Korean unification: a solution to the challenges of an increasingly elderly population?

South Korea experienced below replacement fertility for the first time in 1983, which also marked the point from which fertility rates continued to decline over the next 20 years to reach a low of 1.2 in 2003. In spite of recent pronatalist policies, the fertility rate has remained near this level and has not increased appreciably. The reasons for sustained low fertility in South Korea are complex and solutions remain elusive. One option that has been suggested is reunification with North Korea, which could address the eventual decline in the population and mitigate the increasing proportion of the elderly. Although the conditions surrounding the German reunification experience were vastly different than what Korea will likely undergo, it is informative to look at Germany as a guide to the demographic parameters of reunification. Three projection models for 2015–2050 are presented; even the highest fertility models show that reunification will not be the answer to population restructuring already underway in South Korea as a result of sustained low fertility.     

Trilobite biofacies of the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary interval in northern North America

Regional biofacies analysis has been neglected in biostratigraphic studies of the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary interval. Cluster analysis of relative abundance data of trilobites in thirty-seven large collections from ten localities in North America outlines eleven biofacies in the mid-Trempealeauan to early Tremadocian interval. The biofacies are largely lithofacies-specific and are differentiated at generic and familial levels. The composition of trilobite zonal associations in the boundary interval is controlled principally by the sequence of biofacies. Available trilobite zonal schemes can be used only within single lithofacies. The biofacies patterns and faunal dynamics across the upper boundary of the Ptychaspid Biomere do not support hypotheses requiring catastrophic events. In coherence and geographic distribution, Late Cambrian trilobite biofacies are similar to post-Cambrian benthic biofacies.