Japan births fall to record low as population crisis deepens

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/asia/japan-births-2022-record-low-intl-hnk/index.html

by alexzeitler • 3 years ago

43 114 3 years ago

cnn.com

controversial97• 3 years ago

Declining human population is a good thing.

themitigating• 3 years ago

Only if spread out. Less Japanese vs who

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

Who is swimming to Japan? Joking of course, but you have to consider that unless there are land adjacencies, it’s unlikely invasion is a concern as population declines.

Less Japanese means more open space and less land contention from remaining Japanese. Less people overall means less resource contention overall.

js8• 3 years ago

They tried to spread out, but Americans put a stop to it in WW2.

creakingstairs• 3 years ago

1.3 looks pretty good next to 0.78 :p

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/south-korea-lowest-f...

PebblesHD• 3 years ago

I contend that across the developed world, everything just got too expensive. In the two places I ‘live’, Sydney and Tokyo, young people are putting off the usual life events such as getting married, having kids etc. because of unstable housing and insecure employment.

50 years ago, a dwelling was around 3-4x annual salary, now it’s 15-20x salary. You aren’t paying that off early and growing the family, even with both parents working. To even get both parents working, you need child care, which for many people costs more than one parent just staying home. Your family lives in the more established suburbs because they bought when it was affordable, so you’re miles away from them and they can’t just come around and mind the grandkids, so you’re a bit stuck.

Some serious consideration needs to be made about the growing trend of wealth percolating towards the older and established parts of society in a way that didn’t used to happen, personally I believe the financialisation of housing (and basically everything else, have you seen the prices of used games lately…) is a major contributor.

Nonetheless, this will all slowly grind to a halt as our major cities die out due to lack of young people when they're forced out. Sydney is already becoming a retirement village, give it a few years to really set in and maybe then there will be the impetus to start fixing it.

lethologica• 3 years ago

give it a few years to really set in and maybe then there will be the impetus to start fixing it.

The problem has already begun. Politicians will only begin to look at the problem in 10 years time. Then the political power will shift from Labor to Liberal, or Liberal to Labor, (and back again), and any plans to fix the issue will be blown out by billions of dollars and another decade. By then, it’s too late.

riffraff7• 3 years ago

I think the "it's too expensive" part is a very minor part of the issue.

People had way less opportunities one or two generations ago, and my parents generation in Italy bought their house with a mortgage and payed it in decades just like their kids did.

What changed is expectations: you feel like you should travel before getting a kid. You should have plenty of sexual experiences before picking a partner. You should give priority to your career before settling in a given city, etc.

Empowerment of women made "get married and out of your parents house" a less interesting option, education and options for people added up, and cultural shifts happened.

Having children is just another bucket list item these days.

toxik2• 3 years ago

Then why doesn’t the birth numbers in for example Sweden sit lower than Japan?

To be clear, I take offense to explaining stagnation with women’s rights. You have made an absurd claim and backed it up with a weak argument.

mrtksn3• 3 years ago

This explanation needs to be worded a bit more carefully because it sounds like you complain about "all that rights that women got are destroying the society" and that's pretty offensive.

IMHO this is a more general problem of people making less kids as they get wealthier. It's a well known trend, the number of kids fall as the countries climb out of poverty.

I'm sure there are plenty of studies about it and proposed solutions but the world's population is doing just fine and I don't think that we should walk away from having a life in order to have "more children from our kind".

This is a theme in the "white genocide" circles and I don't believe that we should force women into being baby factories, instead we should create an equal world and embrace the high number of babies born in some places.

Eventually everything will stabilize and the population pyramid will get into a healthy shape. Obviously, as the boomer generation climbs to the top of the pyramid we will have a period of distress.

I'm sorry to offend armchair babyboomers but no, giving up rights and life to increase population and race share is something that no one is obligated to participate. If you feel like that, do it yourself.

earlyam2• 3 years ago

I've met too many millenials who want kids but can't afford them or the stuff you should have before you have kids to agree with you.

From what I've seen, it's lack of stable employment, stable housing and decent support system for parents. Wages have been declining relative to inflation and cost of living for a very long time, and that's for the job you get after you go into debt to get a degree which you didn't used to need.

msrenee2• 3 years ago

Empowerment of women made not being forced to take a husband and pop out babies an option. The birth control pill gave women a choice and a ton of them immediately jumped on it to escape from the cycle of being constantly pregnant or breastfeeding. It's been a desire of women probably since the dawn of time to be able to choose whether and when to have kids.

