this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Over 4,000 schools shut down nationwide as student numbers plunge - The Korea Times (www.koreatimes.co.kr)
submitted 2 days ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world
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More than 4,000 elementary, middle and high schools across Korea have shut their doors as the country’s student population shrinks, new data shows.

According to the Ministry of Education’s latest figures, revealed on Sunday by Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, since 1980, 4,008 schools under 17 regional education offices nationwide have closed as of March this year. During the period, the number of enrolled students decreased from 9.9 million to 5.07 million.

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[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

With countries as homogenous as Japan and South Korea, I don't see racism having a statistically significant effect

Sexism is an issue in both cultures, but if that is a major factor why is Japan's fertility rate right between Spain and Finland?

Work culture in South Korea is certainly problematic, although I would again bring up Spain and Finland. I would also note Japan's work culture has had a massive shift over the past couple decades. The average Japanese worker works far fewer hours than the average American worker, and fewer than the OECD average. The '90s stereotypes about Japanese work culture are no longer true

Why would you want to have kids in South Korea‽

Here's a better question: Why would you want to have kids in North Korea?

The fertility rate in the north is more than double the South, but here's a more interesting fact: The birthrate in the North has been steadily declining for decades in almost lockstep with the South (note: there is a bit of wonkiness with a couple years in both data sources. Ignore the outliers), just at a slightly slower pace

I used this site to compare country pairs. With the Koreas you can see shared inflection points, such as in 1981, and a general trend line that looks the same

Then compare Russia and Ukraine. A much more volatile fertility rate. In 1986/1987, both countries share a local maximum, followed by a very sharp decline that continues until a local minimum right around 2000. We don't see this pattern with the others (although they all seem to follow the same trend)

Finally you have the US and Canada. Shared local maximum in 1990/1991, and again in 2008. Both closely follow each other in terms of fertility rate inflection points, but not at the some times as other pairs

Also of note: All the lowest fertility rate countries (South Korea, Taiwan, and China) are geographically near each other, with very similar primary industries - high-tech manufacturing

My hypothesis: The most important factor is environmental. Likely an air pollutant of some kind (maybe several kinds)

I don't have much evidence for this other than correlated fertility rates, but it's the only thing I can think of that fits the data

[–] Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Consider that there might not be a single unifying explaination and instead a number of compounding factors.

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Right, which is why I specified most important factor. I put it in the hypothesis to be more prominent, but perhaps I should have bolded it?

[–] Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 hours ago

Fair enough, I meant to subtilty disagree with you on the hypothesis that pollution is the leading factor and instead suggest that it may not be the leading factor, as I have been taught that socioeconomic factors like education do most of the explaining. But that is not what I wrote of course.

But I'm no expert on the matter so you might very well be right either way. The topic appears to be well studied though, but I haven't gotten around to reading any papers

[–] riskable@programming.dev 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Pollution would make sense if people were trying to have kids but couldn't. But they're not trying to have kids at all!

The more likely explanation—related to tech—is that we don't need kids anymore. For 99% of human history, children were necessary and not having kids was basically impossible (horny kids and no birth control). Kids were how humans kept alive/stable as well as expanded their power and influence! It's also how they got cared for in old age (though that's a much lesser concern because I seriously doubt humans of the past thought that hard about such things when living to 40 was considered amazing).

Now we have birrh control and—in Western societies—stability/safety is much more likely if you don't have kids. We've basically flipped the script on our evolution.

You want people to have kids? Flip the script back! Make anyone under 30 without kids pay a massive tax that pays for the kids of people who have them! Basically, make everyone who didn't have kids pay child support.

Make having kids the best damned economic decision anyone can make with diminishing returns after two (kids).

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

The more likely explanation—related to tech—is that we don’t need kids anymore

While that's certainly a contributing factor worldwide, I think the data contradicts it quite a bit. Japan, as an example, has the elderly heavily rely on their children as a retirement plan. Far more so than countries like the US that has a higher birthrate. Also include that while undeveloped countries like Kenya have some of the highest birthrates in the world, it's far less than similarly developed countries had 100 years ago

that’s a much lesser concern because I seriously doubt humans of the past thought that hard about such things when living to 40 was considered amazing

There is a bit of a misconception there with average life expectancy. Once you made it to adulthood, your life expectancy was far higher than would be expected from an average life expectancy of ~40. It was brought down heavily by all the young deaths

Now we have birrh control and—in Western societies—stability/safety is much more likely if you don’t have kids. We’ve basically flipped the script on our evolution.

I don't doubt this is a strong factor, but if it were the largest factor, wouldn't we expect countries with strong social programs like Norway to have much higher birth rates? I suppose those social programs would tend to correlate with birth control