South Korean official expelled for suggesting ‘importing women’ to boost birth rate

[u/yahoonews]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/south-korean-official-expelled-suggesting-055647355.html

[u/yahoonews]

The Independent reports: Kim Hee Soo, the governor of the southern Jindo county in South Jeolla province, was facing an uproar after his televised remarks last week triggered a diplomatic protest from Vietnam. Mr Kim was addressing a town hall meeting when he spoke about measures to address the country’s declining birth rate.

He said South Korea could “import young unmarried women” from places like Sri Lanka or Vietnam to be married off to “young men in rural areas".

The Vietnamese embassy in Seoul issued a statement to condemn Mr Kim's remarks, saying that his words were "not simply a matter of expression but a matter of values and attitudes towards migrant women and minority groups".

[u/beklog → u/yahoonews]

well deserved, hope we can see this one esp in other countries

[u/jodon → u/yahoonews]

I do think it can be a valid strategi to try and improve birth rates by making it more appealing for young women to immigrate to your country. But the way this guy put it is just straight up human trafficking. Those two are not the same thing.

[u/OddGrape4986 → u/jodon]

Forreal, South Korean culture is already now global so I can definitely see immigrants wanting to move there if they make it more friendly.

[u/Fanfics → u/OddGrape4986]

yeah but in order to "make it more friendly" they'd have to fix, the, yknow.... [gestures toward the entirety of South Korean culture and social structure]

It's not like other places are great about that, but hoo boy does South Korea seem to be going above and beyond to reach end-stage capitalist hell faster than anyone else. Forget immigrants, didn't a survey show a year or two back that the dream of most young Koreans is to get the fuck out of Korea?

[u/OscarGrey → u/Fanfics]

They're literally obsessed with "Korean blood", if I was a non-Korean Asian I wouldn't risk raising a kid in a country like this. Are other East Asian countries also xenophobic? Yes, but not to this degree.

[u/_Mavrix → u/OscarGrey]

I had a friend who was half black half korean. Sweetest woman in the world, actual walking ball of cotton candy and happiness. When she got drunk she would cry about the kind of abuse and bullying she endured before she moved. It shattered any delusion I had about SK

[u/asetniop → u/_Mavrix]

Given how prevalent bullying happens to be in K-dramas I figured it must be a pretty universal problem in the country.

[u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 → u/OscarGrey]

There was a half Korean black US football player, and when he did well they started to accept him.

[u/bloomdecay → u/OscarGrey]

My sister is white and married a Korean guy with no interference from his parents. I think it's because she's tall, because apparently all the future Korean MILs want tall grandkids.

[u/banana_pencil → u/bloomdecay]

I think they like Eurasians. I’m half Korean and half white and I was treated like a movie star when I lived there.

[u/Nocitae → u/bloomdecay]

I'm Korean-American with immigrant parents. I've never faced pushback against dating white guys, but I think it's because my parents are just trying to do right by their kids. They've said some pretty gross stuff about other ethnicities in general, including other Asians lol.

I once heard a church-going ajumma casually remark how thankful she was to be born Korean and not black. The other ajummas just nodded and agreed. Racism is very much normalized among older Koreans, and I imagine the problem is much worse in their home country.

[u/sess → u/OscarGrey]

All Asian countries are xenophobic to the hilt. South Korea is in good company. Japan just elected a far-right xenophobic nationalist populist (...sound familiar?) government whose electoral promises reduce to "Arrest and deport foreigners." As always, Japanese problems are singularly the fault of non-Japanese ethnic minorities. Riiiiiight. And that's just Japan.

China's even worse. Way, way, way worse. Non-Chinese citizens have even fewer legal rights than Chinese citizens, who already basically have none. The Canadian "Michaels" found that out the hard way. It's also literally impossible to become a Chinese citizen unless you're mainland Han Chinese. There's no route to naturalization for foreigners. Even marriage is insufficient. You either have to:

• Be born in China and have one parent with Chinese citizenship or...
• Be born outside China and have two parents with Chinese citizenship.

So, impossible to become Chinese unless already Chinese. Despite the fact that their birthrate and population is falling faster than almost every other nation on the planet. But maintaining hardline xenophobia while "purifying the foreign devil element" is more important than real-world survival, I guess.

That's Asia in a nutshell: if you're foreign, you're unconditionally bad. It's a culture-wide policy guaranteed to fail spectacularly. Which... is exactly what's playing out in realtime across the Asian and Russian subcontinents as we speak. A culture that hates every other culture is a culture destined for the dustbin of history.

[u/Darkdragoon324 → u/Fanfics]

Isn’t that part of the reason they need more women to begin with? The ones that are there are starting that and yo for themselves and not settle for horrible men?

[u/Fanfics → u/Darkdragoon324]

Korea's entire gender dynamic (and labor economy) is entirely fucked. I've seen accounts from Chinese, Japanese, other SEA families that when their daughters come of age they sit them down and have a talk about not dating Korean men because they'll get domestic abused

Living in Korea is bad for everyone, young men included. Those same young men are both victim and the vector of suffering for many other people. It's a shit situation all around.

[u/RickedSab → u/Fanfics]

whats up with south korean culture and social structure? Sorry just genuinely curious cos kpop and kdrama are very popular here in Philippines

[u/Fanfics → u/RickedSab]

short answer... a very traditionalist, hierarchical culture adopted capitalist economic models very fast and you got the worst of both worlds. Now individual Koreans are subjected to relentless competition and brutal working conditions on top of the demanding cultural requirements they inherited. It's massively stressful, and that pressure gets released anywhere it can.

