Louise Perry on the geopolitical consequences of declining birth rates #southkorea #northkorea #news

[jburtonca]

One of the biggest problems in South Korea is that housing is so expensive that young people have to live with their parents into their 30s many times. Not exactly conducive to starting a family. That needs to be addressed immediately.

[SoSezTheDude]

While the low birth rate of SK is staggering, you can't discount the sheer number of deaths in NK. Listen to interviews with Yeomi Park, she talks about how people die every spring where there aren't enough BUGS to eat. That's gotta level those stats a bit.

[Muzzy]

I didn't know that North Korea releases population sensus to be scrutinized

[LacyJacy]

I suppose north korea shared their statistics and they're 100% accurate.

[nicholasfry]

Why are people coping so hard in the comments? 0.78 birth rate is catastrophic long term and there is no way of getting around that...

[NielsSHansen]

Is she not kind of ignoring an obvious detail?

North Korea is starving their population to death, if one family member escapes the country or disagrees with the government, the last 4 generations of your family is killed or worked to death in work camps.

I think this might influence the numbers a bit, plus raising kids while starving is maybe not as successful. Just reading the birth rates might be somewhat lacking in order to make that projection.

[rabgabro]

It's not just the size of the army. It's the size of the workforce and the burden of old age pension funds. At 0.78, there is one young person for every 2 and a bit pensioners.
And it will get worse.

[InsaneLaughter]

It’s not ‘boasting’. It’s ‘consequences of a poorly run government resulting in the cost of child rearing being a luxury hobby of the wealthy now.’

[happinesstan]

What I found interesting is that she's not yet sure how we will say the year 2100.

[dominiqueritchey]

She is wrong about the rate that a population turnover will happen. The life expectancy is said to be ten years shorter in N Korea, assuming that number is correct. They're regularly starving, it's not like you build a good army on that. And being disconnected from the rest of the world, they're standing nearly still in a breakneck speed technological change race, which S Korea is fully embracing. Richer societies have fewer children, it's a common pattern worldwide. It might cause geographical invasions eventually, but only through brute degradation. Literally the best way they could drag S Korea down would be to surrender to them and use up their resources by being the humanitarian crisis that they are.

[L-mo]

Military power doesn't depend solely on the number of soldiers on the ground... particularly modern military

[brunonaccarato]

People immigrate to South Korea. People escape North Korea.

[seansean]

Technology is a key here. If you have better, more expensive equipment then that can allow you to defend yourself with less people. Using the US as an example, the US is known for having the strongest military but it has 4 times less population than China and India. Israel is another good example.

[ThinkRedActGreen]

So basically the ratio is that we're going to have 2 skeletons from North Korea fighting against 1 jacked South Korean... I'm still putting my money on South Korea 😂

[iamanamerican]

Yep, I'm pretty sure she isn't taking some variables in account....

[Quagthistle]

Developed nations tend to have lower birth rates because of higher costs of living. When supply and demand determines the price of essentials like housing, birth rate will end up declining because the kind of people who are needed to grow an economy (young parents) are priced out of essentials.

[JohnBuckmaster-swwm]

There will never be a land invasion from North Korea… This woman connects a dot where there’s no dot… North Korea’s military is not only poorly trained, they are without any… And I stress any modern weaponry… They would be slaughtered like pigs, and mowed down with ease. South Korea has created, according to many, the greatest tent, platform, and mechanized weaponry in the world… While North Korea has 1950s era tanks, artillery and vehicles.

[sydneykendall]

Where are they getting the statistics for the birth and death rates of North Korea? Are they relying on the say so of the North Korean government?

[patrickmcmanus]

I really think this all works out. The death rate declines, the birth rate declines. The death rate increases, the birth rate increases.
What she omitted was comparing the death rates for North and South Korea.

[nastiaandrej]

she speaks from the hypothetical point that people in North and South Korea have the same life quality, medical care and life expectancy. They don't and that's the main fallacy in her statement.