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Millennials in South Korea Refusing to Have Children

The total fertility rate — the average number of babies born to each woman during her reproductive years — in South Korea was 0.81 last year, according to the country’s statistics agency. For the third year in a row, this is the lowest in the world.

The population shrank for the first time in 2021, raising fears that a shrinking population will severely harm the economy — the world’s tenth largest — due to labour shortages and increased welfare spending as the number of older people grows and the number of taxpayers shrinks.

President Yoon Suk Yeol has directed policymakers to devise more effective solutions to the problem. He claims that the fertility rate is falling despite South Korea spending 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the last 16 years to try to reverse the trend.

Many South Koreans millennials say they don’t feel obligated to have a family, unlike their parents and grandparents. They cite the insecurity of a bleak job market, high housing costs, gender and social inequality, low levels of social mobility, and the enormous cost of raising children in a brutally competitive society.

Women also complain about a pervasive patriarchal culture that forces them to do much of the childcare while facing workplace discrimination.

“In a nutshell, people believe that our country is difficult to live in,” said Lee So-Young, a population policy expert at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. “They believe their children cannot have better lives than they do, and thus question why they should have children.”

Dropouts in South Korea

Because South Korea lacks advanced social safety nets, many people who fail to enter good schools and land decent jobs believe they have become “dropouts” who “cannot be happy” even if they marry and have children, according to Choi Yoon Kyung, an expert at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education.

She claimed that South Korea failed to establish such welfare programs during its period of explosive economic growth from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Yoo, the Seoul financial worker, stated that she desired a child until she entered college. But she changed her mind after seeing female coworkers calling their children from the company restroom to check on them or leaving early when their children were sick. She claimed that her male coworkers were not required to do this.

“After seeing this, I realized that having children would significantly reduce my concentration at work,” Yoo explained.

Jo Jun Hwi, her 34-year-old husband, believes that having children is unnecessary. Jo, an interpreter at an information technology firm, said he wants to enjoy his life after years of job-hunting that left him “feeling like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.”

There are no official statistics on how many South Koreans choose not to marry or have children. However, according to national statistics, there were approximately 193,000 marriages in South Korea last year, down from a peak of 430,000 in 1996.

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Unsuitable for raising children

According to the agency’s data, approximately 260,600 babies were born in South Korea last year, down from 691,200 in 1996 and a peak of one million in 1971. The most recent figures were the lowest since the statistics office began collecting such information in 1970.

Kang Han Byeol, a 33-year-old graphic designer who has chosen to remain single, believes that South Korea is unsuitable for raising children. She cited her dissatisfaction with gender inequalities, widespread digital sex crimes against women, such as spy cameras hidden in public restrooms, and a culture that dismisses those advocating for social justice.

“I can think about marriage when our society is healthier and gives equal status to men and women,” Kang said.

Kang’s 26-year-old roommate Ha Hyunji also decided to remain single after married female friends advised her not to marry because they do the majority of the housework and child care. Ha is concerned about the large sum of money she would spend on private tutoring for any future children in order to keep them from falling behind in an education-obsessed country.

“I can have a fun life without getting married and enjoy it with my friends,” said Ha, who owns a cocktail bar in Seoul.

Free birth control pills and condoms

South Korea maintained birth control programs until the mid-1990s, which were initially implemented to slow the country’s postwar population explosion. The country provided free contraceptive pills and condoms at public medical centres and exempted men from military reserve training if they had a vasectomy.

According to United Nations data, a South Korean woman had four to six children on average in the 1950s and 1960s, three to four in the 1970s, and less than two in the mid-1980s.

South Korea has a number of incentives and other support programs in place for those who have a large number of children. However, according to Choi, the expert, the fertility rate has been falling too quickly to see any tangible effects.

Decision to live without children

During a government task force meeting last month, officials stated that comprehensive measures to address demographic challenges would be developed soon.

South Korean society still looks down on those who are childless or single.

When Yoo and Jo announced their decision to live without children on their YouTube channel, “You Young You Young,” in 2021, some viewers called them “selfish” and demanded that they pay more taxes.

Yoo was also accused of “gaslighting” Jo’s husband in the messages. Lee Sung-jai, a 75-year-old Seoul resident, believes that marrying and having children is “the order of nature.”

“These days, I see some (unmarried) young women walking their dogs in strollers while claiming to be their mothers.” Did they give those dogs birth? “They’re insane,” he said.

Seo Ji Seong, 38, said older people often call her a patriot for having so many children, even though she didn’t have them for national reasons. She is expecting her fifth child in January.

Seo’s family recently relocated to a rent-free apartment in Anyang provided by the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corporation and the city for families with at least four children. Seo and her husband, Kim Dong Uk, 33, receive additional state assistance, but raising four children is still difficult financially.

Kim stated that he enjoys seeing each of his children develop unique personalities and talents, whereas Seo believes that playing and competing with one another at home helps their children’s social skills.

“They’re all so adorable. That’s why, despite the difficulties, I’ve continued to have children,” Seo explained.

Source: The Associated Press

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP