"It won't be too long before our children are burdened with supporting the elderly," South Korea's Health Minister Jeon Jae-Hee says. "Korea may lose out in the global economic competition due to a lack of manpower. It is actually the most urgent and important issue the country is facing."Of course, South Korea is only one of dozens of countries facing a cultural and economic crisis because of negative population growth. As I have mentioned several times on this blog, Europe is in an especially precarious position. But few of those European countries are bothering to address the matter.
In South Korea, however, they're trying to reverse the trend that materialism and a "contraception mentality" have brought about in recent decades...a trend that finds South Koreans facing a birth rate way below ZPG (Zero Population Growth).
The government is trying tax breaks, cash gifts, matchmaking services and other incentives to counter the problem including, as this story describes, the turning off of lights in businesses "to encourage staff to go home early and make more babies."
