 South Korea's marriage rate has just dropped 40% in the past 10 years David And we're here to talk about the actual reasons why that is You know there are the reasons that are like always covered in the news Those are the ones the government people always talking about but there is stuff hidden below the surface We got to talk about it Andrew because this is happening in South Korea at the craziest rate It's happening all around East Asia and in fact, it's probably gonna happen in America and Europe as well So we got to talk about what are the reasons I guess we want to talk about our own theories Some of the reasons that might people now might not think about and then see what the comments say So please hit that like button check out other episodes of the hop-hop boys Oh, here's the boring part Andrew stagnant wages cost of housing gender equality lack of support network and work life balance Those are some of the boring reasons that I guess everybody is aware of if you study kind of like basic economics, right? Yeah, I mean you gotta let I mean dude if people want to live in the city you got to make it easier for people to raise Families and live in the city, right? But here's the part that is probably the least boring I'm sorry. I think I overstated under gender equality because there is a 4b movement in South Korea I'll pop that up right here and basically that is women rebelling against what they've viewed as Centuries or perhaps thousands of years of hyper patriarchal culture. Yeah, and it's a pretty big feminist movement But I would say there's not any Equal movement that we know about in Japan or China for example, which the birth rates are still going down But I guess Korea has the most extreme case, right? So I guess in every country. They're sort of Viewing their pie slices the reasons as slightly different distribution However, the outcomes are essentially the same However in South Korea the reason we're talking about it Andrew is because it seems like this trend is the most Accelerating right right, so the trend is global amongst first-world countries, but in South Korea seems the strongest Why does South Korea have the strongest case of this? Why are they suffering the most of this negative birth rate David? I just listed off the Chad GPT reasons, right? But here's the truth Andrew I don't think it is viewed in the younger generation whether that's young Millennials Gen Z or even Millennials at all That it's cool to have kids anymore So you're saying Koreans care that much about being cool that they're not having kids because it's uncool to have children Yes, and first of all, let's just look at the facts here. Is it uncool to have children? Unfortunately, it is viewed that way. Yes, even in the West because it makes your life uncool, right? Because you have to dedicate your life that you were dedicating to having dopamine short-term the fleeting things experiences Go traveling around you can't necessarily just try unless you're one of those weird families You know that travels with the kid around the globe I could just see that being super complicated because when you have a kid You have to stay in one place and build systems to develop that child Well, typically yeah, you got to move out to the burbs Then you got to go get a minivan for your kids, especially if you have multiple kids Obvious yes, I get it. Yes, obviously. It's a noble cause. It's good. It's a duty, but no It's not considered cool. You don't get cooler when you become a saying like all the cloud points They came from me looking good and being cool and doing all these things now It just has to depend like on how cute my kid is wait So because David your theory is this that Koreans got so cool in the past 15 so quick They got so cool so quick. They're there coolness curve was the most steep Right and they got exponentially cool to the point where they're like listen We just got cool like if I have a kid like I'm not gonna be cool anymore So we still want to drink soju go out party, you know look good be fashionable Be acting like I've never seen like K-pop star. There was a mom. There's no milf K-pop star I don't even think he already has kids or maybe she just had one at like well She's like out of the line I think I want to say she just had one maybe I like 39 Dang, maybe they need to normalize like a Beyonce type character and here's the truth Andrew There are some cool parents, but it's like super hard as cool as it hard as it was to be a cool single person Andrew It might be five times as hard to be a cool parent because it costs that much more and your kid got to be cool You can't even help that sometimes. That's just like the luck of the draw dang So that's my theory that's my theory that chat GPT or all these articles that are written by Government agencies consulting agencies news agencies will never say right because that's a cultural sort of like Thing that's difficult for the the news to speak on wow. Let me know what you think about David's theory. I I By the way, I'm not the only guy who said it because there was a famous Korean Like mathematician or at least like elementary like a arithmetic guy academic guy who said it But here was the reason he got in trouble Andrew He blamed it on women trying to be cool exclusively, right? Okay. That's what he said now Here's my theory and it's not like runs. It doesn't run opposite to what you're saying But I think there's like another side to it where I think that Korea is not a big place right, but it produces a ton of entertainment music movies shows Food content both internally, but mostly primarily externally like I would imagine that South Korea is one big Content machine right now. So the more content you're making means that you're employing and there's more content creators whether they're actors or movie actors or show writers or Influencers or whatever it is on social media I'm just saying like like so many people in that country are partaking in that job in the Entertainment and media industry yes that the entertainment and media industry lifestyle just runs opposite to having a family So the more people that are involved in entertainment the less marriages and Families there will be now you can relate this to being cool because obviously media helps Koreans seem cool, but I guess I guess I'm being more specific in the sense that What makes them cool is the media and everybody being involved in media actually runs Opposite to the lifestyle it takes to raise a kid right and a lot of cities by the way Or a lot of countries Andrew They have like a several streets in cities that are kind of the cool entertainment districts But I believe having been the soul myself that cool entertainment district just makes up a larger portion of Korea And it's like every city every country got a couple streets that are lit But it's like makes up a way bigger distribution So either my theory is wrong because I only just see all the content coming out from Korea So I'm overrating how much content they're producing or if you go to Korea right now Like there's got to be someone filming all the time something whether it's on their phone or their TV shows being filmed There's not that many people in South Korea and they have like if you see some of those shows on Netflix They're employing like hundreds of people even as extras and they have all these reality shows like think about how many people are Involved in entertainment. It's probably that I have no stats on this It's probably the highest distribution ratio of a general population involved in entertainment of any place on yeah It's it almost reminds me of like the