by 
What
I’ve
been
reading:
Saving
the
Protestant
Ethic:
Creative
Class
Evangelicalism
and
the
Crisis
of
Work
by
Andrew
Lynn.
For
those
of
you
in
the
Indianapolis
area,
I
want
to
highlight
a
great
upcoming
event.
Farah
Stockman,
author
of
the
great
book
American
Made:
What
Happens
to
People
When
Work
Disappears,
will
be
in
town
speaking
about
her
book
on
March
19th
at
6pm
at
the
Carmel
Clay
Public
Library.
(Registration
required).
Stockman’s
book
is
about
the
lives
of
workers
in
a
bearing
plant
in
Indianapolis
that
closed
and
moved
to
Mexico.
I
hosted
her
for
a
discussion
about
it
on
my
podcast
last
year.
The
New
Yorker
has
a
long
and
fantastic
piece
on
falling
fertility
rates
in
its
new
issue.
There’s
a
particular
focus
on
South
Korea.
Today,
declining
fertility
is
a
near-universal
phenomenon.
Albania,
El
Salvador,
and
Nepal,
none
of
them
affluent,
are
now
below
replacement
levels.
Iran’s
fertility
rate
is
half
of
what
it
was
thirty
years
ago.
Headlines
about
“Europe’s
demographic
winter”
are
commonplace.
Giorgia
Meloni,
the
Prime
Minister
of
Italy,
has
said
that
her
country
is
“destined
to
disappear.”
One
Japanese
economist
runs
a
conceptual
clock
that
counts
down
to
his
country’s
final
child:
the
current
readout
is
January
5,
2720….
It
will
take
a
few
years
before
we
can
be
sure,
but
it’s
possible
that
2023
saw
the
world
as
a
whole
slump
beneath
the
replacement
threshold
for
the
first
time.
There
are
a
couple
of
places
where
fertility
remains
higher—Central
Asia
and
sub-Saharan
Africa—but
even
there
the
rates
are
generally
diminishing.
Paranoia
has
ensued….
Anyone
who
offers
a
confident
explanation
of
the
situation
is
probably
wrong.
Fertility
connects
perhaps
the
most
significant
decision
any
individual
might
make
with
unanswerable
questions
about
our
collective
fate,
so
a
theory
of
fertility
is
necessarily
a
theory
of
everything—gender,
money,
politics,
culture,
evolution.
Eberstadt
told
me,
“The
person
who
explains
it
deserves
to
get
a
Nobel,
not
in
economics
but
in
literature.”…
South
Korea
has
a
fertility
rate
of
0.7.
This
is
the
lowest
rate
of
any
nation
in
the
world.
It
may
be
the
lowest
in
recorded
history.
If
that
trajectory
holds,
each
successive
generation
will
be
a
third
the
size
of
its
predecessor.
Every
hundred
contemporary
Koreans
of
childbearing
age
will
produce,
in
total,
about
twelve
grandchildren….Portents
of
desolation
are
everywhere.
Middle-aged
Koreans
remember
a
time
when
children
were
plentiful.
In
1970,
a
million
Korean
babies
were
born.
An
average
baby-boomer
classroom
had
seventy
or
eighty
pupils,
and
schools
were
forced
to
divide
their
students
into
morning
and
afternoon
shifts.
It
is
as
though
these
people
were
residents
of
a
different
country.
In
2023,
the
number
of
births
was
just
two
hundred
and
thirty
thousand.
A
baby-formula
brand
has
retooled
itself
to
manufacture
muscle-retention
smoothies
for
the
elderly.
About
two
hundred
day-care
facilities
have
been
turned
into
nursing
homes,
sometimes
with
the
same
directors,
the
same
rubberized
play
floors,
and
the
same
crayons.
A
rural
school
has
been
repurposed
as
a
cat
sanctuary….Outside
of
Seoul,
children
are
largely
phantom
presences.
There
are
a
hundred
and
fifty-seven
elementary
schools
that
had
no
new
enrollees
scheduled
for
2023.
That
year,
the
seaside
village
of
Iwon-myeon
recorded
a
single
newborn….
The
after-school
program
was
about
to
start.
It
featured
two
options:
3-D
printing
and
something
Lee
called
“a
new
sport.”
She
could
give
me
no
details
on
the
new
sport,
which
was
played
on
Tuesdays.
