Korea needs immigration to survive. That is true for any advanced industrialized country in which people have fewer and fewer children while living longer and longer. But it is particularly true for Korea because Korea's birthrate is declining so rapidly. Yet Korea's treatment of immigrants, particularly those from poorer countries, continues to be tone-deaf and shitty. A recent survey showed that as of last year, 17.2% of school-age children born out of international marriages did not attend school. This is an astounding number for a country that has over 95% attendance rate for elementary, middle and high school.
Korean government does seem to realize the direness of the situation, as they increased the budget for assisting multicultural families by 52 times in the last four years. But as governments do, that budget is being administered in a ham-handed manner, robbing its effectiveness.
다문화 예산 4년간 52배 늘었는데 체감혜택 적은 까닭은 [Dong-A Ilbo]
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My main school is in the most multicultural area of Gwangju, popular with immigrants (illegal and otherwise) from Southeast Asia. It's a blue-collar area with most of the jobs connected to a large tire factory.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a few new programs in my school, probably related to this funding, which suggest at least some of it is getting put to use. Alongside English camps, there have been camps for "multicultural" children - I'm not sure what the content could have been. There are also seminars and workshops to educate teachers about working with multicultural students - mainly about being sensitive to bullying, and about cultural differences, and not using terms like "mixed blood". It's a start, anyway. Multiculturalism is something my home country (Canada) struggles with all the time, and we've been at it for some time now.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteThey are making it easier for immigrants to obtain F-2 visas though, which I'm trying to do now. It involves some jumping through hoops, but they are things I had been planning on doing anyway like taking a culture and language class and taking the TOPIK exam.
Now, if only I could send my (someday, future, hypothetical) children to public schools here and not have to pay to send them to international schools...
South Korea will have more than enough trouble successfully integrating 25 million North Korean refugees once the regime above the thirty-eighth parallel finally collapses. And you clamor MORE third world immigration? You've got to be joking me. Why that hasn't been an utter disaster in any other developed nation in the world, has it? I'm sure the French just loved having their cars overturned and their stores set on fire during their nation-wide racial riots in 2005.
ReplyDeleteAs for immigrants restoring "economic dynamism" [sic] to countries with pitiful birth rates, spare me your chicanery. Germany has received nothing but a giant migraine from importing thousands of Turkish guest workers since the late 60s, who by and large refuse to integrate into German society and leech billions of euros worth in social services. Mexicans in America (who are, by and large, the descendants of illegal immigrants) scarcely rise above the socio-economic ladder after four generations in the United States. You can't make up these statistics.
The only sort of immigration that could possibly help the Republic of Korea is immigration from Pacific Rim countries or wealthy nations in the West, and how many educated professionals in Switzerland or Denmark are clamoring for Korean visas? I'd also bring up differences in national IQ if it didn't illicit hysterical outrage from most of the diversity sheeple who read your blog. Like hell Bangladeshis or Somalians are going to help Korea win any Nobel prizes. Get real.
I expect the typical sorts irrational responses to my post, complete with outraged white foreigners branding me as a "bigot", "racist", "xenophobe", and much worse. The last thing Korea needs today is foreign immigration. Keep Korean crime rates low and government spending at a minimum.
Here's what I expect to happen if Korea imports a few million immigrants from [insert third-world country here].
ReplyDeleteThe immigrants will arrive, complete menial labor day after day, and all will be peachy keen for the first few years. Then they'll ask for Korean citizenship for their wives and children. Who are you to deny them their human rights?
Their children will underachieve academically, cause petty crime everywhere, and eventually drop out of school to perform menial labor just like their parents. A contingency of left-wingers in Seoul will blame their pitiful performance and delinquency entirely on "Korean racism". Schoolchildren will be bussed two hours a day just so that they can attend schools with a certain quota of immigrant children. Expect academic standards to fall year after year as desperate school administrators try to close the gap between native Korean and immigrant test scores.