percentage that it is in LA alone Like just people who live in LA who are involved in the entertainment industry It's got to be at least like 20% of the population or 15% it's a tremendous Yeah, and just like think about anyways, that's our theories guys You let us know in the comments down below that you think David said that Koreans are too cool and having kids is uncool I'm saying it's mostly because everybody's involved in entertainment and Entertainment lifestyle you meet a lot of people dudes or even women Michelle. Yo never had a kid for example, you know Like you see me do never have kids until they're like guys What are you gonna be an entertainment and move out to the barbs and have four kids? Anyways, other people were talking about how marriage Like it's treated just way more serious in the east So it's like because everybody's like thinks about everybody's salary. There's so much like Transactional aspects that are driven by old-school Confucianism Class socioeconomic class matching. So basically of course, that's gonna drive marriage rates low If everybody's doing running all these extra equations and algos on top of their marriage calculations You mean there's just too much pressure and too many metrics that a lot of people are just bound out of the game They're just like hey, you know what like Maybe Korean women are like a lot of these men don't meet my expectation Yeah, a lot of men are feeling like the Korean women don't want to do the things that women are supposed to be doing They're saying there's so much ancient culture that used to put that women's like leftover age at 25 Now it's 30, but if a woman is unmarried at 30 she figures Oh, I guess I would just be like living a single fun auntie life forever because I am already 30 It is already over for me. No to be left over at the age 25 That's crazy in Japan and or they call them Christmas cakes because nobody wants Christmas cakes after Christmas Well, obviously it's called shung shung new which is a means leftover like shung tie Anyway, somebody said more no, no, no, it's way more economics. It's the 4b movement Some men are blaming the women women are blaming the men people are blaming Corporatization people are blaming the government for not stopping corporatization Everybody Andrew is pointing a finger at everybody. Yeah, but I think you really got to look at the factors that makes Korea Different than Japan and China obviously it's very different than China. Obviously it's more similar to Japan It's more similar to Japan, but it's also way smaller than Japan too So that's why I think South Korea is a interesting use case So I think I'd almost have to look at Singapore which is a fraction of the size of Korea Which is like, I don't know 7 million. I don't forget how many people are in Singapore But it's like really not a lot so I guess you'd have to look at Singapore And if people are not having kids in Singapore and compare that to Korea because there's only like 40 million people in Korea Right, but I think Singapore is in a very different situation because Singapore is in a weird way Andrew a little bit like the America of Southeast Asia With a lot of Chinese people where you know a lot of you could be Singaporean and be like nobody is necessarily Singaporean racially From somewhere else and became Singaporean, so it's different. It's a little bit of immigrant place Some people are saying man all of the East Asia is the same way Japan specifically and then you know I got into some arguing between Filipinos and Japanese because someone said that's because most Japanese men are five foot six with Small d's and then everybody said what do you talk about man? They hating Hey, man, I won't stand for the slender where Big D's Medium D's or little D's Andrew these trends didn't change until recently and the probably Yeah, um somebody said they need to start expediting visas to all the Latin countries and then they'll see that baby boom All right, so David a Latin person wrote this by way. Oh, this is a funny Solution, but it's not really a funny because it's just from their perspective like They were saying that obviously the stereotype is that Latinos know how to make babies and they're whatever Latino women are fertile That's the stereotype. There's also some obviously if I just pop up the stats right here. You'll see in life Yeah, they like Latinos that like to have babies. So whether they're more fertile or not genetically We don't I have no idea, but they they like to have more kids So if you are with if Korea is willing to take on some Latino immigrants who are you know Whatever want to work there and learn and be Korean then they can help you talk about Korea booze Yeah, Latino Korea booze men and women can go to Korea and then start Families and I'm sure the Latino Korea booze would love that idea, right? And I think there's a lot of reasons why people want to have a lot of kids I think a lot of it is due to religion. I think it's values I think it's valuing a family time over materialism and not necessarily being caught up and like oh my gosh My kid has to go like to the Harvard of elementary and the Harvard of middle school to be like valued by people I don't know. It's just different every culture is different, right? Anyway Andrew Let's get into the boring solutions increase financial incentives for having children improve work-life balance change cultural attitudes Expand access to affordable housing and address the aging population Of course a lot of people are pointing out robots and AI to potentially do some matching Japan's already doing that matching personalities people who want to have kids with other kids You're from these sides of the countries. Guess what the government's gonna put you together through AI. I'll say this what if people just Stop thinking that being cool is the only thing that matters People have to think that continuing the human population or at least the human population of their group or whatever However, they want to define those with whatever boundaries is cool. Well, you have to find some duty and Meaning in it like you have to find meaning and being a parent to have a kid and really care about that kid Right so how can only care if the kid is cool too, right? You can't only care if your kid is gonna be like the coolest kid whether it's like Ryan's toys reviews or one of those like You know really stylish kids. Yeah, I think I think I think it is true If you think about it if you're a person who can zoom out and think about the future of the world There has to be kids and a lot of them still have to come from Families who are smart educated the all these families who live in the city and people who have degrees or I just whatever People who are work hard, right? They have to have kids and so you have to find some duty in that Yeah, but how do you build in that duty? I I think AI is not just gonna be on a dating app matching up people better I think literally they're just gonna start paying women to have in vitro Fertilization and then like they just raise a kid and then they got all the robots The male person the male figure in the household would be a male masculine robot Potentially guys is the future that we live in so if we don't want this future We gotta start having babies or is it gonna just be like the matrix where we're all like born and hatched in these little pods Hey, man, let us know what you think in the comment section below I think it has to do with how cool people want to be I think that that's the primary unspoken pie slice Let us know what you think in the comment section below until next time we out. Peace. Peace