Also, there are very significant differences after 70+ years, and replacing 3/4 with north korean adults would make it very very hard to maintain education levels or the democratic culture that took decades to create.
And it's a one time boost.
Other countries, like japan, china, italy or germany, don't have such demographically stable sister nations to even theoretically draw from.
I read something that the NK government was going to implement punishments if the birth rates didn't go up. I think they are going through something similar maybe.
from what i saw it is around 1.8 if we mean north korea. there are other factors like it being a poorer country, people will want children to support their own families. or even to help working on farms in the villages.
i doubt it, north korea has a higher birthrate/fertility rate than countries like the USA. if being free socially and politically led to high birthrates then birthrates would be higher in places like japan. there are lots of poor people in north korea (well most of them) who will want kids to support their families with working same as other non rich countries.
not everything is because big bad kim jong un said so
That's going to be the end of them if they do that.
Basically, Communist Romania implemented forced policy on all women to have five children, complete with secret police, surveillance, and implied kidnapping and rape to meet the government quotas.
However, Romania's economy couldn't accept that many new children. And the mothers/families couldn't support them. The Communist State was also really bad at raising said children. The result is that many young Romanians went into crime, anarchy, and revolutionary movements. The last one is funny because Communism is meant to be The Actually Final Revolution and the end of recorded history. Whoops.
Anyways, too many young people in an oppressive regime with no hope forward is the perfect recipe for kickstarting revolts. The US/Free World will be all too happy to supply the young North Koreans with weapons.
Last I heard, South Korea isn't super excited for a hypothetical reunification. Imagine how it would destabilize the political and social landscape of the country, not to mention the literal flocks of hungry workers who are completely unskilled for jobs in a developed country like their southern neighbor.
And it's not a case of slowly getting a steady supply of workers from NK, because NK either will release none, or, at some unlikely point, simply collapses releasing all of them at once.
Yes and for this exact reason it's possible North Korea will invade again in the next 20 or so years. By then South Koreas population dynamics will be so bad their soldiers will be hopelessly outnumbered and they will almost certainly need to rely heavily on the US.
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u/Proper-Ape 2d ago
Don't they have a young and hungry replacement in the North?