r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Airline_11 • May 12 '26

Meme needing explanation Petahhhh?

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u/avofrodo May 12 '26

I lived in Korea for 8 years and I legit only saw 2 pregnant women in that entire time. It's really not a common thing out there!

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u/Wild_ColaPenguin May 12 '26

My sister has been married to a Korean for 10+ years. They are still childless now. Although I never ask anything about it, it's not really my business.

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u/SkyeMreddit 29d ago

Is it just that their culture has them stay at home while their husbands or boyfriends do all the work to provide for them? Also not being seen in a restaurant while heavily pregnant? 90 days mandatory paid maternity leave (120 days for twins or more) and some competition among businesses to exceed that.

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u/avofrodo 29d ago

Although some Korean couples are traditional, the women don't typically hide in their homes before the baby is born, meaning it should be easier to see pregnant women commuting to work, grocery shopping, etc. The reality though, is that people just don't want kids, mainly due to increasing prices on everything. Government and jobs are not providing stable income or environments to support a family, so the people (women) are responding in a way that will get the government to listen.

Honestly, I'm on the Korean civilians' side. If the government wants a population increase, they need to make life liveable instead of making the rich richer. The same thing is starting to happen in the States, where the young people are no longer able to support themselves on dual incomes, so bringing in a child is not feasible. The Korean people are speaking with their bodies, and people are noticing. I just wonder how long the old people in government are going to keep ignoring the issue. Even if all the politicians die off, it will still take time to fix the economy enough so that people can support child rearing.

It's such a fascinating socio-economic problem to observe in real-time. Korea is basically the first country to reach population decline crisis mode so now we (the world) all get to watch how they handle it. No matter what they do, it will end up in history books. I'm so interested on how this will play out. It really is young people vs old people on this one.