@BlueFrenzy
Hot take: the reason why people have less children is not "because magically people stop having children when they stop dying", but that our lifestyle is incompatible with having children. When women were incorportated in the work force, work hours should have been reduced proportionally. We are working more for less, we don't even have time for ourselves, much less for taking care of our children, and most of the basics like home and health has been sequestred for a small portion of the population to live of a chunk of other people's work. Get down to 4 hours of work for both parents to make a living and you will see how suddenly people start having children, because what's needed to nurture children is spending time.
@dnafnajo3928
In Korea, if you use parental leave you are excluded from promotion. Doesn’t matter if you’re the father or the mother. No clue why people don’t have kids, right?
@tatocientos
As a teenager, I always imagined that by age 30 I would've married, owned a house and had all the children I was going have. I turn 30 in 8 days. Haven't done any of those things. I've been with my partner for 7 & a half years. If it was up to us, we would've done all of it already, but neither of us see those things as achievable goals for our near future. Housing is way too expensive and wages are too low. Why have kids when we can't afford to feed them or house them? Much less have the time to raise them since we both work full time just to survive. And without all of that, marriage just seems so pointless... As much as we wish we could start a family, we have no incentive to do so
@Sanbaddy
I was raised in poverty, and it was hell. I’m still in poverty. Why would I want to put kids into such a life?
@Squintis
It’s simple. No time. No money. Not enough help. “It takes a village to raise a child” is a very old saying. People are very quick to forget.
@kaintshine
I am a father in America that was fired when I took a week off of work to nurse my wife post pregnancy. A real story to consider in your assumptions.
@BillPairaktaridis
The effect of an aging population is felt very strongly in Greece. For years our politicians have mostly catered to retirees and government employees and that's been enough to get them elected. But the burden of the system has been felt by the younger generation who, for the most part, have just left the country, leaving even fewer people to support the aging population. It's negative feedback loop at this point.
@zaxchannel2834
Some geniuses decided to make a system where humans in their most reproductive years go through the most stress in terms of education, finding a career that actually pays off, and independent living oh and we ditched the courtship/social system that worked in the past for modern dating which sucks
@mchauhan4
"Parenthood needs to stop being a career obstacle. Our cultures need to become more positive towards families." -- utterly utterly important message.
@aalhashmi90
Korean Government: Please have children 🙏 Korean Companies: Do it somewhere else. 😒
@thecreatornooj1328
I'm nearly 24 and my parents would have expected me to settle down and support a family by now had the world been an affordable place to live. But kids are expensive and at this present moment I literally have $24 in my bank accounts, and I get paid next week. Living on my own is impossible, I live with two roommates with similar incomes. This economy is nightmarish. I work 34 hours a week and I'm also a student. I'm bogged down trying to build a successful life in a world that seems hellbent on failing. Everyone in power is obsessed with hate and greed. Not to mention they're old enough that they'll die before they see the consequences of their actions. It feels pretty bleak.
@LarvaWorld89
I love this line "no one owes their country a child", very well said, love from China!
@kgc0609
As a Korean, one of the main reason for rapid fall of birth rate is that the idea of "If we cannot make our children happy, then it is better to not give birth to them" has become so common among the young people in Korea. It is of course an obligation for parents to try their best for their children's happy juvenile life, but the thing is that typicaly Koreans have large focus on economic well-being as a prerequisite for happy life, which not many could attain the general standards for wealthy life.
@BombaSoup
The worst part about this is that it is a vicious circle. The governments will prioritize the elderly majority putting even more strain on the young leading to even less kids and more old people. In my country it is already manifesting by the government spending huge amounts of money to make sure that the pensions keep rising and at the same time they make budget cuts for education and healthcare and do nothing to alleviate the soaring house and rent prices and they can't do anything else because freezing or lowering pensions is a political suicide in a majority old democratic nation. Edit: I am taking about the Czech Republic, but the issues are basically the same everywhere in the West
@mahwaboem
I'm a high school student in Korea, and I have midterm coming up in a few days. I spend more than half of my day studying, including school routines and hagwon every day, but I can't feel much value from the knowledge I've learned like that. That is nothing more than a tool for competition. I am tired of the fierce tests and competition that are repeated every semester. The fact that my child will have to go through this competition in the future is appalling. In fact, in a survey of class children in my school, most students, except a few, said they don't want to have children in the future, and one of the reasons was the fierce competition structure mentioned earlier. Everyone talks as if the world is over if they don't get to college, and they value only profits and stability while ignoring individual talents and aptitudes. Many foreign media, including this video, point to the problem of low birth rate in Korea and its causes, but the Korean political community is sitting on the sidelines of the worsening problem. How sad it is.
@ongDuyLinh-pj9ol
I'm 31, male and have had one child. It is extremely stressful to balance between being the breadwinner and contributing to raising my son. I feel missing out either way most of the time. I also don't have any intention of having more kids in the future because it would break my heart if I couldn't properly support their lives in the future. Living in Vietnam, I can't expect any help from the govt at all yet the state owned media keep pressuring young people to have more children, amidst steep hikes in housing, living cost and education, while behind are corruption, greed and incompetence like a second nature. I say let the course of nature and history decide our fate. Things will balance themsleves after the inevitable rockbottom. Live how you feel best for you and strive to be good. Bless you all 🙏
@TimeBucks
The lack of pay increase but massive spike in spending
@VarsVerum
Korea is basically the textbook example of what happens when living an ordinary, simple life is regarded as failure. I’m Korean but glad my parents didn’t put me through all that.
@zijunli9261
As a Chinese in my late 20s, married and working in the education industry, the odds against me and my wife having kids form an almost endless list. The disparity between our income and cost of decent education is obsurd. Let alone the arms race of education where kids are force fed with lectures and their time is saturated with test prep work to compete with others. A society that surpresses self-expression intrincically breeds more mental health risks for teenagers who need guidance, company and community to nurture their identity development and are especially vulnerable to mental health conditions. More over, a social system where teaching critical thinking skills will face punishment will likely poison the minds of children...so pesimistically speaking, the prospect of having a child does not sound very attractive
@kurzgesagt