“Notably, Chang’s report claims that biological females develop earlier than males do, so requiring girls to enter school at younger ages will create classes in which the two sexes are of more equal maturity as they age. This, the author posits, makes it more likely that those classmates will be attracted to each other, and marry and have children further down the line.”
(…)
“The report does not include evidence of any correlation between female students’ early enrollment and the success rate of their romantic relationships with men. The author also does not detail specific mechanisms by which his proposed policy would increase romantic attraction or birthrates.”
Actual answer: stop overworking your fucking population.
Won’t fix it, unless women want to stop working and stay at home, couples aren’t having more kids.
The solution is better population distribution, we’ve got overpopulated countries and countries where the birthrate isn’t high enough, no need to be a genius to get it.
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, how about you propose an actual realistic solution? It’s not 1850 anymore, people have goals other than making sure their family name lives on, no matter how easy you make it to have kids, more and more people just don’t want to have them because it’s socially acceptable and they don’t want the burden. What then? Let the population go down until the average age is over 70? There’s not a single birth policy that respects people’s freedom of choice that has achieved the objective of making the local population have its birthrate go back over 2.1, none.
How does that fix anything? You keep some parts of the world as human breeding mills and send them to the places where quality of work/life balance is so bad that they can’t have kids there either?
No, at some point the human population won’t be able to increase forever and as conditions are improving in poorer nations their birthrate is decreasing, I’m just pointing out the obvious, immigration is the solution to birthrate problems in some parts of the world and it’s the solution to overpopulation in other parts.
Heck, that’s exactly what multicultural countries are doing, it’s an issue with Asian countries that refuse to welcome people of other cultures.
the human population won’t be able to increase forever
Just gonna point out that this isn’t a problem.
I would argue it is a problem in a capitalist society where constant and eternal economic growth is necessary.
Then again, I would also argue that capitalism is the problem.
Correct. If the masses benefitted from industrialization rather than just the corporations, we could have a high quality of life for everyone, population growth be damned.
Never said it was, but it’s ridiculous to think it’s normal to let certain territories become empty out of nationalistic pride when people are suffering out of lack of resources in other territories.
Just to chime in. I was interested to randomly see in my feed the other day about how divorce between an American husband and Japanese wife, is at a lower rate than is between Japanese citizens.
I found it interesting that some cultures might be slightly more compatible with each other.
Anyway.
Not surprising, Americans living in Japan don’t tend to adopt the crazy work schedule that’s considered normal over there.
Raise the price of labor to the point that a working family can afford to have children at the standard they consider socially acceptable.
That would devalue investment accounts though, so it won’t happen until there is suffering on a scale not seen outside of major wars.
It won’t make people have enough kids to renew the population though otherwise birthrate would have been higher than it was in the 70s and 80s
In what country?
I’m talking about raising wages by 40-70% in the US.
Pipe dream, but if it happened the fertility rate would increase.
It’s the same story in all countries as they become developed, access to birth control and people having other more interesting shit to do means they don’t want to have kids, no matter how easy it is for them.
Finland: 1910 to 1930 4.7 to 2.4, 1950 to 1975 3.4 to 1.6, between 1.5 and 1.9 since then.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033730/fertility-rate-finland-1800-2020/
Look at Canada’s numbers the second the pill becomes available in the 60s (years before Reaganomics and at a time where people were still able to make it on a single income)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91f0015m/91f0015m2024001-eng.htm
UK, going down since the end of the industrial revolution
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033074/fertility-rate-uk-1800-2020/
People just don’t want enough kids to renew the population when they’re given the choice to do something else, it’s that simple.
Heck, increased income is associated with decreased fertility, it’s been known for decades at this point! How come the rich don’t have tons of kids? They don’t have to stress about money, right? How come poor people have more kids than the middle class? It’s not as if they have a surplus of cash or can afford to only have one parent working, right?
“We’ve got a birthrate crisis, maybe we should make it so a single income of someone working 40 hours a week can support a family of 4?”
“… Or we could explore literally every other option no matter how ridiculous and not do anything which would impact corporate profits even a single penny.”
I mean, after all, their problem is that they want more workers, so they can make more money. Letting people work less defeats the point.