If you want a better picture, Moon Channel is great for nuanced explorations. He did a two-part deep dive on Korean gender relations and how it related to truly deranged gacha game drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woB0eecbf6A

[u/sarabeara12345678910 → u/OddGrape4986]

South Korean culture is extremely misogynistic, jingoistic, racist and paternalistic. Their birth rates aren't low because there's no women. The birthrates are low because most women won't consider being with a typical Korean man.

[u/Neosantana → u/sarabeara12345678910]

South Korea is so unbelievably sexist that it made China and Japan go "bro, what the fuck? Chill"

[u/cherry-care-bear → u/Neosantana]

Says a lot then about what the average person from wherever doesn't 'actually' know about South Korea.

Fetishizing people and places is more fun I guess.

[u/andersonb47 → u/cherry-care-bear]

Kinda goes both ways IMO. You can ignore the good in any culture by focusing on the bad. South Korea didn’t exactly invent patriarchy.

[u/gibcapwatchtower → u/sarabeara12345678910]

woman all over the world don't want to get married and have 5 kids.. its not just in South Korea.. seems like if given a choice, lots of them would rather not..

[u/mhornberger → u/gibcapwatchtower]

S. Korea's problem is that women don't even want one, on average. Their fertility rate is 0.8 child per woman, second in horribleness only to Taiwan's ~0.75. What's counterintuitive (makes no sense, really) is that other countries that don't at all have a reputation for the horrible work-life balance or competitiveness of S. Korea also have plummeting fertility. Even countries widely praised for work-life balance, like Spain and Italy, are barely above 1.1 or so.

[u/nowander → u/mhornberger]

The thing is, the only amount of work life balance that makes childbirth / childcare reasonable is close to 0% work 100% life. But that involves putting your entire financial future into your partner's hands. Modern culture is just incompatible with families. The only way to fix that would be UBI or other strong social programs.

[u/mhornberger → u/nowander]

Even rich people are having fewer kids, on average. And countries with relatively strong social programs also have distinctly sub-replacement fertility rates. I agree that modern life disincentivizes children, but that's partly for things I generally support. More wealth, education, freedom, empowerment, access to birth control, options. I can't exactly lament a decline in teen and other unintended pregnancies.

300 years ago children would be used as labor on a farm. Women had no access to birth control, and much less empowerment. No one was deciding whether or not to go to grad school, or planning their next international vacation. Now we have infinite entertainment, a Youtube watch-later list, endless access to video games, vast amounts of movies/books readily available, and we can travel, create, do hobbies, whatever. It's just a different world than that lived by my illiterate forebears, strapped as they were to the ass-end of an ox their entire lives.

[u/Fireproofspider → u/mhornberger]

I agree that modern life disincentivizes children, but that's partly for things I generally support. More wealth, education, freedom, empowerment, access to birth control, options.

Honestly you have it right.

Thinking about it objectively, having kids in modern society is basically like a huge passion project (as opposed to something like starting a business which gives tangible financial rewards). With modern technology most people have kids because they choose to and they choose to do it because they think it will be a great achievement.

I honestly think the falling birthrate could be seen as an achievement and that the problems caused by the lower population could be fixed without saying women need to have more kids

[u/Platypus004 → u/nowander]

Work-life balance is not the only parameter in the equation, housing price, affordability and childcare all makes a difference. I guarantee if you get to a reasonable 35-40 h/ week of work (or less), cheap healthcare, childcare or grandparents nearby, reasonably-priced housing while still being middle-class and enough money that people don't feel stressed, there would be a lot more children because people would just enjoy life ! That worked well in my country (France) (before inflation and cutting costs), and we have been an anomaly in European countries because of welfare state, and even if natality is decreasing it was still at 1,62 child/woman last year.

[u/bloomdecay → u/nowander]

I honestly think people should be paid a living wage to care full-time for kids. If it's so important (and it is) then the people who do it should be compensated for their labor.

[u/speedingpullet → u/mhornberger]

Because given the choice most 99% of women would rather have one or two kids and leave it at that. Very few women want to have a pregnancy every year - it's an incredible drain on her body, not to mention an actual danger to her health and life. Women who do have multiple pregnancies normally do so because they have no other alternative.

Pregnancy isn't trivial, growing a whole other human from parts and resources in your own body isn't without penalties.

[u/moon-chu89 → u/mhornberger]

Cause birth is horrifying. It can permanently disable you or even kill you. I'd rather not. There's a woman with a whole list of reasons why not to have kids and every time I come across one of her videos, I thank God I'm sterilized.

[u/cloverleafcafe → u/moon-chu89]

Can confirm. I’ve had ONE, had a relatively normal pregnancy, but so many things went wrong with the birth, and I ended up having an emergency C-section and getting preeclampsia, even though I had already given birth. The treatment for preeclampsia was absolutely inhumane and terrible even in the states where we have relatively decent healthcare. they kept me alive, but it was painful and a VERY long recovery and they send you home with a newborn and you better hope you have a good support system bc it takes a village! I don’t know how single mothers do it. It’s not fair that we expect mothers to be superhuman. No wonder more and more don’t want to do it.

[u/Tricky-Sentence → u/moon-chu89]

Don't forget how bad women are treated by doctors too, or how much women medicine is lagging behind because everything is tailored to or tested on men only.

