduction reached zero. Among the endangered mice, homosexuality was observed and, at the same time, cannibalism increased, despite the fact that there was plenty of food. Two years after the start of the experiment, the last baby of the colony was born. By 1973, he had killed the last mouse in the Universe 25. John Calhoun repeated the same experiment 25 more times, and each time the result was the same.
Calhoun’s scientific work has been used as a model for interpreting social collapse, and his research serves as a focal point for the study of urban sociology.
My guess is that if the US had easy immigration requirements for Europeans, we could drive our population higher (at the expense of Europe, of course).
But, if the current progress is anti-aging technologies proceeds as it has for the last few years, we’ll still be facing overpopulation since death rates could be expected to fall.
If life extension is not cheaper than a fancy daily beverage from Starbucks, it will have a minor effect on world population overall, as most of the world will be completely unable to afford it. The math checks.
It will sure help the more advanced economies, though.
I notice that Brian only encourages mass immigration to “help” white countries. No mention of immigration at all when discussing Asian countries. I wonder why that is?
Perhaps the reason is Asian countries have no tradition of or experience with peaceful mass immigration. For the most part, the outsiders who have come to their homelands to stay have been hostile invaders.
In contrast, Western countries have a long history of border crossings, and mass migrations have become normalized since WWII. Despite resentment by some in their societies, the West is far more welcoming to outsiders than the East. For now.
You can read Peter Frost’s blog and substack about this feature of Europeans that probably predates the known history.
When a slate-wiper pandemic comes through and wipes out 40% of the human race, that is a population crash. I believe the definition of a population recede is when the population declines for more than a two year period. We are in a population recede, as in The Endless Recede.
See HumesGuillotine at github for an approach to data-driven modeling of the causal structures behind such macrosocial catastrophes.
Oh, you think radically revising macrosocial modeling unnecessary because our academic sociology departments, public policy thinktanks, intelligence agencies and NGOs have it as well modeled as can be expected?
Look, it may be the case that every single one of the participants in the aforementioned institutions is well meaning, highly intelligent and doing the best they can. That doesn’t mean the institutions themselves are capable of self-correcting a situation that is depopulating the nation that may have just given us standard temperature and pressure superconductors. And if you think importing people from some high fertility place is going to fix all this, and that’s why there is no need to do any serious macrosociology, all I can say is I hope you aren’t in a position to influence anything.
Easy solution to this problem.
Recognize parenting as an occupation.
The government should PAY parents for creating and raising future citizens.
There is NO incentive for a young people to have children in today’s economies/societies.
The era of free native citizens is over.
If you want the natives to have children, pay them!
Or at least make it possible to have one wage earner families with increasing standards of living again.
Correct: e.g. here in The Netherlands the cost of living, particularly housing, has become so high, that young people, also living as couples, all have to work their guts out to make a decent living. This, in combination with the Millenial ‘matter of course’ desire for luxury living, makes that young people hardly have babies and/or start having them late. Reinforced by deep concerns about the future of the world.
I made a little inventory in my own circles: of all our children and of those of our closest friends, in total 16 young people between ages 25 and 33 (excluding their partners), one is now expecting, another one is planning for the near future. That’s it. It is no longer a matter of course to become a grandparent.
The problem is you want good pro-social producers to breed and bad anti-social consumers to not breed. This mean is you can not directly pay people to breed or you get a bunch of single mothers breeding with antisocial chads where the rest pay for the breeding.
You want producers to redirect part of their productivity to breeding and raising children. So you must leave them a sizeable part of the wealth they produce and incentive them to breed. The antisocial, worthless, rabble must not be incentivized to breed.
Unfortunately, this strategy clash with the need of the ruling classes to parasite the population to stay in power and enrich themselves.
We can either voluntarily reduce are numbers with below replacement birth rates, or climate change will do it for us.
The second will be far more messy and painful.
Without government’s schools and MSM there is no climate change.
Several things have to happen and mostly will:
1. Unused urban land including vacant offices for people who work from home (WFH) have to be made into livable family homes. It’s simply unsustainable that almost all urban centers have vacant too expensive apartments while 10s of thousands of people are homeless. If people are homeless, not only is their productivity lost, but the next tier higher is highly stressed by being rent-burdened (>30% of income towards rent). Societies need to tax under-used land to force it into productive use through a tax on land but not on buildings.
2. Education, child-care, healthcare needs to be free or nearly so for most of the population, and taxes need to not discourage working (e.g. the Land Value Tax above. Also .1-.25% transaction taxes on financial asset trades to discourage rent-seeking and speculation; eliminate the lower carried interest which serve no useful social function). We need to develop people to their maximum potential. Most people fall far short now. If people can be 50% more productive on average, that’s like adding ~20% more people, even accounting for people only working 8 hours/day (the truth is knowledge workers often work less, but are more productive per hour).
3. Embrace automation to replace humans wherever possible, particularly for the inevitable large elderly population caretaking.
4. Provide legal and financial support for blended, unusual families with children. Children should grow up in healthy stable environments, but that need not be just the nuclear family. Allow accessory dwellings on traditional single family lots for grandparents or other relatives or just poly-families (care will have to be taken to prevent monopolization of females by rich males, which can be destabilizing with young unmated males getting into trouble).
There are other issues and solutions.
Why does China have 20-40% youth unemployment now if their young population is shrinking? This is more discouraging to reproduction than a shrinking number of fertile women.
Artificial wombs are coming. Child-rearing options will have to adapt.
I have no doubt that when there are more resources for fewer people, people will start having more children again, but it’s also true that people – especially women – acquire more goods and services for themselves when childless in rich countries, offsetting the savings in resources from being childless somewhat. This acquisitiveness is celebrated in capitalist culture, even fetishistized. This needs to stop and healthy altruism and parental sacrifice presented as a mentally healthier alternative.
