Trendspotting: South Korea's Total Fertility Rate Falls Below One

NEWSWIRE: 9/9/19

• According to the latest government data, South Korea’s fertility rate in 2018 fell to a record low: 0.98. This marks not only a new low for the country but also for the developed world, and comes despite officials’ best efforts to boost births with billions of dollars in incentives like subsidized child care. (Financial Times)
• NH: This is a stunning historic landmark. As far back as demographers have data or reasonable estimates, we have never before seen the total fertility rate (TFR) of an entire nation (not just a city-state) drop below one--except perhaps at a time of extreme emergency such as war. (See charts below.)
• What's going on? Let's explain in terms of three sets of drivers. First, there are the broad "modernity" drivers pushing all of the developing and developed world toward lower fertility. Second, there are the particular "Confucian" drivers pushing East Asia even faster toward lower fertility. Third, there are the specific ultra-modern and ultra-Confucian characteristics of South Korea which put this nation at the extreme vanguard of the anti-fertility trend.
• We've often discussed the broad modernity drivers, so there's no need for me to belabor them here. They include greater affluence, growing urbanization, rising educational levels (especially for women), rising individualism and free-agency (i.e., markets), and growing secularism--that is, declining religiosity. (See "Trendspotting: 8/26/19")
• Now let's go down this checklist for South Korea. Yes, it's affluent--with PPP GDP per capita higher than most of southern Europe and fully 93% of Japan and 91% of the UK and France. South Koreans are super educated. In fact, if you just look at 25-to-34 year-olds, they have the highest rates of secondary and post-secondary school attainment of any nation on earth. (70% have college degrees, versus just 48% in the United States). Not coincidentally, the well-informed South Koreans enjoy the fastest Internet service in the world. Urbanization? Check here as well. Seoul, the mega-capital, is home to 1/5 of the entire South Korean population--and at least 1/4 of South Korean young adults. Consider, by contrast, the only other country in which one city dominates a nation: In the UK, London accounts for only 13% of the population.
• Now let's turn to Confucianism, which has worked as an additional fertility suppressor across East Asia. Why? Well, for starters, its society-as-family perspective encourages a binary either-or perception of gender roles, making it difficult for women to mix employment and child-raising. As we have discussed elsewhere, the social freedom to assume flexible work-life roles is highly correlated with fertility, by country. (See "Trendspotting: 8/19/19.") South Korean women still face rigidly patriarchal hiring practices by large corporations that frown on working moms.
• At the same time, the ideal "Confucian family" puts huge extra parenting responsibilities on the mother--not just to care for her husband and children, but also for her husband's in-laws. (See my discussion in "Trendspotting: 8/19/19.") Faced with drastically reduced career opportunities plus endless and onerous family duties, many East Asian women are deciding to focus solely on their careers, enjoy their freedom, and remain unmarried and childless.
• Now let's add one more "Confucian" element: An intense and competitive fixation on achievement and education. For an adult, a hyper-competitive Asian career means little time left over for other pursuits, like family. And even more importantly, for children (if an adult chooses to have them), it means obsessive and expensive attention to the children's' education. Most parents don't have the time or money to provide this attention to two or three children. Many potential parents figure that even one child is too much.
• South Korea, in many ways, remains the most "Confucian" of East Asian societies--partly due to the historical Chosŏn legacy of emulating Chinese culture and partly due to the country's extremely rapid pace of modernization. Unlike Japan or Taiwan, South Korea was an utterly destitute society of peasants as recently as the 1960s. Many Koreans who came of age in that era are running companies today. And unlike China, South Korea experienced no "cultural revolution" against Confucian traditions.
• As a result, patriarchal, hierarchical, and gender-binary attitudes remain strong. South Korea's gender wage gap is the highest in the OECD. And with the advent of a competitive meritocracy in employment, especially after the 1997 crash, the zero-sum drive by each family to spend more money to educate its own children better than its neighbors' has become a self-defeating catastrophe--since there are only a fixed number of spots at South Korea's top three universities ("SKY"). Three-quarters of South Korean parents pay for private hagwons or "cram schools," which consume over 10% of household income (over 20% in Seoul). The drive to perfect kids' highly valued English-language skills is so great that roughly 40,000 South Korean schoolchildren live abroad with their moms while their fathers work in Korea. Spending on children's education, by province, is directly and negative correlated with family size.
• Understandably, a rapidly growing share of South Korean young women are simply opting out. By 2015, 77% of women age 25-to-29 were unmarried; and 54% of women aged 30-to-34. Mean age at birth, the world's highest, is hitting 33. Aversion to marriage is directly pushing down birth rates since births outside of marriage are still both stigmatized and rare.
• More than in other East Asian countries, this attitude shift is intensely generational. In a survey of East Asian households I helped to conduct a few years ago, we found that East Asians were much more likely than westerners to hold negative opinions about old people--and that South Korean young adults were the most negative of any East Asian country. As for elder South Koreans, who have the highest suicide rate in the world, they are more likely than elders in other countries to agree with those negative opinions.
• Japan is widely regarded as the vanguard of an aging world. And indeed it is, as measured by average age or population decline. But that's because the TFR in Japan fell beneath replacement long before it did in other societies. The aging trend in South Korea started much later. But it is proceeding much more rapidly. By 2020 or 2021, South Korea's population will begin to decline. By 2050, its elderly population share will likely exceed that of Japan. As in Japan, South Korea will be compelled to legislate further benefit cuts in its pay-as-you-go public pension. Yes, the government will do its best to bribe women into having more children. But no policy is likely to be effective against today's powerful riptide of cultural attitudes. Indeed, nothing may work until a whole new generation attains leadership age.