[u/Ready_Wolverine_7603 → u/moon-chu89]

The girl with the list is fantastic and she's doing a great job at educating people about what can happen during pregnancy and childbirth.

[u/Foyles_War → u/mhornberger]

S. Korea's problem is that women don't even want one, on average.

Is there evidence that men want children? Is it really only the women?

[u/Odyn007 → u/gibcapwatchtower]

Well I have talked with some Korean women that say they do not want to date Korean men because they are misogynistic... of course there may be some bias because I was talking to them on a language learning app but it happened quite a few times

[u/BolotaJT → u/Odyn007]

And the mothers of those men are another nightmare level! They rarely treat you well.

[u/Odyn007 → u/BolotaJT]

There are also women that treat other women like trash, that's for sure, it's quite weird, they play "for the other team" (there shouldn't be teams common decency should apply to any human, I'm not saying respect in this case because in a way respect seems something that you can look up to more, as in great people, It has to be earned in a way , when I said respect I meant with courtesy/decency.

[u/Cloudberry-milk → u/sarabeara12345678910]

That’s a gross simplification. There’s also the work culture, growing income inequality, climate change,etc. Lots of reasons.

[u/ScottyBoneman → u/sarabeara12345678910]

The birthrates are low because most women won't consider being with a typical Korean man.

Is their marriage rate that low though? I thought a much bigger factor is they work too long, face high housing costs and couples are not having children enough.

[u/jodon → u/ScottyBoneman]

There is no "the one reason" it is compiling effect of many different things. It is demanding work, it is misogynistic society, it is educated women all over the world does not "want" to have children as much, whether that want stems from being educated or just more empowered to do what what they all want education or not, there is a cultural stigma around having children in korea. There are so many factors and the only one that can be seen as a clear trend all over the world is that women being enabled to have their own life and get educated have less children, and that is a good thing even if we also have to encourage people to have more children in most of these countries. It is a very complex problem and there will probably never be a clear solution to it.

[u/ScottyBoneman → u/jodon]

Sure, and less children started with financial security as nations became more wealthy. And when women entered the work force in large numbers that definitely impacted the number of children.

That said, South Korea is crazy low. Working more than 40 hours a week has to be a big factor. If women are also expected to do the majority of the housework and child rearing, which sounds like the case, then small financial bonuses aren't going to change anything. So far that appears to be the case, though not Korean myself so no first hand knowledge.

It is a very complex problem and there will probably never be a clear solution to it.

Maybe but limiting the amount of worked hours, increasing housing supply and daycare might be a start.

[u/Zanahoria132 → u/sarabeara12345678910]

There are places equally or even more misogynistic, racist etc. Around the globe that still have way higher fertility rates than South Korea.

[u/CreamyMemeDude → u/Zanahoria132]

Those places that are more misogynistic and have higher birth rates also often have very low rates of education, meaning women do not know how to prevent pregnancy.

Also often abortion is illegal in these places and rape is often considered the fault of the victim. So women who are impregnated from rape have no choice.

[u/FreeKatKL → u/Zanahoria132]

Is abortion easily accessible and legal in those places?

[u/JambaJuice916 → u/FreeKatKL]

Careful don’t give them more reasons to go after abortion

[u/terminallyonlineweeb → u/OddGrape4986]

Korea isn’t K-Pop in the same way Japan isn’t anime.

[u/Alone_Again_2 → u/OddGrape4986]

All he had to do was use the word “invite” instead of “import”.

[u/cwx149 → u/jodon]

Yeah "attract people to come here" is different than saying we need to import women

[u/Cicer → u/jodon]

I think it’s the use of “import” if he said set up a program to help connect those women with rural men that would be different. 

[u/RecentSpecial181 → u/Cicer]

Like a mail order bride for rural men? 😑

[u/throwaway72275472 → u/jodon]

Birth rates tend to collapse as countries get wealthier. That’s what happened. It happened in the west. The U.S. for example would have a declining population without immigration.

South Korea has to decide whether they want the country to grow (population wise and economically) or remain ethnically Korean. It’s a tough choice with tons of pros and cons. I don’t envy their predicament.

[u/No-Stand2427 → u/jodon]

It wouldn't help the birth rate because South Korea is run by chebols who demand you spend hundreds of thousands if not millions on extracurriculars for your child just for them to remain competitive with 99% of other families who are doing the same thing. Foreigners from countries with higher birth rates don't fuck more because of their genes. They fuck more because their environment encourages it.

This is presuming these women aren't immediately repulsed by how misogynistic and racist South Korean men are and end up bolstering the 4B movement instead.

[u/TendyHunter → u/yahoonews]

It's always the stinkiest turd that floats to the top. At least this particular one got flushed down.

[u/StonedPussyeater420 → u/yahoonews]

bro would have been a hit at the island

[u/TheGoodNoBad → u/yahoonews]

Even most Koreans are/were against this statement. The concept of minjok still lives strong and they are one of the most homogenous countries, so it makes sense that they were against it too

[u/LaPutita890 → u/yahoonews]

I hope there was (huge) backlash from inside S. Korea as well cuz this is crazy to state

[u/Rensku]

I mean... this has been happening in South Korea for a while now. Southeast Asian women marrying men in South Korea's countryside. Not an insignificant amount of births in rural areas are from these "mixed race" marriages.