Meanwhile Korea's violent crime rate skyrockets, the government hemorrhages more and more money trying to integrate immigrants through costly social programs, and public schools nationwide degenerate into nothing but glorified day care centers. Korean children will be taught every day in class to feel guilty about their nation's racism and hatred of foreigners, and how their culture isn't necessarily superior to the culture of third world refugees. The foreign birthrate rapidly overtakes the Korean birth rate, and within a matter of decades Koreans find themselves a minority within their own country. Say goodbye, first-world status!
To all of you quivering with rage at my hypothetical scenario, please tell me how many nuclear scientists or mathematicians the United States has produced from its massive population of illegal Mexicans. Why, it's not as if any states in America are going bankrupt due to runaway entitlement spending, much of which is spent on the children of illegal immigrants, is it? And of course they're only doing the jobs that racist white ajosshis refuse to do. Just like Koreans, they have no native culture, anyway. Why is one set of cultural values superior to another? Why can't Koreans learn to speak Spanish or Tagalog or Bangladeshi, instead of discriminating against foreigners by asserting the supremacy of their own language? Also how dare they employ that racist term "mixed-blood", as if Koreans are actually genetically distinct from other ethnic groups on the planet? MOAR DIVERSITY! MOAR MULTICULTURALISM!
And to anyone who brings up Canada or America as successful examples of "multiculturalism in action", puh-leeze. Never mind that the vast majority of immigrants in Canada come from the highest of the high echelons of third world societies. Both Canada and the United States have some of the most stringent immigration policies in the world, and immigrants from places like Nigeria or Pakistan have already reached a high level of educational attainment before immigrating.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to Europe, which imports illiterate Third World refugees straight from the slums of Mogadishu and Tikrit. Now do you see why Muslim immigrants in the Americas are model minorities, and why Muslims in Europe are responsible for so much social decay and violent crime? Canada already attracts the best of the best immigrants. Korea simply can't compete with an all-star attraction like Canada, and the only immigrants willing to perform menial labor here are dirt-poor analphabètes from third world slums.
Also don't bring up the success of Chinese or Korean immigrants worldwide as proof of the benefits of "diversity". East Asian countries have a millenia-old tradition of valuing education and academic success. On the other hand, refugees from Somalia have probably never seen a pencil before in their lives.
To Sam's comments, I would say, maybe on a whole he might be kind of right although I might not like to put it in such harsh words.
ReplyDeleteBut, whether or not Sam, or any other Koreans like it, there are a lot of foreigners moving to Korea. People like me as English teachers. Most don't stay long term, but there are a few lifers out there. Many migrant workers, many of whom stay permanently. And many, many, many foreign wives of Korean men who are unable to find Korean wives. These women will then have children who will only be half Korean. Korea needs to find a way to accept these half Korean children who will grow up and need to integrate into the Korean work environment in the future.
There needs to be multicultural education and teachers need to encourage students to make friends with children of mixed race and of non Korean heritage. When children are happy in school they are more likely to study and succeed. If school is hell for them they are more likely to do poorly or drop out early.
It all starts in schools. Our parents and grandparent's generations grew up without the sort of multicultural awareness that we were taught in school. For an American today to say that they don't want to associate with a black person or an Asian person or a gay person or whatever, they would be ostracized by most people. But, 50 or 100 years ago that would have been the accepted norm. Now it's Korea's turn to teach students in school to accept all their peers. When they become adults, they can continue to act the same. It's not something that can happen overnight. It takes time.
I hope that a dozen Mexicans were able to illegally enter the United States while I was reading the comments.
ReplyDeleteAdeel, co-signed.
ReplyDeleteSam, ok then, let's hear your brilliant idea about how Korea is supposed to continue existing when each married couple gives birth to only 1.15 child. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it requires at least 2 children per couple to keep the population number going.
all Americans come from somewhere. Even the Native Americans came from Asia. i'm all for legal immigration. now illegal immigration and human trafficking i'm 100% against.
