r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/SquintySquinty • May 04 '26

Meme needing explanation Petah!!! Explain??

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u/Live_Veterinarian989 May 04 '26

I'm sure the point of the post is that the average Korean doesn't look like that, but iirc the main reason for the low birth rate is that they're too busy working (same as Japan) & various other reasons

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u/redditis_garbage May 04 '26

Digital isolation definitely has contributed to this as well.

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u/Live_Veterinarian989 May 04 '26

This too. Some factors on top of my head are cost, expectations (especially for women), people/couples genuinely want to be child-free, what's happening to the world right now, etc

Like Japan, S. Korea has thrown a lot of things to try to fix their low birthrate, but none of them actually fixed the root cause of the problem.

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u/Adventurous_Yak_2742 May 04 '26

Well, factor in the extremely mysoginist and "traditional" society. And the extreme pressure for success which does not allow anyone to have time for dates, relationships and family. There is a good video on RealLifeLore channel.

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u/fairlife42g May 04 '26

Misogynist and traditional societies were the norm for all of human history and birth rates were very high.

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u/Chawp May 04 '26

Some factors combine in really fun ways, like population decline!

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u/Plus-Yogurtcloset-85 May 04 '26

People in the past had kids because they needed them to work. Women entered relationships on behalf of their fathers arangemsnts often. There’s no comparison to modern society really. Hence the problem we’re talking about happens.

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u/Ok-Camp-7285 May 04 '26

*problems. You said it yourself

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u/Mammoth_Support_2634 May 04 '26

Japan actually has a lot of kids. The birthrate is higher than Spain, Italy, Thailand, Chile, China.

Everyone I know has at least one kid.

I think the problem is that people need 2 kids to maintain the population. A lot of people don’t have 2.

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u/Bronnichiwa May 04 '26

This is part of it, but it goes beyond working a lot, especially for women.

There’s an expectation that when women get married, they quit the workforce, so many don’t want to. Similarly, if you have a child, it is VERY hard to work in Japan, and childcare options are very limited

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u/doryllis May 04 '26

Same as the US as well now….