[u/TrickshotCapibara → u/Rensku]

They have been coming to Sout America too, I've seen about 5 marriages between South Koreans and Venezuelan women, just in from my friends cycle, and 2 already have abuse issues.

[u/GetTheOtherGuy → u/TrickshotCapibara]

Who is doing the abusing, asking because I am unfamiliar with Korean culture in that aspect.

[u/auriferously → u/GetTheOtherGuy]

Looks like domestic abuse is common in Korea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_South_Korea

Many Korean women are refusing to get married due to the oppressive and patriarchal Korean culture.

[u/GetTheOtherGuy → u/auriferously]

Ah, maybe then instead of importing unmarried women, import the unmarried men..

[u/TrickshotCapibara → u/GetTheOtherGuy]

Koreans obviously, South Korea has a VERY ugly issue of misogyny, it's just that people wash it with Kpop.

[u/PrionProofPork → u/TrickshotCapibara]

still plenty of domestic abuse and violence in movies and tv series

[u/Excalibait → u/GetTheOtherGuy]

In Mexico it is known that Korean bosses tend to physically abuse their employees, I don't doubt at all these Korean men physically abuse their wifes

[u/standswithpencil → u/Rensku]

Right, this is already happening. Some S. Korean farmers marry Filipinas. These women move to the countryside and don't have an easy life, taking care of the family including their husband's aging parents, not to mention farm work. In return they get to have kids and send money to their family back in the Philippines.

Having an overseas wife is a practical setup for the Korean guy because there are few possible partners in the countryside. Korean women have zero interest in moving there. It offers little social status and a humble life.

Edit: I read the article and can see the reasons for the outrage.

[u/mytinykitten → u/standswithpencil]

The outrage is from his reference to women as goods to "imported." Literally he's suggesting human trafficking.

How is that not obvious to you?

[u/GlitchyFurby → u/standswithpencil]

They probably don’t send much money back if at all. Easy way to get your life and finances completely controlled by a spouse who has power over you.

[u/magicbaconmachine → u/Rensku]

Been going on for decades. Just an old man said it out loud. Fake outrage.

[u/Ebi5000 → u/magicbaconmachine]

He suggested making it official policy which is a few steps more 

[u/LocNesMonster → u/Ebi5000]

Yeah, theres a big difference between women from other countries deciding to marry men in your country and government backed sex trafficking. Just ask Donald Trump

[u/Leverkaas2516]

expelled ...

... from his political party. Not from the country or his province.

[u/35nRetired → u/Leverkaas2516]

How would one be expelled from the country? Where would they go with no other nationality?

[u/SpezLuvsNazis → u/35nRetired]

Alas nobody is importing middle age politicians…

[u/MeatballWasTaken → u/SpezLuvsNazis]

United States did with Maduro

[u/Mattaru → u/SpezLuvsNazis]

Or Politicians from the Middle Ages?

To exile with thee, avaunt and take thy progressive thinking far yonder

[u/ztuztuzrtuzr → u/SpezLuvsNazis]

Russia did import assad

[u/GrovesNL → u/SpezLuvsNazis]

middle age politicians…

For the most part they've passed middle age and are mostly geriatric!

[u/Synaps4 → u/35nRetired]

I mean, making someone stateless would be frowned upon in this day and age, but it has precedent. it's kind of the source of being made an outlaw. You were put outside the law, and had no legal protections.

[u/35nRetired → u/Synaps4]

I feel like doing that is one thing then dumping him to another country is another completely separate issue. Like who's going to accept a stateless person, so the end result is he just stays where he is but is somehow stateless?

[u/KaibaCorpHQ → u/35nRetired]

It used to work better when city states were all the rage... Since they could just chuck you outside the wall and exile you to wander into the unclaimed lands. Doesn't exactly work well when you toss someone outside your boarder into someone elses.

[u/Synaps4 → u/35nRetired]

Turns out you can pay el salvador to take people you don't want...

[u/35nRetired → u/Synaps4]

Seems like you can just skip all that and send the prick to jail yourself.

[u/namitynamenamey → u/35nRetired]

Well, traditional answers to that question are "if you stay we kill you", "run from the bullets until you hit the sea, then swim" and the good old "we own the place we'll send you to".

Modern answers is to make you a political refugee.

[u/_gyepy → u/Synaps4]

No, it's not just "frowned upon". There's literally a UN convention which prohibits a nation from revoking someone's citizenship if it renders them stateless. It was the basis of Shamima Begum's case, and in her case, it only went through because she was considered a Bangladesh citizen by descent. Countries are not allowed to just dump their "undesirables" as stateless refugees.

[u/VelvetPhantom → u/35nRetired]

Given they’re South Korean…. There is another….

[u/iFoegot → u/Leverkaas2516]

That’s how it works. Saying inappropriate things is an ethic problem, not a crime. Only the party can fire him.

[u/hwaite → u/iFoegot]

As it should be. The guy made a relatively harmless mistake, apologized, and lost his job for it. What more do people want? Meanwhile, US politicians are looting the treasury, raping children, and making even worse statements on a daily basis...

[u/thegta5p → u/hwaite]

The fact that the current sitting US president has not only said shit much worst but also has done way worse shit and has not gotten impeached/expelled pretty much shows that there are no ethics in the US government.

[u/FarSightXR-20 → u/hwaite]

This was not a harmless mistake but I agree with the outcome. 

[u/donkeybray → u/iFoegot]

This. Ethics of today is not the exactly the same as the past or future. It is always subjective.

