Category: Culture

Fifth Floor, Christmas Day

The heating had been on long enough. Long enough to warm the walls. He switched it off and put his coat on. Outside, the cold was bitter

The Global Fertility Crisis: Why America, Japan, and South Korea Are Running Out of Families

In Texas and Tokyo and Seoul, thirty-year-olds now run the same arithmetic: rent that devours half a salary, jobs that can vanish tomorrow, childcare that costs more than university, and the quiet certainty that no one is coming to save them. The future no longer feels like a place that rewards commitment. Across the richest societies in history, the fertility rate has become the most honest metric we have left: a mirror held up to civilisational confidence. The reflection is merciless.