What I read
According to “Why I never want babies” (2018) by Simon Maybin, many modern Korean women have chosen not to marry nor have children, which might lead to population shrinkage in the future. This phenomenon is so pervasive, it even has a name called ‘the Sampo Generation’, which means people who give up relationships, marry, and children. There are many reasons that might explain why Korean women don’t want babies. For example, many women don’t want to lose their jobs after having babies, many women think it is unfair that they have to take responsibility for most household affairs compare to men after they were married, and also women worry about educational cost for their children in order to keep up with others.
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My response
As mentioned in the article that South Korea is facing low fertility rate problem, it seems that we have similar trend going on in Thailand. Even we don’t have issue about gender inequality issue, husband and wife have quite equal status in Thai family. But I think this phenomenon is attributed to the increasing of living cost. One good example is housing price. Within a couple of decades housing price has skyrocketed, in which it is too expensive for an ordinary person to buy just a single bedroom condo, now it costs more than 3 million bahts in Bangkok, let alone 2 or 3 bedrooms if you would like to build a family. I don’t know how much would it cost to build a family these days, but I am sure the estimated figure must shock me. Imagine if someone is going to marry, buy a house, buy a car, and raise a child, what reasonable family income would be to afford all those things sustainably. Only few people could afford that, especially for young adults if they have to build family from scratch. So, to me, It is a logical choice for people who decide not to have kids, they just adapt to economic environment.
For those who decide to have kids, I think that it is unfair to them regarding what they did for the country. Raising kid is no easy job. It requires effort and commitment to take care of a child until growing up. Some of parents might have to give up their jobs, when they have children. But our country perceives their hard work as a volunteer job. If we think in terms of opportunity cost, these parents should get some compensation for what they did to their country. I would agree if our government would offer them a temporary job for taking care of their children so they can do their best to raise their kids and don’t have to worry much about making a living. Although, we already have a measure by the revenue department that allows parents to have tax deduction for their children, 30000 baths per child per year, but I think this number is way too low and very unrealistic. How can parents use this amount of money to support their kids? Obviously, this is not enough to motivate middle class families to have children. If the government really want to address the low birth rate problem, they should come up with more realistic measure. Anyway, I really appreciate all those parent, who volunteered to do such hard work for our country, and hope that someday our government would recognize and reward your dedication.
My question
Do you want to have babies? Why or why not?Reference
- Maybin, S. (2018, August 18). 'Why I never want babies'. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45201725
I enjoyed Teng's summary of his chosen article and the thoughtful ideas in his response. I don't disagree, but neither do I think that a falling birth rate, and falling population are necessarily bad things. It less people have less children, and only have children that they afford to bring up well, I think that will be good. It sometimes seems to me that people often had children by accident in the past: they became pregnant, and abortion was not easy to get, so they had children that they did not really want, and that was bad for everyone, for the children, the parents, and for society generally. At least when fewer children are being born, they are more likely to be truly loved and wanted by their parents.
ReplyDeleteAnd as technology can do ever more things, I'm not sure that we need to keep growing the population. Also, the world's population is still growing, so perhaps more immigration would be a better solution. Thailand and Japan could invite more people to more easily become citizens of their nations. I think (I should check, but it's late and I'm tired) that my country's population (Australia's) would be decreasing if we did not take in a lot of immigrants who become Australian citizens, and this has worked very well for us, as it has for other nations that welcome new citizens.
I will be interested to see what others think on the interesting questions that Teng raises for us to discuss.
Maybe yes I think, because in my opinion being a father is a rare opportunity for a man, but it take a lot of responsibility to taking care of the baby and also use a lot of money too. My older brother said he don't want to have a girlfriend that also mean he don't want to have a baby, so I guess it might up to me now.
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