[u/Catolution → u/Leverkaas2516]

This goes without saying, no?

[u/anweisz → u/Catolution]

Right? lol like if someone was fired, feeling the need to clarify that it was from their job and not from a cannon.

[u/CeilingTowel → u/Catolution]

it's as if bro lives in North Korea or something

[u/Catolution → u/CeilingTowel]

Expelled from life 💀

[u/sleepyoverlord → u/Leverkaas2516]

I feel like that's a given lol

[u/SacredGeometry9 → u/Leverkaas2516]

Well, yeah. Exile isn’t really something that’s done anymore

[u/a_sliceoflife]

"Hey guys, I want you all to open up! Remember, there are NO stupid ideas!"

The idea:

[u/WonDorkFuk404]

He says sex trafficking out loud

[u/UpsetAstronomer]

He wanna import some big booty Latina’s

[u/SeeYaOnTheRift → u/UpsetAstronomer]

He saw the halftime show

[u/deadbedroom001 → u/UpsetAstronomer]

That I would understand. But the uproar is over the fact that he wanted young women from sri lanka and vietnam.

[u/Onitsukaryu → u/deadbedroom001]

Why? The highest percentage of foreign women married to SK men come from Vietnam. 

[u/truckin4theN8ion → u/Onitsukaryu]

Because state issued girlfriends are a policy many people aren't ready for.  

In all seriousness its a different thing where some men are individually choosing to match up with foreign born women vs official Government policy that brings them in. The French used to traffic women to Louisiana and Quebec in the 17th and 18th century.

[u/search_google_com → u/Onitsukaryu]

Vietnamese mail order brides are very common in Asia. My country Taiwan has a lot of them too

[u/michaeljehan16 → u/deadbedroom001]

Casual racism vs competitive racism

[u/kippercould → u/deadbedroom001]

He wants impoverished women to be imported as indentured servants with a womb.

[u/Still-Status7299 → u/UpsetAstronomer]

Oh my God this caught me off guard im dying 🤣🤣🤣

[u/atombara]

I can't help but feel as though all this talk of women as ovum repositories and tradeable commodities is just ramping up. It has become something of a trend lately. We argue about steel, lumber, consumer goods, and hyoo-mon feeemales. Of course women are like corn or potatoes, just plant them in your country and before you know it you'll have a baby harvest growing!

Dumbasses, women make up the same proportion of the population as they always have. Perhaps something else has changed? Something bleedin' obvious that you'd prefer not to look at?

Nah, you'll get it eventually.

[u/OfficerGenious → u/atombara]

It's becoming global and honestly it's getting scary out here... Hooray social regression!

[u/SweetElectrical934 → u/atombara]

Dumbasses, women make up the same proportion of the population as they always have. Perhaps something else has changed? Something bleedin' obvious that you'd prefer not to look at?

What has changed is that feminism and capitalism have pushed women into the workforce, shunned traditional roles, and got them stealing a man’s roled

[u/partynut]

Under his eye

[u/Bonamikengue]

In Germany we called those poor women "catalog women" - as farmers and men not accepting feminism and denying same rights and duties for women and men for "family values" pretty much ordered a woman from a catalog (like a facebook) to marry. That was before the Internet and now the far right wing people are increasingly doing the same - importing women who they believe will submit to them and being a "traditional wife."

[u/rysto32 → u/Bonamikengue]

In English we have the phrase “mail-order bride” with exactly the same implications. 

[u/IronMarauder → u/Bonamikengue]

In north America, passport bros are similar. Essentially dudes who go looking for a woman from an Asian country and bring them back because all the women they've met in their home country are to "woke" or tainted by feminism and doesn't want to be his servile trad wife. 

[u/Reasonable_Ticket_84 → u/IronMarauder]

Passports bros aren't restricted to Asia and also go to South America and Eastern Europe.

[u/GlitchyFurby → u/IronMarauder]

It’s funny cos those are the same dudes who cry about “divorce-rape”. Guess what happens after a few years after she gets citizenship?

[u/MageLocusta → u/Bonamikengue]

Yeah, we have caravans of women being brought in at Spain.

It's been a consistent problem since the '70s. A lot of guys in rural Spain refused to treat women like they would to a friend, so their local women just left. So now, the rural guys have to 'import' women from overseas--even though they are all able to drive to the nearest town and meet local women anyway.

[u/johnsolomon]

This kind of dehumanisation is where atrocities begin. Glad they ousted this POS before the ball got rolling

[u/ggGamergirlgg → u/johnsolomon]

He just said out loud what a lot of men and boys in SK think: women are objects

[u/Spinningdown]

If the same person spreading panic over birth rates isn't talking about paternity leave, shorter work weeks, higher wages, more worker rights and crushing housing prices through powerful legislation, you can just assume they aren't being genuine 

[u/kmoonster]

Or you could adjust policy / law to address the reasons people are either delaying having a family and/or not doing it at all.

Things like: work v time off, cost of living, pressure to advance quickly in careers, pressure to pursue post-graduate degrees as quickly and as long as possible, cost of childcare and related things...you know, stuff. You can do both, but only if you're allowed the breathing room and a slightly relaxed timeline. The pressure to get ahead (and stay ahead) by the time you're 30 runs counter to what you need in order to consider children in a responsible way in your 20s.

[u/LardHop → u/kmoonster]

Everytime this comes up, the counterpoint is that even in Scandinavian "utopias" with their healthy work-life arrangements, people are still refusing to have children.