• Millennials and Xers are far less likely to consider patriotism, belief in God, and having kids “very important” than younger generations did two decades ago. In 1998, strong majorities of Americans of all ages ranked these three values highly; today, the responses of those under 50 contrast starkly with those of their elders. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: The survey is interesting, but it is badly explained in this story. The author fails to distinguish between lifecycle differences (answers which differ due to age, regardless of when the question is asked) and generational differences (answers which differ by birth cohort, holding age constant). Since the answers given in earlier years are not broken down by age, it's impossible to distinguish between the two in this data set.
• Even so, the overall period differences are illuminating. (See raw survey responses here.) Over the last 21 years--from 1998 to 2019--those who say "patriotism" is very important has dropped 9 pp (from 70% to 61%). But those who similarly esteem "community involvement" has risen even more, by 15 pp (from 47% to 62%). Since these values at least partially overlap, it's hard to see a dramatic shift here. On religion, however, there has been a sizable decline of 14 pp (from 62% to 48%) See "Trendspotting: 4/22/19."
• What's been going up? Hard work, up 6 pp (from 83% to 89%). And money, up 10 pp (from 31% to 41%). And all that hard work and money is likely to come at the expense of... raising children. "Having children" lost a whopping 16 pp (from 59% to 43%).
• Although generational effects are not directly measured in this survey, we can easily infer them. Over the last 21 years, we have lost a G.I. Generation of elders and we have added a Millennial Generation of young adults. So "patriotism" transmutes into "community involvement." Organized religion clearly loses supporters. And the hard-working pursuit of achievement and money eclipses--for now at least--interest in having kids.
• Since 2009, pet euthanasia rates at animal shelters in major U.S. cities have fallen more than 75%. As cultural attitudes toward pets have softened, rescue adoptions have increased and no-kill approaches to reducing the stray population (most notably, spaying and neutering) have gained ground. (The New York Times)
• NH: The rapid decline in euthanasia rates coincides with a rapid and profound shift in attitudes toward pets. Americans increasingly see them as family members rather than animals. On the one hand, this shift means that the public is less tolerant of the killing of strays by shelters and is more supportive of well-funded "no-kill" campaigns to try to relocate stray with families who may want to "adopt" them. On the other hand, it also means that families are adopting more dogs and cats than ever before--and are prioritizing the adoption of strays.
• Those strays, once adopted, often then become the lavish object of spending by their human "parents." Small wonder that, a couple of years ago, we bullishly called pet care a long-term growth industry with terrific economic, demographic, and generational tailwinds. 
• There is another more controversial driver behind declining euthanasia rates. And that is the rise of spay-neuter programs. Vets did not perfect an efficient means for spay-neutering animals until the 1970s. But once perfected, shelters began applying it universally to the strays they pick up. And most owners today regard spay-neutering as a badge of responsible ownership. Bill Barker used to advocate it nightly as part of his famous sign-off.
• So why is it controversial? Mainly, argue critics, because it's cruel and unnecessary. It's unnecessary, they say, because many other countries (for example, in Europe) have no stray problem despite the fact that spay-neutering is rarely practiced there. All that's required is for owners to keep track of their pets.
• As for cruelty, well, some studies indicate that animals that are spay-neutered, especially at a very early age, undergo endocrine changes that result in much higher rates of cancer and chronic disease later in life (such as hip dysplasia in golden retrievers). Also, the vigorous spay-neutering of mongrels--combined with the unlimited breeding of purebreds--may over time lead to unhealthy genetic inbreeding in the animal population, further impairing their health.
• Spay-neutering used to be considered the responsible thing to do by every owner who loves their pets. Today, some disagree--though they too disagree in name of loving their pets.

