Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2025–2026
14:47 · 16M views · Apr 2, 2025
A Kurzgesagt animation on South Korea's record-low fertility rate and rapidly aging population. It explains why a demographic collapse looks hard to reverse and projects the population shrinking sharply by 2060.
Go-to link for the consequences of collapsing birth rates, showing why South Korea's decline looks unfixable.
12 comments from Hacker News
This is not what has happened in South Korea though. They've hit the top of the curve and pretty much every projection agrees that it's drastically downhill from here, the main disagreement is over how quickly. Kurzgesagt has a good video on this [0], they estimate that by 2060 the population of South Korea will have shrunk by 30% and will be heavily skewed towards the elderly. [0] this video
This is a nice explanation from Kurzgesagt showing precisely why South Korea is completely screwed long term, and why it's impossible to course correct through birth rate alone: this video
Relevant video from Kurzgesagt about South Korean birth rate and the repercussions, 3–4 generations down the line: this video
The issue is what to do about aging demographics? My few paragraphs or your few paragraphs can only encompass trite answers. There is no obviously good solution. We can only hope our glorious leaders find good compromises. I am mostly trying to suggest you look at how different countries manage (positively and negatively) their "demographic time bomb". It is unclear whether immigration is a strongly beneficial solution since it does cause friction. > Australians online > same sentiments Please take care with your arguments because anecdotal evidence generalises poorly (especially for topics that are common in echo chambers - it is difficult to avoid ones own biases). It is clear that immigration is broadly unpopular. The question is whether the rewards are worth the risks? [LINK] Immigration is an economic response to aging demographics. It is a very imperfect response. > Japan "South Korea is over" is a response to that: this video I predict Australia and particularly New Zealand will continue to use immigration to help their economies, despite pitfalls. I don't feel confident to predict anything about the US. The government there (either party) continues to surprise me with its recklessness; however systematically it surprises me with its resilience. Last year I was in New Orleans for a month and as an in person snapshot I saw a lot of negative signals for the future. I try to care about economics as a topic because for retirement investment I kinda have to invest overseas. Ho
> doom talk Perhaps easier to say in Australia: Australia seems to be doing better than many countries so perhaps you don't recognise the problem. Japan and Italy already have some ~$0 houses due to demographics. Children from New Zealand go overseas so demographics in NZ are worse than Australia. An article[1] this morning asked: "Have you seriously considered moving to Australia in the last year?" 37% said YES (and 40% of those have 'looked into it'). This thread is started by nly in London who clearly hasn't retired yet: My mortgage runs until I'm 70 and I, like most owners now, are entirely dependent on the housing casino game continuing. I have to refinance every 5 years, so if rates spike I'm also screwed. Here's a different view of the demographics story in the UK: [LINK] And here's a proper doom animation for Korea: this video Try to ignore the bullshit in both but do attend to the facts. I'm over a decade away from retirement in New Zealand, but all the signals I see here are pointing towards the country taxation base not being able to afford retirees in the future. I haven't considered Australia yet since I assume Oz won't escape the demographic wall, and if there is a future problem then being a kiwi in Oz could become unpleasant. The narrative a year ago was that we should invest a good proportion of retirement savings into the US stock market. Recent events indicate that might not be an effective long term strategy. A rental property was the traditional investment v