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Nation With Lowest Birthrate Is Rocked by Soaring Sales of Dog Strollers
Pooches in prams outpace actual baby carriages in South Korea, leaving officials barking mad
[source:https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/nation-low-birthrate-childlessness-dog-strollers-south-korea-e9778517]
South Korea’s now labor minister has scolded young people, saying they choose dogs over kids. Kim Bora
“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.
Kang Seung-min with Coco. ‘I don’t want to get married.’ Photo: Kang Seung-min
They are so ubiquitous a national broadcaster in January aired a segment titled: “‘Am I the Only One Annoyed By This?’ A Heated Debate Over Dog Strollers.”
In many advanced economies, including the U.S., adults treat their pets like pampered children, with fancy birthday parties, decked-out doggy mansions, private-plane travel and rides in dog strollers.
But pet parents have South Korean officials howling.
‘Demographic national emergency’
The country is confronting a national fertility rate of 0.72—or a mere third of the level needed to maintain the population. At a youth roundtable last year, Kim Moon-soo, the country’s now labor minister, scolded the fresh-faced attendees: “What I worry about is young people not loving each other,” Kim said. “Instead, they love their dogs and carry them around, they don’t get married, and they don’t have children.”
Members of a left-leaning minority party protested Kim’s comments at a recent press conference, and said he should consider intense working conditions and low wages before blaming pet owners for low birthrates.
The central government’s entreaty for younger generations to choose children over pets does have a twist: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is married without children—and has a menagerie of at least 10 dogs and cats himself.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee pose with puppies at a dog school. Photo: South Korean Presidential Office/AFP/Getty Images
“Sorry, this food’s only for daddy,” reads one of his Instagram posts, which shows two bichons frises staring at him as he eats a sandwich.
Still, in June, Yoon declared a “demographic national emergency” over South Korea’s low birthrate. He called on government ministries to resolve the plummeting birthrates to avoid an “existential crisis.”
Kim Bora, a 32-year-old freelance web designer, isn’t contemplating having kids yet. She finds South Korea too hypercompetitive and costly for child rearing. Instead, she has tricked out her dog stroller, which can also transform into a carseat, for her bichon frise, Salgu, the Korean word for apricot. Salgu luxuriates in her stroller with a heat pack in the winter and an ice pack in the summer.
Kim Bora with her dog, Salgu. She sees South Korea’s intense culture and high costs as deterrents to having children. Photo: Kim Bora
While the number of infants is dwindling, the registered canine population in South Korea jumped to a record high in a tally last year, more than doubling since 2018.
A dog-stroller boom
Dog-stroller sales have quadrupled since 2019, according to Yoon Hyun-shin, head of Pet Friends, South Korea’s largest online pet-commerce platform. Airbuggy is hailed as the “Mercedes-Benz” of them. Their fall-winter “Grey Tweed” special-edition model costs about $1,100, sports Scottish fabric and off-road tires.
Park Soon-jae, head of Airbuggy Korea, says, ‘the market here demands pet strollers.’ Photo: Park Soon-jae
The company began as a baby-stroller maker, but Airbuggy’s Korea division pivoted solely to dog strollers in recent years. “You can put your dog or baby in our strollers,” said Park Soon-jae, head of Airbuggy Korea. “But the market here demands pet strollers.”
Strollers ferrying generally small, healthy dogs are part of the daily landscape, across South Korean department stores, restaurants, sidewalks and recreation areas.
They clog the footpaths at Seoul Forest Park—which is larger than New York’s Central Park—befuddling Lee Sung-kyu, 62, a facilities manager there. “Those strollers should be carrying babies,” he said.
“But the dog won’t ride it,” said Lee, cracking a grin. “The dog keeps jumping out.”
At Seoul Forest Park, which is larger than New York’s Central Park, strollers ferrying pooches are a common sight. Photo: Soobin Kim for WSJ
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com
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This is happening in all the developed civilised countries.
The problem is that were becoming too civilised, South Korean and Japanese men have become too effeminate the same as white westernen men.
This has been the gradual boiling of the frog, and the mrna shots are the final nail in the coffin.
Why would anyone want to have children with the cost of living and how unstable and volatile the world is.
And when your government is working to actively destroy ypur own people.
I don’t like any of the politicians, the last good politician died in 1945.
Even John F Kennedy was not a great leader,he put through laws for the civil rights era.
That were seeing the consequences of today, with our people being raped assaulted and murdered on a daily basis by violent savage blacks.
I don’t like the Irish cathlic way of thinking, in general the Irish are not deep thinkers or capable of independant thought.
Robert F Kennedy Juniour is from a very wealthy family and he lives seperated from the civilian population.
It’s his cathlic all is equal under god way of thinking that has caused this.
If people went off biology and your natural tribal instincts then this would never have happened.
The most stupid white people are at the top while the smartest are at the bottom struggling.
There is no fixing this unless feminism is destroyed and cultural marxism.
I put the blame largely on white women and because i live in such a liberal multi cultural area and the women in my area are entitled liberal finist whores who don’t want children.
They want to sleep around and fuck and date black and brown men and be degenerate fucking dykes.