The Long Way Back to Ourselves

9.2

Demographics

This episode explains why low birth rates, as in South Korea, where the figure sits below one child per woman, are no moral failure but follow from four forces: falling child mortality, the education of women, urbanization, and state old-age provision. Survey data refute the assumption that people today simply want fewer children: the desired number usually sits close to two, while the realized number stays well below it, mainly because of housing shortages and insecure employment. Hungary tests whether financial incentives bring births forward in time without clearly raising the total. Japan serves as the case of advanced aging, with abandoned houses known as akiya.