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South Korea to China: Why is East Asia producing so few babies?
(www.aljazeera.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Capitalists: design society to be exceedingly hostile towards raising kids
Also Capitalists: "How come nobody wants to birth new workers for me anymore? 😰"
They tried tax incentives, workplace daycare, changing laws, literally everything besides making a society conducive to raising kids lol
The solution is obviously to take away womens' bodily autonomy.
Unfortunately that solution is tried and true, so the ones that try it will get results that they can then point to as a success. States that banned abortions are already seeing increases in childbirths.
On the plus side, fewer workers means more competition which leads to better wages. This will eventually show corporations that if they want workers they need to pay well. This could well be a turning point.
This is only true under the assumption that corporations cannot turn the state to enforce forced labor, which has precedent in the past. I don't think it's highly likely in this day and age, outside of some fascist leaning places but who knows.
Alternative: capitalism is designed around egoism, having children does not really fit in that picture at all.
Making children to pass down genes and the family name definitely fits that picture.
On top of that you have the parents who have kids so someone can take care of them when they are older.
That's a very metaphysical profit. Capitalism offers profit here and now.
Developed capitalist countries are know for children taking care of their parents.
Ah yes, totally capitalism causing it...I forgot how capitalist china is....their one child policy was totally capitalism making that rule.
China has been capitalist since Deng Xiaoping pushed open market reforms beginning in 1978. I’ll grant you the one child policy has nothing to do with capitalism, though. Still doesn’t explain why other nations have similarly low birth rates, though.
They have low birthrates because of education. Has nothing to do with capitalism. Look at all the places that have free healthcare and safety nets. All of them have declining birth rates. It's just something that comes with not having to fight for food and shelter to survive. Poor nations have more kids because the odds are stacked against them reaching adulthood.
Capitalism has nothing to do with it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/#:~:text=The%20social%20structure%2C%20religious%20beliefs,rates%20are%20low%2C%20birth%20control
A broad correlation that throws an alternative set of proposed explanations isn't evidence that other proposed explanations are false. I'm sure you'll find data among developed countries that shows people are citing the cost of raising children as a major factor for not having more children. You might even find that places which make child rearing cheaper and easier have higher fertility rates than those that don't. It's perhaps possible that the proposed hand wavy explanation about lifestyle choices and child mortality in the developed world is pure correlation and there's another factor that is driving this which occurred alongside that economic development. Like I don't know, increased cost of living and child rearing, disappearance of safety nets, increase in precarity of work, you know - the gifts of 50 years of neoliberal economics. 🥹
South Korea and Japan are both paying people to have kids, same with Singapore, it's a major battle to get people there to have children. NPR recently did this article on it.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/07/1236721014/the-population-problem-in-singapore-is-also-an-economic-problem#:~:text=CHILDS%3A%20Once%20Singapore%20realized%20its,in%20cash%20and%20matching%20savings.
Is it enough? For an article that discusses this, it's odd it doesn't mention what it costs to raise a child. Paying money to parents without considering the cost isn't very meaningful.
A quick search tells me that:
And China is close second:
These four data points show an inverse correlation between cost of raising a child and fertility. This is obviously not a comprehensive analysis but it serves the purpose to show that perhaps fertility isn't disconnected from cost of raising children in the developed world. And perhaps material like the NPR article which talk about the government "giving up" are more about creating a narrative that gets people to accept immigration as a solution, rather than digging into problems that would require wage increases and wealth transfers from the top towards the bottom. It should be obvious which classes are served by each solution.
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-most-expensive-country-in-world-to-raise-children/a-65669257