It’s our fault for ever thing they would try to fix their problem by making their own problem worse.
Any sensible country will think about providing more incentives to women & couples to have more children and fix financial stressors that’s scaring people away from parenthood.
But no let’s try some nutjob theories 😂
And then you plan to force people to have kids too? Because otherwise it’s not going up.
Maybe try dealing with the massive reactionary anti-feminist incel movements that continue to victimize Korean women and girls daily? Just a thought.
Being this out of touch with reality is the problem with countries right now. The elites and politicians don’t know what’s going on because they are staying in power long past their usefulness.
Jumping through hoops after Hoops after hoops all to avoid admitting that the problem is capitalism. Classic
Capitalism? How about people just might not want kids enough for birthrate to be higher than 2?
Even North European countries with all their social programs and safety nets are way under 2.
Yeah but what about eco-anxiety which is another big reason to not wanting a child, and which is another effect of capitalism
Eco anxiety wasn’t a thing in the 70s and 80s, birthrate in rich nations was still under 2 for locals.
During the time period when the highest tax brackets fell from 70% to 50%… Down to now 37%.
Surely the people holding the most money paying near half the taxes they used to didn’t cause them to hold onto that money and drive more and more money up into their hands.
But I have it invested! So you can’t tax it yet, but I rolled it into a company so you can’t tax it or if you can you can’t tax me the same way!
For capitalism to work there has to be strong legal bindings to taxing the rich and subsidizing the poor to make sure they don’t get steamrolled by the system.
We having been pumping the breaks for years on those responsibilities, and more and more people in turn will get steamrolled and forced into starvation, homelessness. The mental health rates being low are directly tied to money in the middle and lower classes.
If we made a rule that for every 10 people who committed suicide do to scarcity that the richest person would be killed as well, we would run out of rich people not trying to promote subsidizing the poor pretty quick and trying to get the happiness of the people up instead of only worrying about profits.
That’s crazy obviously… But we need healthier motivation to make the world a better place. That isn’t a healthy one.
Look at historical data, birthrate just goes down as nations develop, it’s true everywhere no matter how taxed the rich are or how much fertility programs exist. The whole world isn’t the USA.
It’s almost like once you’ve stopped exerting religious and social pressure for every woman to have five kids and given access to birth control… The birth rate is going to drop.
And you know, that’s not a bad thing. Especially when the global birthrate is still higher than replacement, and the planet is finite.
Short term, East Asia should be less racist and take a few immigrants. Long term, we will need to figure out another way to keep the species going within the next few centuries.
Or simply accept that population will go down
Bingo and people here can’t wrap their head around that
It’s really easy, and I’ll explain it once again for the idiot governments in the back.
GIVE LARGE FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR HAVING CHILDREN AND RAISING FAMILIES.
This concludes my Ted Talk.
check the authors’ browser history
South Korea, are you ok?
It can’t possibly be the crushing weight of capitalism that is impacting young people’s lifestyles.
No. And neither is its education system.
This idea is a complete non-starter from a practical standpoint. Parents would complain about it either way. Either they wouldn’t want girls in school early or they’d want boys in school early, too.
It’s just much easier to treat children all the same.
Also, I personally think this plan would backfire. Girls graduating wouldn’t want to have to be adults earlier than boys, so they’d stay in school longer. And from what I’ve heard, the most reliable way to reduce birth rates is to educate women more.
I think everyone also knows how to ethically increase the birth rate. Make having children easy and affordable. Lots of government assistance. Make sure everybody has access to cheap or free childcare.
And there’s also the generational problems. Young adults can see the problems that the previous generations caused. You can’t go back in time to fix those. It will be expensive to change this sort of thing.
But quick fixes aren’t going to change the underlying problems.
The best way to increase birth rates in advanced countries is: Work life balance. Restore the traditional tax rates on the rich.
Not just work life balance, but also the cost of living. I can barely afford to take care of myself, so I’m completely disinclined to go and create a whole new person that will be absolutely dependent on me to provide for it for years. If people can afford to live reasonably comfortably and conditions give them confidence that conditions will remain stable for the next 10-20 years, I bet you’ll see them start having kids. When they’re worried they could be homeless next year if things worsen and their retirement plan is advocating for the right to end one’s life on their own terms, it shouldn’t be a shocker that people don’t want to add kids into the mix.