• Cancer has overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of death in high-income countries. Though heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, new research indicates that this is likely to change within a few decades as successful treatments continue to bring down its mortality rates. (The Lancet)
• NH: Over time, higher living standards have a much more significant impact on lowering the death rate from heart disease than from cancer. That is at least one way to summarize the findings of this Lancet study.
• One big reason this happens is that people in high-income societies have greater access to health providers (doctors and hospitals) who can offer them drugs and other interventions--which, it turns out, are much more effective for heart disease than for cancer. For heart disease, the affluent can take a variety of antihypertensive and statin medications; they can enjoy fresher food and better diets; they can benefit from beta-blockers and "revascularization" (bypass surgery); and more. For cancer, even the highest-tech advances don't provide nearly the same advantage on a population-wide basis.
• The high-income countries in this study (Sweden, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Poland, and Turkey) did not include the United States. In the U.S., although heart disease deaths have been dropping faster than cancer deaths, the age-adjusted mortality rate for cardiovascular disease remains a bit higher than for cancer. And, as we recently reported, it is likely to remain higher for the foreseeable future. (See "Trendspotting: 8/12/19.")
• The impact of lifestyle differences between poor and affluent countries was mixed. According to a standard measure of lifestyle risks for heart health (the so-called INTERHEART risk score), affluent countries actually score slightly worse than middle- and low-income countries. But the mix of risks is very different. Low-income countries have less obesity, diabetes, alcohol, or stress. But they have higher rates of tobacco use and low physical activity. Almost certainly, they are more likely to have untreated hypertension. And they have lower rates of educational attainment. (Education, surprisingly, shows up as positively correlated with heart health even after holding other variables constant.)
• Death rates are higher in low-income countries. But in high-income countries, as a share of all deaths, cancer now dominates as a cause of mortality. In low-income countries, by contrast, heart disease is a much bigger killer, relatively speaking--along with injury, infection, and other age-old hazards. See chart below.