ReplyDeleteimmigration is necessary but there will always be culture clash of some kind. S. Korea may treat their immigrants like $#@! but they are much nicer than most of the Middle East, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
I find it amusing when people in the States talk about immigration like it's some sort of liberal plot to destroy the country. America hasn't accepted the "poor and huddled masses" because it's always been governed by soft-headed liberals who wanted to inflict their misguided, politically correct agenda on the unsuspecting citizenry. No, it's accepted immigration because the men who have run this country have usually been infused with a messianic complex that asserts that they have a God-given right to rule the continent, and, indeed, the world. In order to create a mighty Christian nation that could straddle the continent and dominate the globe, however, you needed people to grow food, build railroads, clean toilets, and get their guts blown out in foreign wars. These are not jobs that soft-palmed white folks from the salons of Europe have typically coveted. THIS is why the United States has tolerated immigration.
ReplyDeleteNow, not every country has followed this example. Japan, for instance, seems to have chosen to keep its identity as an ethnically homogenous country intact at the expense of its economic and political clout. (I'm only talking about today's Japan here; the imperialist version practiced "manifest destiny" with the best of them.) I'm guessing that Korea will probably take the same route. So, Sam's nightmare scenario probably won't come to pass. Is it worth it? Maybe. I don't think I'd want to be a pensioner in Japan or Korea in fifty years, though.
I'm not sure what you even mean by that comment. Is this the classic "two wrongs make a right" argument? Korea already suffers a low birth rate, so why don't we complicate her demographic woes by adding a whole new set of problems to the mix? Quality is better than quantity. Nepali immigrants to Korea are never going to become nuclear physicists or law profesors.
ReplyDeleteAren't you forgetting about that giant nation to the north of S. Korea full of genetically identical people who speak the same language? No source of cheap labor up north, is there?
You know what might work? Keep women out of the workplace, cut down on illegal abortions, and put and end to no-fault divorce. Feminism leads to demographic disaster in every nation where it is implemented. You shouldn't possibly have the very people responsible for bringing new life into this world wasting their prime reproductive years chasing dead-end corporate jobs.
No, it's accepted immigration because the men who have run this country have usually been infused with a messianic complex that asserts that they have a God-given right to rule the continent, and, indeed, the world.
ReplyDeleteSo this is what they teach in Marxist history classes. Blah blah America evil, immigrants good, Rethuglicans DUMB.
In order to create a mighty Christian nation that could straddle the continent and dominate the globe, however, you needed people to grow food, build railroads, clean toilets, and get their guts blown out in foreign wars. These are not jobs that soft-palmed white folks from the salons of Europe have typically coveted. THIS is why the United States has tolerated immigration.
Up until the industrial era, the northern United States performed nearly 100% of its manual labor using Anglo-Saxon immigrants. WTF are you smoking? Who do you think cleared the old-growth forests east of the Mississippi and paved the Allegheny trail? Who do you think built the great cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia?
What's funny is that the southern United States (which enjoyed an abundant supply of cheap slave labor) was a chronic economic underperformer with millions of undermployed white farmers living in abject poverty. The last thing you need is a giant supply of cheap labor fueling unemployment and discontent among blue-collar Koreans.
I don't think I'd want to be a pensioner in Japan or Korea in fifty years, though.
Unlike western European countries, Korea doesn't have a runaway cradle-to-the-grave welfare state. Nice try. Also how much money do Muslim immigrants in Europe contribute in taxpayer funds? NEGATIVE euros, buddy. You simply don't get it. It's not an either/or scenario. Massive supplies of third world labor do NOT make a wealthy country more economically competitive. Period.
I hope that a dozen Mexicans were able to illegally enter the United States while I was reading the comments.
ReplyDeleteSo you openly support law-breaking and treason against the United States. What a credit you must be to yor native country.
Feminism leads to demographic disaster in every nation where it is implemented. You shouldn't possibly have the very people responsible for bringing new life into this world wasting their prime reproductive years chasing dead-end corporate jobs.
ReplyDeleteYou should totally use this as a pickup line, Mr. Kim. The women will just throw themselves to you.
Want to challenge my assertion with facts? It's true, buddy. My wife is so socially conservative she makes me look like Gloria Steinem by comparison.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because you gave so many facts about Korea's demographic problems?
ReplyDeleteMr, Kim:
ReplyDeletePerhaps my earlier message was a bit too strident. I think the fact that America has been governed by people with a God complex is probably a big reason why we've become such a powerful, prosperous country. It's also the reason why so many people hate us, too. On the balance, though, it probably been a good thing for Americans.