Also, perhaps decades of social stigma that said having a bunch of kids is something only poor, ignorant people do that represents a moral failing amongst the upstanding daughters of decent society is a bad thing to maintain when you want folks to keep cranking out more kids to feed into the meat grinder of the workforce.
Work life balance meaning one parent can stay home and raise the children without needing that second income to put food on the table.
If both parents work, the birth rate is always going to be lower, even with better work life balance.
Even with a parent at home people weren’t having enough kids to renew the population from the moment they had access to birth control methods.
For real man. We were so overworked when both of us had a full time job and no kids. Now we have one kid and one full time job. It is easier, hard in another way but somehow easier. Soon I’ll have to go back to work and I don’t even know how we will survive. We would love to have another kid but we either can’t afford it or we will go insane trying to afford it.
The other part is that stupid part time career pit. Ideally we would both work half jobs, but this will mean none of us can have a well paid job (per hour). But this also means that if my husband is laid off while I am at home, were fucked. Job security is a huge factor in work life balance.
But also, we are the “risky” ones. Most of my friends from school wanted to wait until they are “settled” financially. I don’t have one mom friend from school/university. They are either still settling in their careers or have given up on feeling settled and now have fertility issues.
Just for context, our kid arrived shortly before I turned 30. My friends are in their 30s and 40s. None of them is really “financially secure” since job security is just not a thing anymore.
Why has birthrate been lower than 2 in most developed countries starting in the 60s/70s even if there were social programs and people were able to afford to have a family with a single salary?
Maybe people who don’t have access to birth control have accidents and they need to deal with the consequences and in fact, when given the choice, people don’t have enough kids to renew the population? Crazy, right?
Really, there’s nothing specifically wrong with having a low birth rate. On a large scale, we have an overpopulation problem, and there’s not really a negative for each person having fewer children. Of course, smarter people will decide to have fewer kids. But eventually, it will all balance out.
Exactly my point in another message, there are people desperate to get out of their overpopulated country and countries where they need new people yet leaders can’t do the math.
“cheap or free childcare” No
“stay at home parent” Yes
Lower the work hours per week with same wage so both parents can be there for their children: inconceivable
This report imparts the image of a sweaty old man with steepled fingers tapping against each other panting heavily and grunting “little girls…develop faster…” And then letting that statement hang in the air, festering.
I would like to see a large scaled research on that statement, like I know women hit puberty sooner but does that really mean mentally they do as well. Is it more of how woman are rear vs men. I do wonder if we thought me about emotions/feelings and teaching them younger how to deal with emotions and to be more if that would even the gap. Does anyone have any good research I could parse?
According to my experience , girls start acting more imature when they hit puberty while boys acts more imature before they hit puberty in comparison to each other.
“My source is I made it the fuck up”
TBF, it’s possible this guy knows it’s crap, but had to deliver an original idea.
Is there something similar to national service in Korea? Just wondering how the guys keep up in the job market when the girls have a 2 year head start.
All South Korean male citizens are required to perform 18-21 months of military service.
All it really amounts to is a small headstart. It seems like a big gap initially because you’re comparing 0 years of experience vs 2 years of experience.
But across a 30 year career its a mere 7% difference. Frankly after 5 to 10 years of experience it becomes a lot less about how long you’ve worked, it instead becomes more about how you’ve spent those years and how that translates into benefitting the company. When a company is hiring for mid level and above, it doesn’t really matter to them that someone has 8 years vs 10 years. An extreme example would be someone with 5 years at Google vs someone who spent 10 years jumping between small start ups.
Wait, are you joking?
i think he mean how korean males are at a disadvantage because mandatory military service. singapore has something similar but the rift is not as extreme as korea. korean males really despise feminism movement both because of that and cultural hierarchy. moon channel discussed this topic in length if youre interested
The sience on development in male female is correct. It obviously won’t fix birth rates, like just fix your privatisation of housing. But I think it would be good to do regardless, maybe female 1 year sooner and male 1 year later or just male 2 year later. That way being in the same class they actually are able to study the same topics without any gender development impairments holding them back. Some studies are required.
