On December 3rd, Professor Piao Jinshu gave us a wonderful lecture about the causes of the low fertility phenomenon, who is working in the Department of Sociology at Seoul National University.
Professor Piao mainly analyzes the causes from the perspective of late marriage, and she believes that young people's choice of late marriage in modern society is generally related to social structure, fertility, values, sexuality and family. Although it is important for families in East Asian countries that having children in family norms, more and more people choose to marry late. And marriage is considered a luxury. In ordinary marriage, women often bear core responsibilities. With the stratification within the labor market and serious gender inequality in the work environment, women have become more cautious about their choice of marriage in marriage. Most women are reluctant to marry men with lower economic status or lower social status. From a female perspective, marriage means a change in their social status. Late marriage also means a low fertility rate, which will increase the state's burden of pensions. The premise of promoting low fertility is to encourage people to pursue higher self-development, but now the phenomenon of low fertility will bring more serious problems of old-age care and social population structure.
In the end, Professor Piao thought that the problem of low fertility in South Korea could not be repaired and changed in a short time. Similarly, the second child policy proposed by the government of china did not solve the problem of low fertility. Therefore China and South Korea need to continue studying how to solve the problem of low fertility. On the one hand, we should improve the welfare of women's fertility policy.On the other hand, the labor market is supposed to more friendly to women.