With that said, do you really think we could have achieved a vision like "manifest destiny" without mass immigration? At what point should the U.S. have begun to restrict immigration? What is your preferred immigration policy? Can you ground it in something other than a sense that white people (and maybe east Asians) are better than everyone else?
As for Korea, I understand that it's a different story. Like I said, I don't think Korea will ever tolerate mass immigration like the U.S. has. The fact that a country that prizes ethnic homogeneity as much as Korea does is even putting immigration on the table shows you the level of concern about the demographic and rural depopulation crises, though. You might not like immigration, Mr. Kim, but are you going to tell a kid growing up on a farm in Jeolla-do that he can't marry a foreign bride, even when he can't find a Korean one? A bunch of impoverished young men with no possibility of every finding a spouse- that's a recipe for societal harmony!
*** What is your preferred immigration policy? ***
ReplyDeleteOne that favours skilled migrants for the reasons outlined by
Jason Richwine
***I hope that a dozen Mexicans were able to illegally enter the United States while I was reading the comments.***
The problem here is that the Coleman Report in 1965 found a 2/3 standard deviation difference in psychometric test results. This was also what Philip L Roth found in his 2001 meta-analysis. The upshot is an achievement gap that leads to economic stagnation as you have a shortage of people going on to higher education. This inequality also leads to social tensions and demands for affirmative action.
You might not like immigration, Mr. Kim, but are you going to tell a kid growing up on a farm in Jeolla-do that he can't marry a foreign bride, even when he can't find a Korean one? A bunch of impoverished young men with no possibility of every finding a spouse- that's a recipe for societal harmony!
ReplyDeleteHey, have you any idea what the rural population of Korea is (as a percentage of the total)? Less than a drop of ink in the Han. I couldn't care less farmers in remote rural areas import brides from Vietnam or Uzbekistan. What our OP proposes is an entirely different matter -- the immigration of entire populations (women, men, and children) from the third world to the Republic of Korea. NEVER promote such a ludicrous idea unless you want a second demographic disaster on your hands.
Thank you, M, for talking some sense. Wish I could say the same for other commenters on this post.
ReplyDeleteSo you openly support law-breaking and treason against the United States. What a credit you must be to yor native country.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who knows anything knows that the typical Mexican cranium has a slope of 12.6 degrees, a mark of superior intellect compared to stodgy European and Asian stocks in California (such as yours).
When the Korean race, which has until recently amounted to nothing (Englesworth and Boswell), is allowed to freely live, work, and reproduce in California, the direct result is a marked decline in its quality of life.
Look, for example, at a school like Berkeley, which is now overrun by dull-witted Koreans like yourself. For example, everyone knows that Koreans have narrow eyes, making it very difficult to see. People who can't see have probably never even picked up a pencil, much less know how to use it.
I'm sure you're going to either ignore this post or not address the facts that I've presented.
Wow, we're measuring craniums now? (: This thread has really gone downhill. (And yes, I know you're meaning this tongue-in-cheek, Adeel).
ReplyDeleteHey, have you any idea what the rural population of Korea is (as a percentage of the total)? Less than a drop of ink in the Han.
ReplyDeleteThat's some hard-hitting, fact-based argument, Mr. Kim.
CIA Factbook lists the rural population at slightly over 9 million (18.8% of the population).
ReplyDeleteAnyone who knows anything knows that the typical Mexican cranium has a slope of 12.6 degrees, a mark of superior intellect compared to stodgy European and Asian stocks in California (such as yours).
ReplyDeleteWhen the Korean race, which has until recently amounted to nothing (Englesworth and Boswell), is allowed to freely live, work, and reproduce in California, the direct result is a marked decline in its quality of life.
Look, for example, at a school like Berkeley, which is now overrun by dull-witted Koreans like yourself. For example, everyone knows that Koreans have narrow eyes, making it very difficult to see. People who can't see have probably never even picked up a pencil, much less know how to use it.
I'm sure you're going to either ignore this post or not address the facts that I've presented.
