https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45201725

An increasing number of South Korean women are choosing not to marry, not to have children, and not even to have relationships with men. With the lowest fertility rate in the world, the country's population will start shrinking unless something changes.

Provo, UT has the highest birth rate in America
https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/provo-orem-top-the-charts-for-birth-rates-in-the/article_558777c9-94c6-5499-a52b-f4759ad1712b.html

Provo has the highest birth rate in America largely because of BYU and UVU. Provo-Orem has an extra sixty thousand twenty-something residents who belong to a religion that encourages early marriage and lots of children. This is "dog bites man" news. ETA: Provo gets most of the credit because that's where the hospital is.

As for S Korea shrinking in population unless something changes, why on earth would anything need to change? It's one of the most densely populated countries on the planet. People who think that humanity will disappear if population shrinkage continues unchanged for the next three thousand years or whatever are being even more absurd than Rodney Stark when he predicted hundreds of millions of Mormons at the end of this century based on 1970s growth rates. There is zero chance that any human population would continue to either expand or shrink at a constant rate for centuries, much less millennia.

Population growth rates change. In the last few centuries human population growth rates had a huge spike up. Now they are spiking down. Neither can continue unchanged forever, but neither will continue unchanged forever. Things change.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2018 10:28AM by Brother Of Jerry.

I want "South Korea" changed to "Provo".

I've always been amused at the perverse pleasure some people take in the their predictions of the terrible things that will happen if the population shrinks.

If it causes problems, they will figure out solutions. And BTW, Europe is not far behind S Korea, and the US is not far behind Europe in declining birth rates. Once women have reasonable ways to control their fertility, turns out most of them kind of like the idea of fewer babies. Who'd have thunk?

When I was a missionary in Japan, we would volunteer at lots of retirement homes. In the 90s they were starting to get more and more equipment to bathe and assist the people who were bed ridden.
Asia has been preparing for the population shrink for a couple of decades now.

This is also happening in our life. Our entire family is no longer Mormon, BTW. My two nieces, both in their late 20s, are not married and not interested in being married although one does have a beautiful baby boy and is a single mom by choice.

The flip side? My three sons cannot find a girlfriend! My oldest is 28 and would love to settle down. He owns his own home and earns a very good wage. He’s been in three engagements and all engagements broken by the young ladies. My second son is also successful and this guy is gorgeous, if I do say so myself. He has not dated for two years. He says all they want from him is money and sex. He is looking for commitment. My youngest son basically just wants a girlfriend but he keeps getting “friend zoned.” He is finishing college.

The young women we know are all independent and don’t really need a man to support them. They don’t see marriage as relevant in their lives. Unfortunately, we just might have a generation of young men who are left alone. Times have sure changed. I’m 59 and marriage for me was very much about love but also financial security.

My 31 year old neighbor has been trying to find a wife for several years. He's just about given up.