Korea's Child Shortage

A population group which has fewer than 2.5 children per couple is in the process of self-extinction. Korea is facing this problem.

Any population which is not growing at a slow but steady rate is subject to predictable economic difficulties. A population which is shrinking is unstable.

Interestingly, a shrinking population is also harmful to the planet. Environmentally sustainable practices are not possible in a community whose demographics skew away from statistical pattern sometimes called the ‘population pyramid’ graph.

The pyramid shape of the graph indicates that there are more middle-age people than old people, and more young people than middle-age.

Describing the harm which low birth rates are causing in Korea, Patrick Buchanan writes:

In 2050, the median age of South Koreans will have risen from thirty-eight today to fifty-four and a third of all South Koreans will be over sixty-five, an immense burden of retirees for the working population to carry. “Korea may lose out in the global economic competition due to a lack of manpower,” Health Minister Jeon Jae-hee told the Korea Times. “It is actually the most urgent and important issue the country is facing.”

Children and young people are the most valuable resource a nation has. Parents are stewards of the country’s future.

If a society fails to provide a nurturing and stable environment in which men and women marry, form loving and lasting homes, and raise an average of between two and three children per couple, then that society is simply dying out.

When History Began

Human civilization, and recorded human history, began roughly 7,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Although these numbers are approximate, they still allow us to ask a question: why did history begin then, and not earlier, and not later?

History begins with writing. Before the introduction of writing, there is no history. From the times prior to writing, there are the findings of archeology and paleontology, but history itself is and requires written records.

Writing is a product of civilization. Civilization arises when human have excess production beyond what is needed for mere survival: extra time and extra materials.

Civilization arises on the basis of physical structures (buildings), agriculture, and the domestication of animals. Civilization requires at least a modicum of stability - physical, economic, political, military.

Of the various types of stability needed for civilization, physical stability is the most pressing.

At a certain point in time, the earth was not as physically steady as it is now. Tectonic plates, which now move only inches in a year, moved miles in the same timespan.

Volcanic activity, which is now rare, caused entire mountains to rise or fall in a single day.

The humans who lived during that time were unable to organize any lasting form of civilization.

One of the preconditions, then, which was necessary for history to begin was the physical calming and settling of the earth’s crust. Only with the increase of material steadiness could civilization begin.

That’s why history and civilization began when they did, and not earlier.