It never fails to amuse me how liberals spew the most racist garbage imaginable against minorities who refuse to march lockstep with their disastrous policies. Ooooh I've huwwt somebody's poor poor feewings. And no, don't backpedal and claim you were only joking.
And no, don't backpedal and claim you were only joking.
ReplyDeleteOnly someone who seriously believes in that racist garbage would think Adeel was not joking.
CIA Factbook lists the rural population at slightly over 9 million (18.8% of the population).
ReplyDeleteThat largely depends on how you define "rural" vs. "urban". For example Canada defines "rural" as any area outside towns or cities with populations exceeding 10,000. Korea uses an entirely different system with overlapping hierarchies of "urbanness" (gu, eup, myeon, dong, etc.), leading to wildly different statistics (depending on your preferred source). I'm obviously referring only to unmarried bachelors in the sticks. Foreign brides are negligible percentage of the population, when you compare Korea's demographics with those of any other industrialized nation.
Only someone who seriously believes in that racist garbage would think Adeel was not joking.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it's a fact that Mexicans remain in poverty after four generations in the United States, or that Turks in Germany don't integrate, or that Muslims in Denmark and Sweden are responsible for the vast majority of violent and sexual crimes. You don't get to brush away facts that make you angry by calling them "racist", or responding with a massive wall of butthurt outrage as Adeel just did.
Do you have evidence that immigration (and we're only talking third world immigration, since educated people aren't clamoring for Korean visas) will benefit the ROK or do anything to help its demographic crisis? You don't. Keep calling me racist until the sky turns purple. It doesn't change any of the facts on the table.
Pro-tip: Imagine if Adeel had said the exact same thing, only substituting the word "nigger" for "Korean" and jabs at Korean facial features with jokes about thick lips and monkey faces. The Human Rights Commission in Canada would have issued a warrant for his arrest by now.
ReplyDeleteDo you have evidence that immigration ... will benefit the ROK or do anything to help its demographic crisis?
ReplyDeleteHere is the evidence -- math. As in, if we add more people into a country, the country's population decline will be slowed or reversed. WOW. Mind-blowing, isn't it?
You know, I'm fine with legal immigrants and all, but I dont' know if WE NEED MORE PEOPLE is kind of the best solution for Korea right now.
ReplyDeleteDid you hear about the screenwriter woman who died of starvation several days ago. Yes, it's 2010, she had a job, and she fucking STARVED TO DEATH. (a quick search on 최고은 will give you the facts.) Shocked and aghast doesn't even begin to describe the general sentiment of her death.
The current government is unbelievably stingy in its willingness to support the poor, as seen from some politicians outright REFUSING to provide free meals for poor schoolchildren because "we will pay more taxes, you don't want to pay more taxes, do you?" (okay, a bit more elaborate than that, but bottom line, they don't want to feed the poor.) It's ridiculous. I'm just wondering why there hasn't been a protest about this already.
Just because Korea has the "15th larget economy in the world omg aren't we awesome", doesn't mean the wealth is evenly distributed. Yes, capitalism and all, but tell me where else in a first or second world country would a SCREENWRITER starve to death. Or university students killing themselves because they can't pay back tuition (which is only a portion of the US tuitions, by the way), which is continually rising.
One issue at a time. While the population may be dropping, the govenrment does a shitty job supporting the supposedly meager population they already have. Now is kind of a bad timing for a call on immigrants. ONE ISSUE AT A TIME.
(sorry, I'm kind of in ragemode right now, and this is slightly off topic. But still, I believe the general Koreans are not really in the mood to accept more people, immigrants or no, when they themselves can't find jobs and even people with jobs aren't secured of their future.)
Seems that Korea's low birth rate is partly due to an overly successful government family planning campaign:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.prb.org/Articles/2010/koreafertility.aspx
Kudos to the governments of those years for realizing the country was headed for problems if high birthrates continued. But even if the goal were to reduce the population, a fertility rate of 1.15 is going to cause problems. Better to slow the rate of decline with more immigration and encouraging somewhat larger families.
