What declining birth rates mean for the world | BBC News

This week, South Korea broke its own world record for the lowest birth rate in the world.

230,000 babies were born there last year, in a country with a population over 50 million.

But declining birth rates isn’t exclusive to South Korea, with the trend affecting numerous countries across the world – including the UK.

The BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins has been looking into this.

#SouthKorea #BirthRate #BBCNews

[john_doe_not_found]

The Baby Boom was engineered: Step 1: Create jobs that 1 parent can work, that cover the expenses of the entire family, and only require a High School education. Step 2: Create cheap starter homes than even 22 yr olds on their first job can afford.
That is it, those 2 steps created the Baby Boomers.

Today, we are in University accumulating debt for 4 - 8 years. Then we are paying outrageous rent while trying to save up for a first home. Nobody builds unprofitable starter homes anymore, and the average home price is so high as to require an intergenerational mortgage to finance. No kidding nobody is having kids. By the time you can afford kids financially, you can't have kids biologically.

[lme]

How are we supposed to start families when both men and women need at least 2 jobs just to not be homeless?

[martinhill]

Stressed animals don’t breed. Simple as that.

[DenzX_NJ]

Maybe it's because people can barely afford to live and feed themselves never mind a child aswell

[CrayCow]

Politicians acting like it's rocket science behind falling birth rate while they make bank profitting off the younger generations.

[maximumtrollmagic]

Government: We are going to make everything expensive
Also government: Strange, why is no one having kids?

[boogitybear]

I had a Vasectomy with no kids at age 27. 16 years later at age 43, I am so glad I did it! The World is stressful enough alone!

[ummadam]

It's very exhausting to work full-time outside the home and work full-time inside the home. This is the reality for a lot of women.

[RPenn-sipr]

Let's not forget the other reason why birthrates are declining, especially in Japan, South Korea and China, and that is the demands that employers put on their workers. You can't work people to death and expect them to have the time and energy to meet, date, marry and procreate. Who would want to bring a child into that climate?

[Smithens]

It means that this world gets to finally breathe again.

[johnsjourney]

Having a kid is like getting a job that you have to pay for instead of getting paid😂

[Marc-uwlw]

As a 38 year old British man with above average income, I don’t even feel like I could afford to raise a child with any degree of certainty. I haven’t even bought a house yet. Half of my friends are in the same position. If politicians really care about this issue, they’d fix the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, the economy and create some prosperity for their own citizens.

[sweetnaomi]

Corporations running out of wage slaves lol

[mlrvjkw]

want more babies? Make it financially viable

[namehere]

It is simple, greed is going to destroy humanity. Companies have stopped being loyal to their workers and customers. Their only goal is to make obscene profits while paying as little as possible and providing as little value as possible.

Keeping wages and benefits low. Buying up property and making housing unaffordable. Charging more for goods, while providing less to their customers.

Basically, people at the top put profits above humanity.

[BlackCatAlley]

We will adapt. The planet does not need so many people.

[sue-marisauer]

the sheep no longer want to reproduce, now the wolfs are angry LOL

[teddyanarchist]

No one wants to admit the real reason, we are no longer going to tolerate a difficult life. No one wants to STRUGGLE like everyone else in the past did

[evanduty]

Don't care, I'll never have kids. Then I'll be dead!😂

[tabishumaransari]

I never quite understood why people in the past used to have children. What was the incentive for all that toil?