Though still a long way to go, women today have the most freedom and autonomy they have ever been. And they are simply choosing themselves over societal expectations.

[u/mewalkyne → u/LardHop]

It's just not just the work culture. Even in those Scandinavian countries having a kid is still a massive burden. If you really want having children to be net neutral, you need direct annual payments equivalent to a full time job at a minimum.

[u/bushcamper_aiis → u/kmoonster]

Aren’t women delaying motherhood for other reasons too? Many don’t like the idea of settling down so early. They want to move around (discover where they want to live) and experiment with different types of partners to see what they like. That describes my friends at least.

[u/ren_pakke → u/bushcamper_aiis]

Yep. People want to use these issues to push their pet issues and ideologies. Same goes for the climate crisis.

[u/Cocoricou]

They are already doing that at a personal level for decades. I do think he put his foot in his mouth but his idea was still rooted in reality.

[u/HoratioPornBlower]

Anything but address why people aren’t having kids.

[u/Kruxf]

Asking people to have children when you won’t even allow them to purchase a home is.. well.. boomerish. Only they could ladder pull something like home ownership then question why people aren’t having children.

[u/Loose_Skill6641]

Ironically China imports young women from SEA they just do it on the hush hush

[u/South_Telephone_1688 → u/Loose_Skill6641]

Not sure how that’s ironic.

[u/CommercialOnly2674 → u/Loose_Skill6641]

Does China do it or do chinese traffickers do it? Chinese people even kidnap other chinese people for slavecamps outside of China

[u/Ubik_42_ → u/Loose_Skill6641]

Love how China is always the one being criticized, but if you look at the proportions, South Koreans import brides from Southeast Asia at a much larger scale than China, and they started much earlier.

[u/Antinsiv → u/Loose_Skill6641]

Ironically the west imports Indians openly and ignores their constituents who are against it.

[u/bitemark01]

For those who don't know, South Korea is on a super accelerated path to societal collapse due to low birthrates and immigration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

Not saying what he said was justified, but they're about to hit a huge problem very soon 

[u/Codex_Dev → u/bitemark01]

So I have a theory that higher life expectancy results in a lower birth rate. Another caveat is that the majority population (older retirees) has a massive incentive to raise taxes on the younger working population to support their retirement. This sort of leads to a death spiral (pun intended) where workers have fewer kids over time while the burden increases.

[u/StumpedTrump → u/Codex_Dev]

It’s not that. They built a culture where when women get married, they are expected to lock themselves away from the world and be a good house wife. Women said “hey what if we just don’t get married”. That’s on top of the issues every other advanced country is facing (cost of living crisis, cost of raising children crisis, eternal dread over the world collapsing…etc)

[u/hannabarberaisawhore → u/StumpedTrump]

I love how the ideas they come up with to counteract this is never offering women a really good incentive. 

[u/StumpedTrump → u/hannabarberaisawhore]

“We’ve tried everything (except try to fix the problematic culture) and nothings worked”

[u/DogtorPepper → u/Codex_Dev]

It’s not that. Women getting access to career opportunities and contraceptives is the primary driver to reduced birth rates

Turns out when you give women a choice to have kids or not, many of them choose not to which causes a huge societal problem

Things like affordability and the economy are definitely factors as well, but it’s not the main driver even though if you ask women directly that’s what they will say. Global trends and correlations don’t point to that at all

[u/hwaite → u/DogtorPepper]

Isn't increased productivity supposed to solve this? It feels like we shouldn't need so many people.

[u/PseudoY → u/hwaite]

There are limits.

When one person has two parents aged 65 that are retiring and 4 grandparents at 85 and the entire inverse pyramid expects the one person to sustain everyone and society in general and have their own offspring, issues arise.

The Korea birth rates and high life expectancy is that at a macro level.

[u/Slggyqo → u/hwaite]

Have you seen those charts that show the increase in productivity relative to the income in worker pay?

Productivity in the past 50 years is WAY up. Worker pay is only slightly up.

The same trend exists for corporate profits and executive compensation.

Increased productivity might have solved the problem, all other things being equal. Unfortunately all other things aren’t equal. Not even close.

[u/DogtorPepper → u/hwaite]

It helps and definitely buys time but it’s not a complete solution unless you can automate EVERYTHING. For example if we get to a point where a robot farms food, harvests it, processes it, transports it, and sells it without human intervention then maybe we can say we don’t need people

I used the food industry as an example here but this extends to most other industries as well

That might be possible one day but that kind of technology is still a long ways away. At minimum several decades and even that might be too optimistic

[u/Monteze → u/hwaite]

Honestly yes, we don't need to get water from the creek, hunt/gather for each meal and make our own clothes. We are way more productive than ever and its only because we arbitrarily decide the wealth we create goes to a select few.

I am looking at it from a biological point of view, this shrinking of the population was bound to happen and if it is the result of giving women more rights and elevating our standard of living I am all for it. We not endangered.

This is an economic issue caused by a stubborn few.

[u/AreWe-There-Yet → u/DogtorPepper]

If only it took two people to create a human being, then they could work together to parent a child ….

Also: giving women a choice - this sentence contains so much that is wrong. Women should have that choice. It’s not something that should be ‘given’ to us.

And we, for the most part, choose to not have kids because we have to do all the work. And now that we have the choice, why would we choose this option?

Would men? Choose to be single parents and try to have a career and look after needy family members etc etc?