Y's,
ReplyDeleteThe Korean himself is a ridiculously raging Korean liberal (his family is from Jeonju, what do you expect,) but the way 최고은's death is being manipulated by the liberals in Korea is just ridiculous. It's a sad event, but it's a one-off event. It is not a reflection of Korea any more than having someone dying from a lightning is a reflection of Korea.
Management of a country never allows for "one issue at a time." There are always multiple issues. Right now 7 out of 10 mid/small size companies in Korea have to hire less-than-qualified people because there are not enough applicants. Small companies of Korea -- particularly in industries where Koreans don't want to work -- are clamoring for more workers and immigration is the only answer there. Korea right now does not have enough people, and will have less and less going forward unless the current trend does not reverse.
> > Do you have evidence that immigration ... will benefit the ROK or do anything to help its demographic crisis?
ReplyDelete> Here is the evidence -- math. As in, if we add more people into a country, the country's population decline will be slowed or reversed. WOW. Mind-blowing, isn't it?
When people talk about demographic crises in the West or in East Asia, they tend to worry about the falling ratio of workers to retirees, not dropping absolute population levels. While I can certainly understand a preoccupation with the former, worrying about the latter seems…curious. Assuming it isn't continued indefinitely to the point that the country is invaded because there simply aren't enough people taking up space, why would a simple drop in population be a bad thing?
This is just orthodox Keynesian/neoliberal ideology: GDP and the nebulous term "growth" are all important.
ReplyDeleteSo if Germany adds 30 million low-income Turkish immigrants and raises its total GDP by 10% in the process, that's better than their population contracting by 10% and their GDP being lowered by 5%.
Really stupid, shallow analysis that shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.
In reality Germany is a crowded country, and a small population contraction would do more good than harm.
This applies to Korea as well.
ㅡㅡ,
ReplyDeleteAssuming it isn't continued indefinitely to the point that the country is invaded because there simply aren't enough people taking up space, why would a simple drop in population be a bad thing?
On what basis could you assume that population decline would not continue indefinitely, unless there is some change in policy? And the Korean is using the term "population" to denote "working population" at any rate.
brianmazimuth,
No one said anything about GDP. And this is about Korea, not Germany.
> > Assuming it isn't continued indefinitely to the point that the country is invaded because there simply aren't enough people taking up space, why would a simple drop in population be a bad thing?
ReplyDelete> On what basis could you assume that population decline would not continue indefinitely, unless there is some change in policy?
The population goes down, land becomes cheaper, housing becomes cheaper, people get married sooner and have more time to have multiple children before Mom hits her mid-30s and the risk of having autistic children increases.
Additionally, societal mores can and do change without legislation nudging things along. One possibility is that, at least in front of women, clawing your way to the top of the corporate ladder could be discussed as something much less fulfilling and useful than raising children.
(I don't see a shift like this happening anytime soon in the States, and I'd suspect the ROK would be similar, but…)
> And the Korean is using the term "population" to denote "working population" at any rate.
OK. I'm still puzzled why someone would worry about an absolute drop in working population.
A relative drop vs. retirees? That's obviously problematic, particularly in countries with taxpayer-funded pensions. Of course, lots of proposed solutions to this problem seem to be worse than the disease…
ㅡㅡ,
ReplyDeleteThe population goes down, land becomes cheaper, housing becomes cheaper ...
AND the economy goes to shit because there are not enough workers and people's equity value in their real estate and other assets tank. Your observation is correct in a vacuum (i.e. to make a point that population will eventually get back on track,) but that's not where Korea can afford to be.
OK. I'm still puzzled why someone would worry about an absolute drop in working population.
Less workers = less value generated = weaker economy. Particularly bad if Korea does not have enough young workers to fill the capacity as it exists today, because it then screws over the employers who cannot hire and then forced to go out of business -- which then creates a chain reaction that shrinks the entire economy. How is this puzzling?
No one said anything about GDP.
ReplyDeleteOf course it has to do with GDP.
The idea isn't that every single immigrant is going to be a personal nurse to retirees. It's that they're going to prop up GDP and maintain GDP "growth."
Like I said this is just orthodox Keynesian/neoliberal ideology: GDP and the nebulous term "growth" are all important and maintaining it by any means, such as by flooding your country with foreigners, is the highest priority.