• Andrew Luck’s early retirement sends a bigger message about how Millennial NFL players are approaching their careers with newfound caution. Fewer young players are willing to put their health on the line and soldier through the pain for a handsome paycheck. (The New York Times)
• NH: After Luck's announcement, every manner of aspersion was cast at the masculinity of Millennials--or lack thereof. Most were cast by Gen-Xers. This is from retired QB Steve Beuerlein: “I had 19 surgeries as a player. 8 over 2 years. It sucks! But he owes it to his team.” Or this from sports talk show host Doug Gottlieb: "Retiring cause rehabbing is ‘too hard’ is the most millennial thing ever... What does it say about Alex Smith trying to come back from a leg injury where he nearly lost a limb. Different mentality.” Or this from ESPN sports jockey Dan Dakich: "I have family working in steel mills . . . cops . . . teachers making far less. And this guy is ‘tired.' My backside.”
• Then again, you have a rising generation of players who have longer time horizons, who are more safety conscious, and who are better paid early in their careers. How is it rational for a guy who has made millions playing tackle football for over a decade to keep playing in pain, with little hope of better performance and with a rising risk of permanent injury? This was a bottom-line business decision. Even the most hard-boiled Xer should understand that.
• Linebacker Chris Borland set the tone for this new generational sensibility back in 2005. He was a top draft pick. He had one stellar year for the San Francisco 49ers. And then he quit, forfeiting most of his money--citing his growing fear of the long-term impact of concussions.
• With half of all parents not wanting their kids to play tackle football for fear of injury, the NFL knows what it's up against. According to Jeff Miller, NFL senior vice president for health and safety policy: “We are seeing a growing culture of safety. Everyone involved in the game knows that there is more work to do, and player safety will continue to be our top priority.”
• Free speech is declining around the world, with both democracies and dictatorships becoming more repressive over the past decade. It’s a trend with support from both the right and the left, who have increasingly sought to suppress speech for diverging political ends. (The Economist)
• NH: Where authoritarian populism triumphs, free speech suffers. Where democracies become hopelessly polarized, free speech also suffers. In most of the world, it seems, free speech is in retreat. This superb Economist essay outlines the breadth and extent of this retreat. (See chart below.)
• In autocratic regimes, censorship is enforced by any number of means. Many governments simply pull the plug on the Internet throughout the country or in one region. This happened in 25 nations last year. Or they can have reporters killed. This was the fate of 53 journalists last year (including Jamal Khashoggi, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post). Or they can have them jailed: 250 now sit in prison, including at least 68 in Turkey, 47 in China, 25 in Egypt, and 16 in Eritrea. Many more are secretly detained. And vastly more are beaten or threatened by violence.
• Even more effective than violence, as a day-to-day strategy, is regulation, bribery, co-option, and professional intimidation. In China, censorship is enforced by invoking "public safety." In much of Eastern Europe, critics are silenced by edicts against "hate speech." With news media outfits starved for ad dollars, moreover, many governments find it easy to buy them out or persuade friendly tycoons to buy them out. Russia and China, going further, fund their own global media outlets that outspend private media outlets and work to undermine liberal democracies everywhere.
• And what about those liberal democracies? Free speech is in peril there as well. Consider the United States. Many on the right back President Trump, who says that "I don’t think that the mainstream media is free speech... because it’s so crooked." And on the left, college campuses allow SJWs to shut down non-progressive viewpoints with violence or threats of violence.
• The reason we defend free speech used to be obvious--in order to preserve democracy. But the question must be asked: Is democracy itself worth preserving? For the rising generation of global Millennials, maybe not. 

• Wealthy Boomers are ready to sell their multimillion-dollar ranches—but where they saw majestic vistas, their kids see endless upkeep and high costs. Dozens of luxury ranches in Colorado are sitting on the market as sellers try to woo a new group of potential buyers: conservationists. (The Wall Street Journal)
• NH: Boomers have had a life-long love affair with the wilderness. And that love affair has grown old with them. Back in the 1970s, young adults surged into rural counties--and most people you met on national park trails were in their 20s and 30s. Today, after an inescapable sojourn into cities and suburbs, Boomers are moving back to scenic rural areas--and most of the people you meet on national park trails now are in their 60s and 70s. See "Trendspotting: 4/22/19" and "Trendspotting: 10/8/18."
• That poses a problem to wealthy Boomers who own huge spreads in the great outdoors. People their own age would love to visit them. But not to own or run them. And their kids? No way. Most can't afford it. And the rest don't see the point. Even if they could, they would rather hang out in someplace more busy, urban, populated, plugged-in, and multi-ethnic. Lil Nas X may cut a mock-western hit about "Old Town Road," but omg could you ever imagine him actually living there?
• At a time when employees are putting in more hours than ever, medicine has emerged as an unlikely family-friendly profession. A key factor has been the shift from private to group practices, which has improved doctors’ work-life balance by offering more predictable schedules. (The New York Times)
• NH: Quick question: Why do women who become doctors have more children--and are less likely to leave their profession after having children--than women who become lawyers or executives? The short answer is workplace flexibility. All of these professions normally require a long expensive education followed by long hours on the job. And, in the old days, all of them hugely penalized women who "dropped out" of the 80-hour workweek career path.
• But over the last twenty years, medicine has changed. As private practices have been absorbed by hospitals and large group practices, a doctor no longer has to be a self-sufficient workaholic. In a growing number of fields, especially those favored by women (see chart below), doctors work in teams and one can fill in for the other. Lawyers and (especially) business managers have not made this transition--not yet, at least.
• There's a bigger lesson in all this: Across societies, work-life flexibility is a key driver of national fertility. The more easily women can combine family with work, the higher the fertility rate. See my discussion in "Trendspotting: 8/19/19."

