THE VIDEO SHELF · south korea demographic collapse
SOUTH KOREA IS OVER
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.
Why HN readers recommended it
Go-to link for the consequences of collapsing birth rates, showing why South Korea's decline looks unfixable.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
- Topic
- south korea demographic collapse
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 3
- HN mentions in dataset
- 12
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2025–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Relevant video from Kurzgesagt about South Korean birth rate and the repercussions, 3–4 generations down the line: [VIDEO]
virtualritz on Hacker News · 2025-04
In South Korea's 'heartbreaking' wildfires expose superaged societyThis 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 …
Etheryte on Hacker News · 2025-05
In The Future Is Too Expensive – A New Theory on Collapsing Birth RatesThis 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: [VIDEO]
gambiting on Hacker News · 2025-05
In Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.