And this is about Korea, not Germany.
So if Korea adds millions of low-income immigrants and raises its total GDP by 10% in the process, that's better than their population contracting by 10% and their GDP being lowered by 5%.
Really stupid, shallow analysis that shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.
In reality Korea is a crowded country, and a small population contraction would do more good than harm.
In reality Korea is a crowded country, and a small population contraction would do more good than harm.
ReplyDeleteListen, if you are anti-immigrant in your native country, wherever that might be, go some place on the Internet where people are talking about that country. We are talking about Korea here, and you are just giving bald assertions. If you know any facts about Korea, talk about facts. Like this fact:
Korea has one of the lowest birthrate in the world -- 1.15 child per couple. So Korea is replacing two people with 1.15 person, which is 42% decline. The actual decline rate will be smaller because the parents will live longer, but that only increases the burden on the working population to generate enough wealth to feed everyone. This is true even if there is no welfare state.
"Small population contraction?" Please, Korea needs to do fucking everything it can to achieve "small population contraction." At this rate, Korea is heading towards huge, disastrous population contraction.
At this rate, Korea is heading towards huge, disastrous population contraction.
ReplyDeleteThere have been "huge, disastrous population contractions" throughout history. They occurred periodically before the Industrial Revolution when the world was under Malthusian limits. Populations around the world from Europe to China regularly would drop 50% suddenly due to plague. They had no problem recovering through natural increase. When a population drops in a territory, family formation becomes cheaper and eventually you have population growth again.
Population contraction was probably crucial in breaking the Malthusian trap and enabling the Industrial Revolution.
Prior to 1790, new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations. In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the sons of the wealthy, who were less violent, more literate, and more productive. This process of "downward social mobility" eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRobotics and automation seems a more sensible alternative to mass immigration in dealing with the "birth-dearth" problem.
ReplyDeleteI heard that half of all marriages in the rural parts of South Korea are between Korean men and women from either China or various S.E. Asian countries (mostly Filipino).
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that immigration into Korea could be OK if it were limited to Chinese and various South East Asian peoples (e.g. Thai, Vietnamese, etc.) as there are similarities in culture between these countries.
I think immigration from outside the region (for example: South Asia, middle-east, etc.) would be a complete disaster for Korea.
Populations around the world from Europe to China regularly would drop 50% suddenly due to plague. They had no problem recovering through natural increase.
ReplyDeleteThe stupid myopia of this statement can stand alone.
Robotics and automation seems a more sensible alternative to mass immigration in dealing with the "birth-dearth" problem.
Same with this one.
Relying on immigration is the myopic response. Declines in population result in family formation becoming cheaper. Capital to population ratio rises and makes people better off.
ReplyDeleteJ.B.
ReplyDeleteYou might not like immigration, Mr. Kim, but are you going to tell a kid growing up on a farm in Jeolla-do that he can't marry a foreign bride, even when he can't find a Korean one?
Since S.Korea doesn't practice polygamy, what's happening to the excess young women that Korean farmers can't get to marry them?
As for Korea, I understand that it's a different story. Like I said, I don't think Korea will ever tolerate mass immigration like the U.S. has.
ReplyDeleteMass European immigration to the US has worked out well. All European groups have assimilated to somewhat varying degrees to an evolving American white culture, which in turns has been changed somewhat less but still quite a lot from it's early British and German blend.
Less mass immigration from NE Asia and more recently from among highly educated, skilled and high IQ slices of Indian caste society have also worked out quite well, though the pace of assimilation has been quite a lot less.
Mass immigration from the third would in the wake of the 1965 immigration law opening that up, particularly from heavily indio poor peasant slices of Mexico and central America, legal and illegal but winked at, has been terrible by and large. It's having worse and worse effects as this indo Hispanic part of our population has dismal graduation rates from high school unto the fourth generation and are a serious drain net of taxes paid, on government resources.
It's all kept in place by PC cries of "racism" whenever realist arguments from the evidence are made. For whatever combination of cultural and probably also biological reasons, not all groups are equally competitive in a modern technological society. We shouldn't keep letting lots of them who aren't in.