THE DEATH OF KOREA

by Froude Society

Everyone is now talking about Korea's super low fertility rate. I can work to explain a lot of it.

First is education. The national obsession with education (as a totem of achievement and dogmatic rubber stamp) is the number one reason for the low birth rate.

Young people delay their lives for years and years in pursuit of white collar employment. This starts in middle school where all the kids must put in all their time and effort to study for bullshit exams, filled with arbitrary questions. This continues, with more intensity, in high school. Little time if any is set aside to dating, personal development, practical skills, or even genuine academic interests. They are just brain dead, in chairs, poop socking multiple choice test practice from 8-19 years old.

All of this is underlined by 700-3000 USD a month of private, after-school education paid out of pocket by parents. As much as Koreans might save on healthcare and transportation, they are falling into massive consumer debt to prop up a viscous non-productive cycle of memorization. The cost of academies (private after school institutes) is mandatory for any potential children. They will lose the rat race if not given the opportunity. Therefore, only the upper middle class, earning in the top standard deviation, can afford this without a monstrous debt burden.

University is viewed as a time to rest after the hardships of high school. Therefore, personal academic interests are generally neglected. The degree is what is supposed to matter, and not what is learned. Professors pass students with low marks as long as they attend class.

Woah, fucked up! https://t.co/OdOlX9xseP

— Colin Liddell (@cbliddell) February 23, 2023

Almost everyone is expected to go to college. The most-needed blue collar jobs or the ones in trades, construction, and industry are ignored by a vast majority of the population. Many of the white collar jobs sought after are gatekept by difficult tertiary, postgraduate exams.,

Young people will stay at their parents home for years, economically unproductive, garnering zero experience, for a chance to have a "comfortable" job. They might have some part-time work but most of that will not be saved or will go to their parents pockets.

The workforce participation rate for men in their 20s and 30s is abysmal because of this competition for the few "comfortable" jobs available. Koreans want to open private medical practices or become government bureaucrats. Work for most SMEs is long, difficult and stressful.

Add to this the fact that men are required to engage in 20 months or so of conscription. This puts them behind women in the competition for careers, almost all the most desired jobs are also equally open to women. The draft also shatters any teenage relationships that were formed.

World wide, women tend not to marry men that earn less than them. This is highly likely with men living at their mom's house studying for the bar exam or the accountancy certification. Female tertiary education is the fertility killer but is encouraged without a second thought.

Unless the education system and social expectations around employment are drastically altered the birth rate will remain abysmal. There really isn't much of a political will to do something about the TFR either. In a recent speech about the birthrate, the cuckservative PM used it as an excuse to whine about pinko unions. For most people, it's not a pressing but a private matter as well. The boomers have 20 more years of pensions and the media outrage machine only ever briefly mentions it.

Follow @FroudeSociety