As part of its efforts to tackle a falling birthrate here, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is pushing ahead with a group blind date between employees at government offices and private companies.
All officials at ministries and their affiliated public institutions are allowed to apply for the event, which is scheduled on May 19 at a convention center in southern Seoul.
Ulsan Online has more from the "Ministry of Love." You may remember in January the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs instituted a "Family Day" the third Wednesday every month, when the office would turn off the lights at 7 pm to encourage workers to go home, hit it, and make more Koreans.
13 comments:
More Koreans would be made if cost of living/wages were better. The only problem with Family Day is that it will most likely mean more soju time with the buddies from work.
I think too many people are overlooking the benefits of having less people in this country. Less children means less people that future generations have to compete against. A higher population of older people can better use their resources to support the fewer children. Perhaps the domestic agricultural industry can even have a better hand in supporting the fewer living people than having to import all of the food from other countries.
Imagine smaller class sizes...Kids might actually learn how to speak English, kids might actually learn how to do things the first time that they are taught rather than having to waste 11% of a families income on special tuors and sweatshop style night classes and cram schools.
The people who consider this low birth rate a "problem," really need to reflect on the annoyances of crowds and old women who suddenly decide to stop in front of doorways and subway staircases, and tiny one lane streets that double as parking lots with cars parked on sight obstructed corners making it impossible to see the oncomming traffic.
Indeed the cluster fuck of humanity has made me loose a bit of my own. I'm afraid that if samurai swords were legal to "open carry," I might accidently behead some of the inebriated elderly for fear that they might try to eat my brains.
No I am not saying that the numbers of "Koreans," as a race need to be thinned, just the numbers of people living in the same space, for a country that exports electronics and cars so that it can import and export money for the importation of food, a smaller number of mouths can increase the amount of money in people's pockets.
Follow up comment from Korean troll,
"Well if you don't like it get out," you are making the population worse by staying here."
Sorry to have offended you, the government can support all of the blind dates that it wants, I'm just saying, a less conjested Korea might be a happier Korea.
It's easier to learn and get individual attention in a class of 30 students than in a class of 42.
30? I refuse to teach more than 20 at a time (in a language class), just on principle.
A remarkable turnaround from the family-planning campaigns of the 1980s in Korea that I recall. Here is a postage stamp urging families to "stop at one": http://www.pennfamily.org/KSS-USA/860901-1446.htm
Further proof that throwing money / resources at a problem does not make it go away.
It's one thing to make babies - but are those babies going to be raised in a healthy / happy / stable environment? Or will daddy be so busy at work or drinking soju that mommy will be the only parent he sees for weeks on end?
Looking forward to seeing a progress report in about nine months...
More Koreans would be made if the government had more social programs for women and encourage men to take an more active role in household duties and child care.
I personally believe that for many of problems like this in Korea, the reason they don't get addressed properly or ever solved, is because they are not looking at the root of the problem. It's like taking cough syrup to stop a month-long cold: it treats the symptoms, but not the cause.
The cause? Well that's complicated but here are a few of of the top of my head: insane work hours, insane money required for living space, insane schooling (memorizing for one test that determines everything in classrooms of 40 or more), insane salary, insane congested/polluted environment...
Making this place a better living place (with 40 hour work weeks, smaller classroom sizes, more job opportunities, more well-planned and affordable city space) would make a huge difference.
Contrary to what Zach said, birth rates go DOWN as wealth goes up but the living conditions are brutal here in many ways (picture yourself as a handicapped person, a female in her 30s, a Korean who went to a 'no-name' University, a Korean working for a stereotypical drunk, hard-worker boss, competing amongst countless others for the same low-pay, rough job?). Do THAT and perhaps the birth rate might go up...
I agree with 3gyupsal though: less people here will improve things immensely. Less imports, more space. How to compensate for smaller exports? Robotics/computers/machines. Quality over quantity. A lesson Koreans definitely have to learn!
Note: second last paragraph. I meant to say Improve the living conditions and the birth rate will go up. DO THAT and it will go up.
LOL word verification:
matramp
???
"I meant to say Improve the living conditions and the birth rate will go up. "
Birth rates are pretty low in nations with the best living conditions (if you define such as being developed nations). This claim seems to fly in the face that high standard of living = low fertility rates:
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html
(see figure 2)
High birth rates (that lead to indigenous growth) are a result of many factors:
- Need for family labor (on the farm, say)
- Secure your own comfort in retirement
- Unsure if children will live long
- Certain religious beliefs ("a quiver full")
Beyond the need for farm labor or worry that having only one or two kids means none will survive and take care of you, there's precious little that will convince a population to have more kids than they can afford.
And you only need one kid these days to see your genetic line continue.
That's what I meant to say (originally said it in the first post I made).
"Contrary to what Zach said, birth rates go DOWN as wealth goes up"
Four hours of sleep at the end of a long Monday takes a toll on my brain it seems. But yeah, I totally agree with you (and it explains why countries in the g8 have low birthrates).
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