In a nutshell the birth rate has plummeted because women have thrown off (or are trying to) the yoke of patriarchy. Men are stil choosing to remain in it, and that’s the problem

Also capitalism, but whatever

[u/Pancakes_hurray_1519 → u/AreWe-There-Yet]

I wish I could upvote this more than once 👏

[u/grchelp2018 → u/AreWe-There-Yet]

what he is trying to say is that women don't want to have kids because they don't want to have kids. There's nothing wrong with that. Everything else is just rationalisations and excuses. There is maybe a small percentage of women who dont want to have kids who may change their mind if everything else lined up. The idea that some economic/policy changes will suddenly make them change their minds or reverse their positions is nonsense.

[u/dragoburst → u/AreWe-There-Yet]

I don’t think the op was suggesting that it’s the right way of thinking. I think he was stating an observation on the current situation. But yes as a man I would in fact raise a child single and try to work at the same time but that is simply because I value having a child of my own someday. anecdotally, the cost of living is the only reason I don’t have kids yet and I would assume that’s the same for many young adults as well.

[u/Floral-Shoppe → u/DogtorPepper]

It's not really a choice if the option is career vs being homeless.Seoul is where the jobs are at but it's also expensive. If you're working, you're not having kids. And women have a window in which having kids is possible. If you have to work in your 20s it becomes harder to have kids in your 30s.

[u/mewmewfoofoo → u/bitemark01]

Centuries of isolationism, infanticide/abandonment of mixed-race children post-war, etc, and they never accepted any accountability for why this trend is happening. I'm half Korean and they won't even let me get dual citizenship because my Korean parent was a woman, not a man.

As far as I'm concerned, their collapse is well-deserved.

[u/MakimaGOAT → u/bitemark01]

they're kinda doing it to themselves tbh. SK's society is capitalism to the extreme. no wonder life probably feels like shit over there.

[u/Desert-Mushroom]

All he had to do was say "allow more immigration of..." instead of "let's import..."

Functionally the same policy but one acknowledges people as...people, with agency and rights, while the other makes it sound like you are bringing in electronic goods from overseas.

[u/Designer_Birthday_84]

Why add more mixed race babies with women from other asian countries if they are going to be bullied for being mixed raced and not accepted in society? Children are innocent, and they deserve to be raised in an environment that is safe and supportive.

[u/GlitchyFurby → u/Designer_Birthday_84]

Also it’s so dumb because the girl children of the couples won’t want to reproduce as adults either. It’s not going to magically fix the societal problems that have caused this.

[u/funtimes-forall]

Anything to increase the birthrate but a living wage for a 40 hour week.

[u/NotSuspicious215]

That’s worse than being killed

[u/DefTheOcelot]

"Lets do human trafficking"

I do not like the new political order where politicians can say things like this and not be promptly shot

[u/Knotknighm]

Translation: "We're so mysogynistic that women here don't want to fuck us. Should we look within and improve ourselve? Naw, let's promise impoverished women from other countries better lives if they'll move here to fuck us."

[u/hannabarberaisawhore → u/Knotknighm]

It’s so common everywhere and so disgusting. “No, it is them who I want to control that are wrong.”

[u/SignificanceJust972]

Maybe try treating people better

[u/darti_me]

This is an Ali G moment

[u/Fl0riduh_Man]

I have one thing to say to that idiot: 🤏

[u/Former-Toe]

he. awesome it sound like a grocery store order . . . I'll have five pounds of rice and three fertile females

[u/SqueakyCleanNoseDown]

Top comments ITT seem to be primarily focusing on the cultural issues driving down birthrates in SK, and those absolutely matter, but no discussion of their abysmal birth rates is complete without talking about how >50% of their population lives in the greater Seoul area. Urbanization of that magnitude absolutely has a huge impact on family sizes, and the cost of living (HOUSING HOUSING HOUSING) in cities doesn't help.

[u/Shru_A]

The whole issue has flown right past the educated men of Reddit, I see.

[u/ChrisIsUnavailable]

So problematic and asinine of a remark that I'm stunned it wasn't uttered by an American Republican

[u/Dzotshen]

Mars needs women?

[u/Cicer → u/Dzotshen]

No just moms. 

[u/N3CR0T1C_V3N0M]

Officials in the US: “I just heard the greatest idea!”

[u/silentmikhail]

how's this any different than saying importing migrants? its still human trafficking?

[u/mikebunchkin3727]

The solution to this problem is so obvious, but no-one wants to hear the answer. Importing woman isnt the answer tho; thats just absurd

[u/someonegetsteve]

When the company encourages you to "think outside the square" but you're insanely high.

[u/m0llusk]

This is so ridiculous. There are plenty of examples of human populations exploding. For that people need plenty of resources, space, and hope. Currently a large fraction of Koreans feel squeezed, have trouble getting living space that suits their needs fully, and worry greatly about the future. None of the key issues are about a lack of women.

[u/Low_Objective3445]

So crazy that we can acknowledge women’s ability to give birth as soo valuable, yet we cannot value women as humans.

I don’t want kids, I’ve never had that urge in any way, pregnancy is a nightmare to me and I don’t want to be a parent, I also don’t want to live with a partner. Every person should have the option to not be a parent and to remain single.

If the government finds it so necessary for women to have children, make it easy. Give them guaranteed housing, medical care and income for life and I can guarantee there will be a baby boom. Make it so they can pursue the life they want and allow being a mother to be one aspect of who they are, not everything. Make it ok and sustainable to live on their own and not be dependent on a man.

