From the Wall Street Journal via MSN, September 9:
SEOUL—After pushing a stroller to a park near her home in a Seoul suburb, Kang Seung-min plopped down on a bench. Then an elderly woman approached, looking for a friendly chat with Kang about motherhood.
“I’m not even married yet,” Kang, 24, responded.
The startled woman stared into the stroller and took in the little passenger: a brown poodle named Coco. She left, imploring Kang to start a family. “I don’t want to get married,” Kang says. “I’d rather spend money on my dog.”
A global discourse has emerged, including in the U.S., about childlessness and the reluctance to bear offspring. But the hand-wringing might be at its fiercest in South Korea, home to the wealthy world’s lowest birthrate, as well as another distinction that has fur flying: the skyrocketing sales of dog strollers, which last year outpaced those of baby strollers for the first time, according to Gmarket, one of South Korea’s largest online retailers. The trend held true for the first six months of this year, too....
....MUCH MORE
South Korea as a political entity will be gone within sixty years.