• Maine is struggling to find enough young workers to care for its aging population. Staffing shortages have forced dozens of nursing homes to close and doctors’ waiting lists to grow dramatically—a foreboding sign of a nationwide eldercare crisis that’s just around the corner. (The Washington Post)
• NH: The difficult truth about an aging society is that, as the elderly grow as a share of the population, the earnings of workers who serve the elderly will be steadily bid up. You will notice this first in states with relatively few young adults. (Maine has the highest average age of any state: 44.7.) Those paying privately will have to pay more. And those relying on state-paid service may find that such services are simply unavailable.
• Elders who have their own grown family members nearby will be at an inevitable advantage. With Social Security, we have effectively socialized a cash safety net for America's seniors. But the goal of socializing a "care" safety net for America's seniors may be unattainable. It will certainly become ever-less affordable with each passing decade.
• Views of higher education are increasingly diverging along partisan lines, with Republicans becoming much more negative about the effect of colleges and universities on the nation. Both the Republicans and Democrats who say colleges are on the wrong track say high tuition costs are a problem, but Republicans are just as likely to cite political and ideological reasons for their discontent. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: There's much about America's colleges that both the right and the left agree on. They both agree that colleges provide the skills and credentials required to succeed in today's economy. They both agree that college tuitions are way too expensive. And they both express declining trust in colleges over time.
  
• Now for the disagreement. The declining trust in colleges is vastly steeper on the right than on the left. Over just the last three years, trust among Democrats has fallen 6 pp (from 68% to 62%). Trust among Republicans has fallen 17 pp (from 56% to 39%). Why? Almost entirely, this emerging polarization centers on the perception that colleges have become "ideological," that professors are "bringing their politics into the classroom," and that the students are overly "sheltered from dissenting viewpoints."
• In another national survey by Boston-based WGBH News, Americans were asked if "politics on college campuses lean toward one particular viewpoint." Some 72% of Republicans agreed, and even 48% of Democrats agreed. The survey also shows that most Americans think it's important to have a diverse student body in terms of race and ethnicity. But a recent Pew survey also shows that most Americans insist, by an even greater margin, that race and ethnicity not be used as a factor in admissions.

DID YOU KNOW?

I Like That Old-Time Rock ’n’ Roll. Walk into a music store, and you’ll see shelves filled with the latest releases. But fire up a streaming service, and you’re just as likely to see hits from the ‘70s. “Catalog” works—songs released more than 18 months ago—are the biggest growth area in music streaming, according to The Wall Street Journal. They now make up about two-thirds of total streams, and include both older hits from current acts and songs from veteran artists. Over the past year, Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Music have created “head of catalog” executive roles to help promote older music and attract more subscribers. Before, catalog promotion meant releasing boxed sets for die-hard fans only. Now, buoyed by broad interest from listeners of all ages, it often takes the form of cross-generational collaborations. For the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin, Spotify hit marketing gold when it invited contemporary artists like Jack White and The Black Keys to create playlists of their favorite songs.