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Baeguk Faces a Demographic Crisis
5366.5.9 (WED)
Controversy has emerged in Baeguk following the defeat of a Senate bill that would derail the Baegukese government's recently implemented population control and family planning policy. This all is over the backdrop of the nation's most daunting societal challenge faced today - the inevitable overpopulation of Baeguk. Official government figures based off of the 5365 Census now predict that, by the year 5400, the Baegukese population will have ballooned to ~59,520,000 - more than a 37% increase from the current 43,256,450 figure. This spells socioeconomic disaster for the peninsular nation, whose ten-million strong capital of Gongmangdo is still facing a housing problem.
For years, scientists and medical experts have been in awe of the nation's absurdly high birthrate. Most agree that it was due to the nation's rapid industrialization and the legal benefits of childbirth (child benefit welfare and tax cuts) that caused the rate to continue to stay high. The birthrate was unable to accordingly adjust in time to meet the demands of developed society, and it is only beginning to fall in earnest now, thanks to state intervention.
Generally, developing nations will have a birthrate more or less equal to that of our current one,
says Dr. Kim Taehyŏng, a medical and population scientist, senior analyst at the Royal Ministry of Public Health and Safety, co-author of the definitive New History of Baeguk, and a Mugunghwa-Order awarded scholar.
Baeguk has only been considered a developed country for less than a generation, maybe one generation tops. Economic development began in earnest in the early 5300s. That work was built off of a society that had, until relatively recently, known only to reproduce and to have many children - under fascism of course. You can actually go back to documents and statistics from the fascist era to compare, and the rate, if calculated now, is in some parts as high as almost 5 children per Kyo mother. Infant mortality was high, healthcare quality was low, and there was no real sense of any developed service sector or high-level education - you were born, and if you didn't die, you would take up a brainless job farming or manufacturing, raise a large family as an organ of the state, and then die. That was life - simple, short, and brutal. The state wanted more military manpower and more Kyo people to erase ethnic minorities, so of course such a society rewarded high rates, it became the norm.
That all changed when the regime fell. There was a temporary decade-long, maybe two-decade long freeze when the provisional government had to address the refugee and orphan crisis, but after that life mainly went on as usual. People were slow to adapt, those traditional childbirth values were carried on - it was just what you did back then. Now, this would've been fine if Baeguk remained poor, malnourished, and without healthcare - weak, sickly babies aren't favored by natural selection. However, with the rapid economic development and the eventual transition to becoming an upper-middle income service economy; these babies are now being brought up in a society that can bring them all to adulthood, but that suffers economically for it. There's an increasing lack of straightforward first or second class jobs, and an increasing need for more third-class services - or, to use a more profane term, "bullshit jobs". Couple that with the relative lack of new building space on our frigid peninsula and the difficulty of cultivating enough food to feed the nation domestically, and you can see that it's going to take a lot of work to continue our upwards trajectory.
Our political system has been slow to adjust to the reality, and frankly a democracy such as this is ill-equipped to do so. Career politicians rely on the support of the aging establishment, and the old still support those antiquated, large family values. Until recently it was practically political suicide to suggest birth control, despite the fact that research demanded it as early as the 5320s! Currently the lowest regional average we've got is Eolssu, at 2.9 births per woman. Our highest, in Nambyeon, is 4.2. That's mind-boggling! What we're facing here is a unique crisis that has never been seen before in Terran history - a developed country that doesn't suffer from underpopulation, but overpopulation. I predict that, in the next couple of decades, there's going to be struggles. Without a push for construction now, housing will be scarce. As a nation we might be forced to rely on foreign food sources more. The domestic energy industry will need to reinvigorate, or we might have to go back on coal or foreign oil and gas. Big cities, Gongmangdo essentially, will need to revamp their infrastructure and public transport systems to support upwards of 40% more than their current capacity.
Nonetheless, Dr. Kim says that it isn't all doom and gloom.
If we have competent leaders and a family planning strategy, and if we have a resilient enough populace to withstand the initial hurdles, I see a bright new market to build on. This boost could be a great equalizer in Baeguk's place in the world, which has historically seen it as a smaller power with a smaller population. We will see the rise of a youthful generation more than capable of taking the torch from older generations, and expanding the national industry to a third more of its current potential. Pensioners can relax easy, young people will have a bright future ahead of them, and hopefully their children will grow up in a constructive environment that has learned and mastered the art of stable population growth.