A wonderful thought provoking response to the article. Here’s my take.
1. Having some experience trying to set up a homeless shelter, I can say that most of the office buildings will not meet code requirements for human habitation. This is exclusive of the whole issue of bathrooms, HVAC systems for offices being designed to meet different requirements than dwellings, and maintenance responsibilities.
A more likely scenario for me is the losing real estate investor deciding to stop taking a bath, and walk away. They stop paying property taxes forcing the locality to take ownership of the building without staff or budget to maintain or remodel. Also the locality looses the tax base. A contribution to the existing downward spiral of finances on metropolitan areas. A bit dystopian, but optimists are never pleasantly surprised
2. By ‘free’, you mean someone else pays for it, nothing is actually free. K-12 education is already paid for by taxes. Childcare could be possible but would require more taxes, which you correctly identify as a drag on productivity. Medical care simply breaks the bank, unless the care is either restricted to wellness care or rationed either by fiat or excessive waiting periods. Which is basically the way the British National Health Service operates.
I’d like to see someone make the argument about the value of the public good of ‘free’ something; rather than just say something should be free. Roads and education (to a point) are public goods because of the economic value of good transportation networks and an educated workforce. What is the economic value of a college degree, Electrical Engineering vs Gender Studies? Should one be paid for out of taxes but not the other? Should MIT be forced to charge the same fees as Northern Michigan for the same degree? These are quantifiable arguments missing when the word ‘free’ is used to advocate for expanding public goods.
3. Spot on. Of course, there will be issues about what robots are allowed to prevent us from doing. For example, a home care robot should prevent someone from smoking in bed, but bearing in mind the health effects of tobacco use and the cost of ‘free’ health care, would the government be right to insist they prevent ALL smoking?
4. My experience shows that children who don’t come from a two parent family are more likely to have behavioral issues, so I think it would be better to have policies rewarding people for making that choice. No matter the the biological sexes involved. Having recently done some multi-generational housing with my own family – nope not interested.
1. NYC is undergoing a reratioing of apartments vs. offices right now, and not a moment too soon as we are swamped by both record homeless and record migrants (the Feds really need to lead in dealing with this, as even the local Democrats recently petitioned Biden to do). But you’re right: a combination of too long lease spans, insufficient plumbing for more bathrooms and kitchens and lack of window space as well as excessively high ceilings (12′ is standard for offices), make converting offices to apartments challenging at best. Still, that or a complete teardown and replacement will have to be done. Developers are still in denial about the future of work and downtowns in general. This matters because having someone who can WFH while being as productive means less need for childcare and hence easier ability to have children in the first place. Of course, workers have to work but a lot of time is wasted in the office and commuting too, so an 8-hour shift is maybe 3/4 that in real output already. Add to that the detrimental effects of office politics, particularly in this age where every action can become actionable, and WFH looks all the more attractive.
2. Society used to understand that investing in children would pay off in the end but now the hyper-narrow focus on everyone for themselves has made “the common good” sound quaint or even communist. It’s neither, it’s just more efficient. And there are a lot of things our selfish culture rewards that are really unproductive rent-seeking and speculation, and they should be taxed: Land hoarding, sin taxes (someone has to pay for smokers/alcoholics/recreational drug users etc. when they get sick during their most productive years (unfortunately, these people don’t just lose years at the end, when they should be retired).
I agree a lot of useless degrees are being issued. When Sputnik beat Americans into space, the government responded by emphasizing educating with STEM skills of the day (it was just called engineering, math, and science back then) and it paid off. We need to do that again and also have the happy benefit of decreasing the population of haters and shouters. DEI doesn’t encourage Diversity, Equality or Inclusion; studies have shown this by now. It encourages resentment, division and unproductivity. Merit will have to come back in fashion too. Working hard will have to replace nihilism again. BTW, NBF is firmly anti-nihilist.
3. AI/robots are quickly taking up the slack from people who don’t want/can’t do a lot of menial labor, but also white collar jobs. But there will still be jobs since AI lies/hallucinates and humans can still outhink AI in some creative areas. UBI is an interesting experiment that works better than most people think because there has to be a floor below which people are not allowed to sink, and struggling just to eat and be housed is well below that. If all it took is the threat of starvation and homelessness to get people to work, there’d be no homeless or hungry people. Clearly, something more is needed.
4. The children who have these problems generally come from single parent households, mostly headed by women. Somehow, the state has to make alternate family structures more attractive even if it’s not just nuclear families.
Screen time and VR is making people unrealistic too. Humans are flawed but real. Not accepting that is a big part of why people aren’t mating or having children.
I think you’re going down a dead end trying to save the cities. Even before the birth dearth set in, cities were population sinks, throughout all human history; Humans just don’t reproduce at high population densities!
In fact, a contributing factor to the birth dearth might be that increased urbanization together with centralized government resulted in urban anti-natal policies and values being exported to the rest of society.
It seems to me that de-urbanization has to be a component of the solution; We simply have no examples (That I’m aware of, anyway.) of humans reproducing above replacement at high population densities.
I see a social engineer at work with his very naïve, solutions.
Sorry, but humans (living things) are not to be managed like bricks or gears or billiard balls.
Your solution doesn’t consider the need of heavily reduce the weight of the government on the people you want to breed more. You can not tax them 50% and expect them to breed like rabbits. You can not jail them in 15 minutes cities and have a positive fertility.
You need to have families able to live with a single paycheck. This not only allows for mothers to be free to have children and raise them, but allows the ones losing their husband to be able to maintain their family in “not poor” conditions.
Poland population is increasing due to immigration. It’s above 41M now, was 38M few years ago. If you’re talking about Poles in Poland, then yes, it’s true.