In
the
past,
they
had
offered
volleyball,
badminton,
and
soccer,
but
such
extravagances
required
a
critical
mass.
She
let
me
wander
the
school,
which
felt
like
a
museum
of
childhood
artifacts:
an
unlit
but
well-stocked
gymnasium,
a
darkened
cafeteria
outfitted
with
a
little
proscenium
stage,
enormous
forsaken
playgrounds,
ballfields
gone
wild.
The
only
apparent
concession
to
the
demographic
reality
was
a
robotic
apparatus
for
playing
Ping-Pong
by
yourself….
Korea’s
demographic
collapse
is
mostly
taken
as
a
fait
accompli.
As
John
Lee,
the
political
analyst,
put
it,
“They
say
South
Korea
will
be
extinct
in
a
hundred
years.
Who
cares?
We’ll
all
be
dead
by
then.”
The
causes
routinely
cited
include
the
cost
of
housing
and
of
child
care—among
the
highest
in
the
world.
Very
little
in
Korean
society
seems
to
give
young
people
the
impression
that
child
rearing
might
be
rewarding
or
delightful.
I
met
a
stylish
twentysomething
news
reporter
at
an
airy,
silent
café
in
Seoul’s
lively
Itaewon
district.
“People
hate
kids
here,”
she
told
me.
“They
see
kids
and
say,
‘Ugh.’
”
This
ambient
resentment
finds
an
outlet
in
disdain
for
mothers.
She
said,
“People
call
moms
‘bugs’
or
‘parasites.’
If
your
kids
make
a
little
noise,
someone
will
glare
at
you.”
She
had
recently
vacationed
in
Rome,
where
adults
drank
at
bars
while
their
kids
ran
amok.
She
said,
“Here,
people
would
say,
‘What
the
hell
are
you
doing?’
”…The
reporter
said,
“When
I
write
about
this,
I
think,
Well,
what
would
change
my
mind?
The
answer
is
nothing.
It’s
the
norm
not
to
want
kids.”
Like
many
Koreans,
she
dotes
on
her
dog.
Finding
gifts
in
Seoul
for
my
two
little
soccer
fanatics
at
home
required
deliberate
planning—I
schlepped
all
over
town
looking
for
national-team
jerseys
in
child’s
sizes
and
had
to
settle
for
black-market
knockoffs—but
there
is
a
pet
depot
on
practically
every
block.
Last
year,
strollers
for
dogs
outsold
those
for
babies.
She
said,
“I’m
not
saying
people
value
dogs
more
than
they
value
children.”
She
paused
to
gesture
to
the
other
patrons:
“But
all
you
have
to
do
is
look
around.”…
Koreans
cite
the
pressures
and
costs
of
excessive
education
as
a
large
part
of
their
reluctance
to
have
children.
(American
parents
in
liberal
enclaves
might
share
a
version
of
these
misgivings.)
An
auspicious
Korean
childhood
culminates
in
acceptance
to
one
of
Seoul’s
three
most
prestigious
universities.
Admission
is
primarily
based
on
a
student’s
performance
on
the
national
collegiate
entrance
exam,
or
Suneung,
which
is
administered
every
year
on
a
Thursday
in
November.
The
opening
of
the
stock
market
is
delayed
that
day,
and
many
construction
sites
are
closed.
Bus
and
metro
services
are
increased
to
ease
traffic
congestion.
Students
running
late
may
avail
themselves
of
a
police-motorcycle
escort.
During
the
English-comprehension
section,
which
requires
absolute
silence,
air-traffic
control
suspends
all
takeoffs
and
landings.
Read
the
rest
of
this
piece
at
Aaron
Renn
Substack.
Aaron
M.
Renn
is
an
opinion-leading
urban
analyst,
consultant,
speaker
and
writer
on
a
mission
to
help
America’s
cities
and
people
thrive
and
find
real
success
in
the
21st
century.
He
focuses
on
urban,
economic
development
and
infrastructure
policy
in
the
greater
American
Midwest.
He
also
regularly
contributes
to
and
is
cited
by
national
and
global
media
outlets,
and
his
work
has
appeared
in
many
publications,
including
the
The
Guardian,
The
New
York
Times
and
The
Washington
Post.
Photo:
Picryl,
in
Public
Domain.
Go to Source
Author: Aaron M. Renn
