Aufhebunga Bunga
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/420/ Fertility Freefall & Gender Strife in South Korea ft. Hyeyoung Woo
🕑 Added 2024-06-25 06:00:05 +0000 UTCOn baby bust, feminism and male resentment.
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Alex and regular contributor Leigh Phillips call up Korean sociologist Hyeyoung Woo, director of the Institute for Asian Studies at Portland State University, to talk about demography, family and gender in the Republic of Korea.
How urgent is the national debate on fertility?
What policy measures have been introduced to reverse the decline?
How is work organised and how do long hours contribute to the lack of family formation?
What has been the impact of feminist movements in Korea?
Is there a male backlash against feminism underway?
Why is there such a huge gender gap in voting behaviour among the young?
Links:
The Real Reason South Koreans Aren’t Having Babies, Anna Louie Sussman, The Atlantic
Foreign maids and no military service: South Korea criticised over ideas to boost birthrate, The Guardian
South Korea's incel election, S. Nathan Park, UnHerd
This demographic catastrophe will hit us all, Peter Franklin, UnHerd
Korean Families Yesterday and Today, eds. Hyunjoon Park & Hyeyoung Woo
Comments
Richard R
Yeah, I mean to even identify fertility as a problem is to assume a lot of things about society and the value of persons that may be suspect.
Christoph Iselin
Discussing the low fertility rate and overall ageing population in East Asian countries compared to Western countries without considering migration, or the lack thereof, seems like missing an important piece of the puzzle. However, perhaps this was intentional to avoid opening up that discussion. I was somewhat disappointed at the end when the only solution suggested was the kind of labour market and welfare state reforms that have already been implemented in various ways in Europe and even in South Korea itself. Without the desired outcome of significantly boosting fertility. Looking at the global fertility map by the Population Reference Bureau, one has to wonder if the solution to low fertility is not a combination of abject poverty, religious fundamentalism and patriarchy. The same seems to be true on a subnational level, if one is inclined to belive movement conservatives: "https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-conservative-fertility-advantage".
Vanessa Pupavac
Lauri Franzon's points above on more intensive parenting norms of today are important to understanding falling birth rates. Sociological studies of the last two decades have highlighted how working mothers as well as home mothers spend more time on child care activities than previous generations of home mothers with the shift from marriage to the child being the foundation of the family alongside the atomisation of broader family and community bonds and mutual responsibilities. Added dimension to intensive parenting with concern for education & career success as starting from birth - important dimension in South Korea. Ideas of parental determinism and infant determinism promoted both culturally and politically and being globalised are supporting intensive parenting becoming norms - see e.g. UNICEF thinking.
