A Case for 'Reverse One-Child' Policies in Japan and South Korea? Examining the Link Between Education Costs and Lowest-Low Fertility

A Case for 'Reverse One-Child' Policies in Japan and South Korea? Examining the Link Between Education Costs and Lowest-Low Fertility
Author: Poh Lin Tan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

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Household spending on children's pre-tertiary education is exceptionally high in Japan and South Korea, and has been cited as a cause of low fertility. Previous research attributes this high spending to a cultural emphasis on education in East Asian countries. In this paper, we argue that institutional factors, namely higher education and labor market systems, play an important role in reinforcing the pressure on parents to invest in their children's education. We review evidence showing that graduating from a prestigious university has very high economic and social returns in Japan and South Korea, and examine the implications for fertility within the framework of quantity-quality models. Finally, we put forward 'reverse one-child' policies that directly address the unintended consequences of these institutional factors on fertility. These policies have the additional virtues of having very low fiscal requirements and reducing social inequality.

Low Fertility in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore

Low Fertility in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore
Author: Shigeki Matsuda
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811528306

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This book describes the low fertility status in three developed Asian countries—Japan, South Korea, and Singapore—and outlines countermeasures for their declining birthrates. Based on the characteristics of each society, the authors discuss why their fertility rates have not yet recovered. Low fertility is a demographic phenomenon that first occurred in Europe and subsequently spread across other countries. Currently, the fertility rates in Europe are relatively stable, while those in developed Asian economies are the lowest worldwide. This may cause labor shortages and weaken their social security systems, undermining Asia’s social and economic sustainability despite its remarkable economic development. In response to low fertility, some Asian countries have implemented countermeasures: Japan has introduced measures based on childcare facilities and work–life balance. Similarly, since the mid-2000s South Korea has established countermeasures to promote a balance between work and child rearing, as well as expanded childcare services. Singapore began introducing countermeasures before the other two countries, including various advanced measures. Yet none of these countries has seen a full recovery in fertility rates. Based on a statistical analysis of survey results from the three countries, this book makes several important points. The first is that the policy has been ineffective in Japan due to a discrepancy between the needs of parents raising children and those who are the targets of the countermeasures. Second, the work–life balance and child-rearing support measures that have been promoted in Japan and South Korea have not affected the number of children that women want to have. Third, Singaporean values tend to place individual emphasis on competition with oneself (education and career status) rather than on married life. This intense competition has lowered fertility rates. To restore these rates, each country must promote policies that better address its specific issues.

Decline and Prosper!

Decline and Prosper!
Author: Vegard Skirbekk
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2022-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030916111

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Globally, women are having half as many children as they had just fifty years ago. Why have birth rates fallen, and how will low fertility affect our shared future? In Decline and Prosper!, demographic expert Vegard Skirbekk offers readers an accessible, comprehensive and evidence-based overview of human reproduction. Readers learn about the evolution of childbearing across different populations and how fertility is related to (changes in) our reproductive capacity, contraception, education, religion, partnering, policies, economics, assisted reproduction, and catastrophes. Readers will explore the future of family size and its impact on human welfare, women’s empowerment and the environment. Skirbekk argues that low fertility is on the whole a good thing, while recognizing the challenges of population aging and “coincidental” childlessness. A balanced, integrative examination of one of the most important issues of our time, Decline and Prosper! drives home the fact that we must ultimately adapt to a world with fewer children. The book will be invaluable to anyone who is interested in the far-reaching effects of global fertility, including researchers and students of demography, social statistics, medical sociologists, family and childhood studies, human geographers, sociology of culture, social and public policy.

English in East and South Asia

English in East and South Asia
Author: Ee Ling Low
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2021-08-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0429782063

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This book provides a first systematic and comprehensive account of English in East and South Asia (EESA) based on current research by scholars in the field. It has several unique features. Firstly, it provides a rigorous theoretical overview that is necessary for the understanding of EESA in relation to the burgeoning works on World Englishes as a discipline. Secondly, in the section on linguistic features, a systematic template was made available to the contributors so that linguistic coverage of the variety/varieties is similar. Thirdly, the vibrancy of the sociolinguistic and pragmatic realities that govern actual English in use in a wide variety of domains such as social media, the Internet and popular culture/music are discussed. Finally, this volume includes an extensive bibliography of works on EESA, thus providing a useful and valuable resource for language researchers, linguists, classroom educators, policymakers and anyone interested in the topic of EESA or World Englishes. This volume hopes to advance understanding of the spread and development of the different sub-varieties reflecting both the political developments and cultural norms in the region.