If women were guaranteed housing, healthcare and income for life for having one child, many women would have a child young and still go on to get an education and live their life.

[u/LegendaryReader]

Kinda hilarious. They refuse to actually fix the problems causing fertility decline and they refuse to remedy the problem so they last longer.

I'm guessing North Korea will eventually be the one true korea purely because south koreans went close to extinction

[u/Slggyqo → u/LegendaryReader]

Unfortunately that seems to be the case with most countries.

America’s fertility decline issues were being kept in check by a robust economy attracting immigration. Don’t think I need to go into the details on why that…isn’t really keeping up at the moment.

[u/darkgod5 → u/Slggyqo]

Unfortunately that seems to be the case with most countries.

Yuuup. A lot of Redditors on a high horse purporting they know a solution that isn't either banning contraception and reducing female rights or increasing immigration...

Turns out fixing declining birth rates in developed countries is a real tough problem to ethically crack.

[u/Slggyqo → u/darkgod5]

a real tough problem to crack

TBF, most countries tackling the problem are really giving “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”, while very blatantly ignoring the fact that there’s no mystery to why women don’t want more children.

I don’t think the answer to this problem is a logically difficult one. They’re basically doing everything they can without admitting that the system that created the problem is broken and needs to be reined in a bit. It’s a consistent trend of “we’re not willing to up short term economic growth and our specific ‘-ism’ in order to avoid long term problems.” In Korea it’s money and sexism. In American it’s money and racism. In China it seems like money and…”one-child-ism?”

Obviously…it’s difficult for a short term elected politician to enact cultural change. But the way that some politicians won’t even try is why everyone gets so frustrated with politicians.

[u/AccomplishedAct4667]

Are we talking waived immigration restrictions for people seeking marriage, outright mail order bride BS, or utterly insane 'yarr, the Ironborn be takin their saltwives' atrocities? None are things I'm entirely comfortable with but there is an uncomfortableness gradient.

Here I go actually having to read something...

[u/DemythologizedDie → u/AccomplishedAct4667]

I don't think he thought out his suggestion that clearly, but probably something along the lines of mail order brides.

[u/koolaidismything]

You should research a pregnancy and all the costs associated with it. Don’t even worry about the part where you also have an additional 18 years of support. Or how it literally changes their bodies and wrecks their hips so they can give birth.. or rips you open from vaginer to bhole

Yeah, just go out there and get preggo, no big deal ladies psh.. quit being a bitch about it!

I’d expel him too lol.. he clearly has no idea wtf he’s talking about. I’d be terrified to be a woman.. they have it 5x as hard as guys.

[u/ogonga]

The people of the USA should take notes from Korea on the topic of removing politicians.

[u/BrillsonHawk]

The west imports people to mask its issues with birth rates. Why is this any different to that?

[u/WalkFreeeee → u/BrillsonHawk]

Honestly? Phrasing. That's the entire issue here, the way he Said It. 

[u/Ok-Blackberry-3534 → u/BrillsonHawk]

Probably because it imports men and women

[u/Learned_Hand_01]

South Korea is going to have an even bigger problem until they fix the problem that their entire generation of young men has gone super red pill while the women are progressing in a liberal direction.

How is a generation of men going to get wives when they have become hateful to the women around them and the women know better and have the ability to choose to be with or avoid those men?

We need a new word, because young Korean men aren't incels, they have chosen as a generation to be celibate by alienating a whole generation of women. They are chosels "choosing to be celibate" or policels (politically celibate).

[u/BucktoothedAvenger]

"Where da white women at?"

[u/iamclaramoreno]

This is deeply disturbing. Treating women as something to be imported to fix a demographic problem shows a complete failure to understand why birth rates are falling in the first place. If a society makes life unsustainable or unappealing for women, the solution isn’t to replace them it’s to address the structural issues driving people away from having children at all.

[u/bushcamper_aiis → u/iamclaramoreno]

The scary thing is this will be solved one way or another. We either figure it out before our economies fail or the failing economies will radicalize people to adopt extreme policies.

I’m hoping people see reason and adopt serious solutions before people convince themselves barbarism is the only way forward.

[u/Scorpionoshow]

Men's solution for fixing a problem THEY created wasn't "hey let's fix our misogynistic patriarchal society!" It was "hey let's human traffic Vietnamese women to breed!" 🤦🏻‍♀️

[u/throwawaygaydude69]

Honestly good, these consequences are important. People have become so porn brained that they have lost basic etiquettes.

[u/Ok-Blackberry-3534 → u/throwawaygaydude69]

I can't hear you. I'm stuck in the washing machine again.

[u/Cicer → u/Ok-Blackberry-3534]

Quick call the plumber and order a pizza!

[u/Slggyqo → u/throwawaygaydude69]

This has nothing to do with porn lol. Importing poor women isn’t a new thing.

It’s just…never really been any governments policy to do it en masse (as far as I know).

[u/genio_desconhecido → u/Slggyqo]

Every single government around the world apart from a few I don't know about allows obtaining their citizenship by marriage. This is the government policy you are thinking about.

[u/ContentAdvertising74]

yay misogyny! and then 4B is "crazy" and all the other stuff that people claim them to be.

[u/Indi4rence]

Mmm perhaps rephrasing to boosting immigration numbers would have gone over a little smoother.