South Korea's low fertility won't slow down housing prices in time (www.stoppopulationdecline.org)

submitted 1 year ago by tintory@lemm.ee to c/urbanism@hexbear.net

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[-] boardbyboard@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Anyone have some kind of even handed analysis on hand that explains whether or not all this panic for decades about birth/fertility rates has legs? I only ever give it a passing glance and i accidentally clicked a video the other day and it was some rightwing guy talking about some retvrn shit

I asked bc like the article states: the real problem is the price of housing. It seems to me that falling birth rates are a symptom of capitalism's decline. However, many article writers seem to dance around that

[-] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

Highly developed capitalist countries tend to have low birth rates because people are alienated and atomized and having children is an untenable burden for workers who are already working themselves to exhaustion and barely getting by.

[-] LeBron@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

I think some people underestimate how obscenely expensive raising a baby is, borderline impossible without a strong support system

[-] boardbyboard@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

agree and i appreciate it, I think I was just getting too internet brained and thinking how often the issue is presented disingenuously in a vacuum or tied to a loss of 'cultural values' or w/e

[-] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Yes of course it is an issue. When TFR reaches 1 for example, the next generation becomes half the size as the last one. You can't have a healthy economy with that. There's also every indication that more and more countries are reaching low fertility levels, and there's no precedent that it will reverse. Social democratic childcare policies haven't succeeded. Personally I think only socialism can achieve sustainable population levels now.

[-] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

I think it's supremacists projecting their WHITE REPLACEMENT fears onto others

[-] tintory@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

I disagree for the most part.

I been reading these guys for a bit and they seem to be hostile toward austerity and NIMBYism so far

[-] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

To be honest, I can't see anybody who isn't way too worried about phenotypes and skull shapes genuinely caring about birthrates, regardless of what else they write.

[-] tintory@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Wait what?

I read nothing in this site talking about that right wing nonsense

Hell, they attack the Tories for cutting spending

[-] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

I'm saying that anybody who thinks "declining birth rates" merits writing articles or making social media posts, they're likely also racists.

[-] jack@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago

There are pretty straightforward, non-racist, economic reasons you be concerned about it. It's an issue China is grappling with very directly, and not because they're neo-Nazis.

[-] nat_turner_overdrive@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

Aren't they increasing automation in response? China also allowed provinces with larger minority populations to have more children than predominantly Han provinces, didn't they? I think they get a pass.

[-] tintory@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Maybe? I haven’t seen anything to say that he is racist, or even share any sympathy for traditional right wing policy

[-] tintory@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

I don’t know

All I known are examples of Japan’s economic stagnation and the rise as France as the economic engine of Western Europe (highest TFR)

[-] Twink@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

Your wealth or lack there of has no meaning unless there's people to perpetrate the capitalist cycle. Less people means less people without established capital. If your new people amount is lower than the dying out people amount you get empty housing which you therefore cannot pretend to have more value than it does. Furthermore, aging capitalists need a work force to take care of them. Humans live longer and longer, especially the rich. Without surplus of workforce it's hard to staff these positions. And so on and so on.

[-] tintory@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Makes sense, a lot of what’s written by the authors is hostility against austerity and they promote YIMBISM and more social spending

[-] enkifish@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

This should be a non-issue, or even an opportunity, but it's a complete crisis for capitalism. As a society we need rapidly decrease the carbon emissions from our buildings. This means electrification of utilities, but more importantly it means reducing the heating/cooling load of buildings. This would require a massive building campaign of new homes, depressing the price of existing homes across the board. Then once population demographics have shifted enough to begin depressing the price of homes on their own, begin systematically destroying the older housing stock.