Reproducing in an African City Today

Reproducing in an African City Today
Author: Rogers Hansine
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre:
ISBN: 3643913435

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Sub-Saharan Africa is considered the last region in the world where women still give birth to presumably too many children. However, within large cities such as Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, the average number of children per woman varies greatly. What is extraordinary, as this book shows, is that childbearing is a social action. Parenting allows one to consider different action alternatives, or rather, opportunities to act. These actions are not the same for everyone in different contexts. The book highlights that macro level socio- demographic changes, namely intraurban reproductive disparities are brought up by micro level (individual) actions.

Low and Lower Fertility

Low and Lower Fertility
Author: Ronald R. Rindfuss
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2015-10-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319214829

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This volume examines two distinct low fertility scenarios that have emerged in economically advanced countries since the turn of the 20th century: one in which fertility is at or near replacement-level and the other where fertility is well below replacement. It explores the way various institutions, histories and cultures influence fertility in a diverse range of countries in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. The book features invited papers from the Conference on Low Fertility, Population Aging and Population Policy, held December 2013 and co-sponsored by the East-West Center and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA). It first presents an overview of the demographic and policy implications of the two low fertility scenarios. Next, the book explores five countries currently experiencing low fertility rates: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. It then examines three countries that have close to replacement-level fertility: Australia, the Netherlands and the United States. Each country is featured in a separate chapter written by a demographer with expert knowledge in the area. Very low fertility is linked to a number of conditions countries face, including a declining population size. At the same time, low fertility and its effect on the age structure, threatens social welfare policies. This book goes beyond the technical to examine the core institutional, policy and cultural factors behind this increasingly important issue. It helps readers to make cross-country comparisons and gain insight into how diverse institutions, policies and culture shape fertility levels and patterns.

The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility

The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility
Author: Frances McCall Rosenbluth
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2006-12-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804768207

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This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of Japan's thorniest public policy issues: why are women increasingly forgoing motherhood? At the heart of the matter lies a paradox: although the overall trend among rich countries is for fertility to decrease as female labor participation increases, gender-friendly countries resist the trend. Conversely, gender-unfriendly countries have lower fertility rates than they would have if they changed their labor markets to encourage the hiring of women—and therein lies Japan's problem. The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.

The Tradeoff Between Number of Children and Child Schooling

The Tradeoff Between Number of Children and Child Schooling
Author: Mark Montgomery
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 112
Release: 1995
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780821331231

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Annotation World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study No. 112. Assesses evidence of a negative correlation between the number of children born and levels of child schooling by examining their determinants. In many developing countries, as parents have fewer children, they invest more in the health, education, and welfare of each child. This "quantity-quality tradeoff" is vividly illustrated in the recent economic development of Southeast Asia and Latin America. In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, the existence of such a tradeoff has not been established. The few studies conducted to date reveal either no correlation or a slightly positive one, whereby higher fertility rates are linked to greater schooling per child. This study examines the determinants of fertility and of child schooling in C te d'Ivoire and Ghana to assess evidence of a tradeoff, using data from three surveys conducted between 1985 and 1987. The results are mixed. In C te d'Ivoire, there is evidence of such a tradeoff in urban areas but not rural ones. In urban areas, female schooling, higher income, and improved child survival are associated with lower fertility and higher child schooling. In both rural and urban areas of Ghana, there is a tradeoff between fertility and child schooling with higher incomes, and, in rural Ghana, with increases in mothers' schooling. Also available in French ("La relation entre le nombre des enfants et de la scolarisation: Le cas de la C te d'Ivoire et du Ghana"): (ISBN 0-8213-3374-7) Stock No. 13374.

Global Trends 2040

Global Trends 2040
Author: National Intelligence Council
Publisher: Cosimo Reports
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2021-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781646794973

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"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

The Demographic Dividend

The Demographic Dividend
Author: David Bloom
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 127
Release: 2003-02-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0833033735

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There is long-standing debate on how population growth affects national economies. A new report from Population Matters examines the history of this debate and synthesizes current research on the topic. The authors, led by Harvard economist David Bloom, conclude that population age structure, more than size or growth per se, affects economic development, and that reducing high fertility can create opportunities for economic growth if the right kinds of educational, health, and labor-market policies are in place. The report also examines specific regions of the world and how their differing policy environments have affected the relationship between population change and economic development.