Mehdi Ghahremani (Jake) Student ID: 2010123172 UCK-1150-02 The Chosun Ilbo and Louisa Peacock in The Daily

Telegraph discuss Fertility and Retirement respectively. Using the articles/videos you have seen this term, how could these issues and that of Women in the Workplace be more successfully addressed?

children and the more it passes, the more people get used to smaller families and families are shrinking. It took just 20 years in South Korea to go from having generally big families to generally small families. This is the problem that happens as countries get richer.
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t is a fact that the number of single women in their 30s in Asian countries is increasing over the past few years and Korea is one of the countries with the lowest birthrate. In Korea, women are not only reluctant to get married but also they do not want to have

t is important to remember that Daily Telegraph and Chosun Ilbo argue the lower job opportunities for young people as the result of increasing the retirement age and also it is said the speed of decline in fertility rate has been astonishing and it can cause a serious

problem to make it difficult to deal with that. I would argue that it cannot be accurate all the time for the following reasons.

a big discrimination and not having equality with men. Another cause of reluctance to marriage may be found in improvements in womens education and income that changes the expectations because they can become economically independent so marriage rate is low among educated and well-paid women. In the past, the support of offspring in old age used to be thought as the benefits of having lots

here are a number of reasons why Korean women do not want to get married. In the first place, they should take care of their children, husbands and often for aging parents so it is hard to be both caregiver and be employed which makes women feel

of children, but now nationalized social-security systems are a substitution for having lots of children so it makes people tend to that the more children you have the more income you need. Children should be fed, clothed, housed.

significant. This is because it brings equal rights, anti-discrimination and eliminates unnecessary cultures. However, it can have profound effects in the opposite direction because as families shrink the preference for one child mostly son will increase. For example in China families are coerced to have only one child and those groups of people with a low income in China and India are primarily affected by gendercide.

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raditional preference for sons in Korean society is one of the reasons for baby gender testing and following abortions after determining the sex of children. I would argue that as countries develop, the issue of gendercide becomes less

t is a fact that falls in the fertility rate will make it hard to support retired individuals because the bulk of retirement income comes from taxes paid by people of working PAYG. So the number of retired people supported by each person of working age is

getting larger and larger which is not fair. For instance in 1970, Japan had 8.7 of working people for every one of 65 and over and it is anticipated it will be 1.2 to one by 2050. There are examples of ungenerous public pension systems in the world China, USA, Italy where the public sector cannot afford pensioners. Also, life expectancy has shown an outstanding improvement and if people retire sooner they will put the rest of their lifetime into leisure so it is better for governments to increase the retirement age to keep down the costs of state pensions. However, many people believe that older workers are less innovative and also this plan will result in shutting out younger workers.
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The older workers longer stimulates economic growth, not deteriorating growth, so when the economy grows, the more job places it creates and the younger people can also work. It is better for an economy if an old person contributes to productivity in his/her job rather than getting paid as a pensioner because older workers are not only flexible to work but also available to take several jobs at once. For employers, older workers are useful asset because they can fill out the absent workers and hire them whenever needed so the managers can sort out emergency problems quickly and the old get paid for it.
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indeed in Japan and some European countries it will rise to 20%. In addition it is believed that the number of children is about well-being so parents should decide how many children to have and they should not be pushed by some other forces. It is a fact that female employment is going up and women are getting better education. Lots of formal childcare and getting paid well during parental leave will be very costly to government so it would be better to make it easy to go back to work after childbirth without pursuing such expensive policies on direct benefits to families and also parents can allocate more time to their jobs if childrens school time will be lengthened. Finally, blaming single mothers is missing the point and retirement has to be pushed back.

o sum up, a big part of todays pension in public sector comes from PAYG and the proportion of dependent to active is unsustainable. In developed countries the percentage of GDP that is spent on public pensions is getting bigger and bigger and

Bibliography "Asia's lonely hearts" The print edition (Aug 20th, 2011) A Link Between Wealth and Breeding The Best of All Possible Worlds? The Economist (August 8, 2009). "Companies should start seeing older workers as assets rather than liabilities" The print edition (Apr 7th, 2011) "China's ageing population increases" Age Concern (Nov 1st, 2010) Daily Chart: Fun With Pensions The Economist (June 11, 2012) Demography: Virility Symbols The Economist (August 9, 2012) Demography: A New Science of Population The Economist (May 17, 2012) EU Budget Summit part I: Is Austerity About to Hit the EU? The Economist (November 22, 2012) Ending the Pay gap: Paying the price for women The Economist (September 7, 2012) "Gendercide" The Economist (Mar 6th, 2010) Gender Politics: Female Muscle The Economist (September 6, 2012) Gender Inequality: Growth is Not Enough The Economist (September 19, 2011) " Hiring grandpa" The Economist (Apr 9th,2011) "Japan's declining birth rate causes concern" Baby Blues (Mar 8th, 2007) "Lower fertility is changing the world for the better" The print edition (Oct 29th, 2009) "The end of retirement" The Economist (Jun 27th, 2009) "Now we are seven billion" The print edition (Oct 22nd, 2011) "Plight of over 50s whose Home is their Pension" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article2208697/2million-new-hippy-generation-Plight-50s-Home-Pension.html Pension Advisers: Existential Threat The Economist (September 20, 2012) Pensions: Nudge Nudge The Economist(October 4, 2012) "70 or bust!" The Economist (Apr 9th, 2011) "Suffer the little children" The Economist (June 27th, 2009) "Scrimp and save" The Economist (Jun 27th, 2009)

"The best of all possible worlds?" The Economist (Aug 8th, 2009) "The flight from marriage" SEOUL AND TAIPEI (Aug 20th, 2011) "The worldwide war on baby girls" The Economist (Mar 6th, 2009) "The silver dollar" The Economist (Jun 27th, 2009) The Decline of Asian Marriage: Asias Lonely Hearts The Economist (August 18, 2011) 2011 Census Figures: The more the Merrier? The Economist (July 16, 2012) "Work till you drop" The Economsi (Jun 27th, 2009) Young People: The Continent Generation The Economist (October 25, 2012)

Endnotes 1. "Lower fertility is changing the world for the better" The print edition (Oct 29th, 2009), p. 1 2. "Scrimp and save" The Economist (Jun 27th, 2009), p. 10 3. "Companies should start seeing older workers as assets rather than liabilities" The print edition (Apr 7th, 2011), p. 2