South Korea Fertility Not Primarily Driven by Fiat Currency or Pensions
Challenges the causal attribution of low fertility to government interventions like fiat currency and pensions in the Factum article, citing development economics and demographic data instead.
The claim that South Korea's 0.78 fertility rate from 2020-2024 tracks cumulative effects of fiat currency, pension systems, and compulsory schooling is overstated. South Korea's fertility collapse began in the 1980s-1990s alongside rapid industrialization, rising female education and workforce participation, and intense work culture with long hours, per OECD data and Statistics Korea reports. Cross-national studies from the UN Population Division and World Bank show similar declines in developed East Asian economies correlate more strongly with housing costs, childcare scarcity, and gender inequality than monetary policy. Taiwan and Hong Kong exhibit parallel trends despite varying pension structures, undermining the specific causal link to state expansions in money and schooling. Academic reviews in Population and Development Review attribute East Asian ultra-low fertility primarily to economic pressures and shifting social norms, not fiat systems.
Ordinary people in high-cost developed countries will keep delaying or skipping kids due to housing, jobs, and lifestyle realities long after any policy tweaks on currency or schooling.
Sources (1)
- [1]The Factum - full site digest(https://thefactum.ai)