Speculative Stuff
2023 - 2024 - 2025 - 2026 Student Works
* The intellectual property rights of each work are owned by each student.

Metaverse Birth: Economic Alternatives to Overcoming Low Birthrates





MIJI KIM



 South Korea is facing a severe low birth rate problem, prompting the government to implement policies to encourage childbirth. However, existing measures have proven insufficient to address the complex challenges associated with declining fertility rates. The consequences of a low birth rate include school closures, economic concerns, and strains on the social welfare system. To tackle this critical situation, a speculative design approach is adopted to imagine potential future scenarios where governments actively promote “metaverse births” as a solution. 

The topic of low birth rates has a profound impact on society, with countries experiencing fertility rates below the replacement level facing challenges in sustaining their social security systems. Demographic imbalances resulting from declining birth rates can undermine economic growth and stability. Governments worldwide have implemented various programs and incentives to reverse the downward trend, and South Korea requires

multifaceted approaches to address the low birth rate, including supporting youth independence, promoting marriage, tackling housing shortages, reducing societal barriers for women, implementing effective childbirth policies, and providing increased incentives for families. Addressing gender inequality and creating employment opportunities for women with childcare responsibilities are also crucial factors.

In a speculative scenario set in 2050, the government adopts a radical approach to address the low birth rate problem by promoting “metaverse births” through centralized brainwashing and education. This strategy raises ethical, legal, and social concerns that require investigation. A preliminary study involving interviews with young women reveals diverse opinions, with some interested in metaverse childbirth and others concerned about government-controlled brain manipulation, loss of human institutions and autonomy, and the feasibility and safety of the approach.

In this scenario, couples opting for metaverse childbirth receive government-controlled brain implants to define their children’s genetic characteristics and educational plans. The government ensures children receive nutrition and education through the implants, reducing parental responsibilities. A government pamphlet illustrates the scenario, depicting a contented family with a child in the metaverse, highlighting the benefits such as lower costs, reduced physical strain, and improved education. Ethical concerns

are addressed, emphasising that young individuals have the option to leave the metaverse and reenter the real world at 19.


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2023



Speculative Stuff



Speculative Stuff is a public archive of speculative design works developed through Yonsei University’s Integrated Design courses, 
led by Hyunjae Daniel Shin (Associate Professor) and Eun Sun Park (Lecturer).

The platform documents how undergraduate students begin with small everyday questions — discomforts, contradictions, awkward moments, and social habits we often overlook — and transform them into speculative objects, future scenarios, and critical narratives.

These works are not predictions of the future. They are invitations to look again at the present. By using comedy, exaggeration, absurdity, and preposterous worldbuilding, the projects make familiar systems feel strange and open up alternative ways of imagining technology, culture, society, and the environment.

The course has been shaped by an ongoing pedagogical exploration of Speculative Critical Design, combining futures studies, design research, interactive workshops, and public engagement. It encourages students to move beyond solution-driven design and develop more critical, imaginative, and participatory ways of engaging with alternative futures.

The methodological background of Speculative Stuff is further informed by Eun Sun Park’s doctoral research on the Preposterous Comedy Approach for Speculative Critical Design, which examines how comedy techniques, preposterous futures, and speculative artefacts can support critical thinking, public engagement, and future-oriented design education.

Read the dissertation HERE(EN) (KR)