South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, government says

Re:South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, go... by gumby on Friday December 15, 2023 @12:35PM (#38656429)

Nice to see an article that does't use words like "disaster" (though the word "timebomb" does occur up front.

> Countries like South Korea, Japan and China, however, have shied away from mass immigration to solve their working age population issues.

As Herb Stein famously said, "if it can’t go on forever it will stop". In fact, South Korea embraced foreign brides many years ago, at least by farmers who are particularly low status in the marriage market.

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Re:South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, go... by huytersd on Friday December 15, 2023 @08:21PM (#38660889)

Kind of is a disaster. It’s not a lower, but stable, birth rate. It’s precipitously dropping.

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Re:South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, go... by gumby on Saturday December 16, 2023 @02:01AM (#38662347)

I guess I don’t consider it disastrous. There is no shortage of babies being born.

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Re:South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, go... by huytersd on Saturday December 16, 2023 @02:20AM (#38662427)

The rate is 0.72. Every 20 years you lose 20% of your population or a percent a year. That would give South Korea 100 years of existence at this point. It’s dire.

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Re:South Korea to see population plummet to 1970s levels, go... by wizofaus on Sunday December 17, 2023 @01:46PM (#38675221)

Pretty sure your maths is off - even if it did steadily fall by 20% every 20 years, it'd still have a population of 16 to 17 million in 100 years' time. So no, not especially dire.

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