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Old Posted May 23, 2020, 8:22 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Right, but they had extremely high birthrates, which helped power their economic miracle.

As late as 1970, nearly half the population was under 15 years of age. They had much higher birthrates than in the U.S. during the postwar decades. Now they have some of the lowest birthrates on earth. That's unsustainable, obviously. They doubled their population in a few decades; now they're hemorrhaging population.

But this is a false choice. Again, S. Korea had postwar birthrates that resemble modern-day birthrates in countries like Lesotho and Chad. They had enormous domestic labor supply.

You need people, so if you aren't birthing labor, you need to import labor.
Not talking about 1960s Korea here. as should be obvious!

I'm talking about 2000s.

S Korea did not grow in this period because of its labor supply. It grew because of amazing technological achievements that dwarf what most western countries managed during the same period.

Westerners only like to look at numbers. eg, WOW! Australia is growing so fast, no recession, hows this possible? (but let's not forget that all the growth is immigration and resource extraction related). S Korea has slightly lower growth, but their companies have expanded worldwide , creating massive demand for Korean exports. again, which would you prefer?

As far as clout goes, you could import half the population of Manila and Dhaka to Toronto or Melbourne, and these cities would have less clout than Seoul or Taipei. Numbers are not as important as the human capital of a city, and how its applied to pursue cultural and economic goals of a society.
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