I take serious offense at the idea that it's just less interesting than other options. As if women were just content raising children before the idea of literally doing anything else crossed their minds. As if women today are being selfish by having lives outside of the home. How dare they want to live their life and establish financial stability before procreating? They should be raising 5 kids while struggling to make their hard-working husband's paycheck stretch far enough to feed the family. Because that's what my grandparents did.

mr_johnson222• 3 years ago

Does Japan have those values, though? Last I heard, Japanese mostly don't travel (not abroad at least); strongly promote monogomy / long-term relationships; abhor the notion of adult children living with their parents; mostly don't have trouble deciding on which city to live in; and still put a lot of pressure for mothers to stay at home instead of going to work.

I should read TFA first but it seems like the root of their birth problem is simply that the financial & social costs of having children far outweigh the (short-term) benefits.

alanfranz• 3 years ago

my n=1 experience (father of two, from Italy and living in Italy):

I think the "too expensive" is part of the problem. Not the only one, but certainly a part.

Very few people here choose to have a child in their 20s, and this matches with "other things to do in life" but then, when you get into your 30s or 35 at most, I think the feeling of wanting a child is definitely there.

And, at that point, the "too expensive" and "too logistically difficult" parts start to get relevant. Even when childcare is there and you can afford it, a kid is often ill in its first three years of life, and requires a lot of attention. If both people in a family work, it's going to be a tremendous effort, and raising my two kids WAS a tremendous effort when they were very young; employers don't usually care a lot, and you don't have time to recharge.

Personally, I was able to go with two kids because all four grandparents live reasonably close, are retired and willing to help, and they had enough savings to help us buying a flat. If we were doing everything on our own, I don't know if I'd have had a second kid.

I know a few people making more money who are childless or with just one kid, because they (correctly) realize that, otherwise, it would be too difficult to go on with their career. And without their career they couldn't afford their flat/house, or a decent lifestyle for their children.

So, I think it's a mix of reasons. What it would help, btw, is getting recurrent, actual money for a child (at least for the first child), like, I don't need to think about how much it will cost me, I even get some money on top so I can pay baby sitters, travelling grandparents, et cetera. On the contrary, you need to pay for childcare out of your pocket (some regions offer reimbursements, but they depend on income limits that may make it very hard to have a kid in the first place) and even in school/pre-school you've got some expenses (meals, transports) that aren't state-paid (currently it's about 200 EUR/month for my two kids for a not-so-great refectory service).

Taxation isn't based on family size, so I get very little state contribution for my children, and I pay the same taxes as a single person, even though I do a lot of "work" - which is for me since the kids are mine, but it's for the future of my nation as well. I understand nobody forced me to have kids, but if nobody does, there's no future, nobody to pay pensions, et cetera. Kidless people expect "somebody somehow" to take care of them when they're older, because it makes sense in a large nation with a proper birth rate, but it could be not true anymore in this future.

So yeah, there's a mix of reasons, but calling the economical reasons _minor_ is just wrong IMHO. More people have no desire for kids because they've got other things to do. But quite a lot of people with desire for kids have a very difficult time in having how many kids they like. I think a better tax planning would make it possible for the state to achieve the desired replacement rate - I think it's about 1.8 - 1.9 children per couple - to lead to a slow population decrease - which is not a problem per se, it's the sharpness of the decline which will be a problem.

Isinlor2• 3 years ago

This is also well visible in post-communist countries.

During communism there was nothing in the shops, big families were living in small apartment with parents sleeping on beds opening from the wall. There was no disposable diapers. In general people had not much career opportunities.

And then communism collapsed, and as people became richer trough capitalism fertility rates plummeted.

And there was no policies to convince people against having big families.

The basic pattern is the same across the world poor countries have high fertility rates. Rich countries have low fertility rates. And as poor countries become rich their fertility rates go down.

ActorNightly• 3 years ago

I think its more to do with less societal pressure. People at higher income levels are having less kids as well.

diceduckmonk• 3 years ago

developed world

There are four types of economies. Developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina.

Japan has so many unique sociocultural idiosyncrasies that shape economic decisions.

Tokyo, young people... because of unstable housing and insecure employment.

This couldn't be more wrong.

People on minimum wage jobs in Tokyo can afford a standalone 1 bedroom apartment in the suburbs. White collar workers can pay off a house in less than 5 years if they wanted, too. The Google engineers can do it in 2, a manager probably 1. My rent's barely 5% of my income versus 30%+ of income being commonplace for young people in Bay Area / New York.

Japan's labor laws are exceedingly protective of employees, and it is nearly impossible to fire a full time employee. This is why you don't hear about layoffs happening in Japan. There is still widespread expectation that employees will stay at a job for decades, if not their entire life. Unlike America where 401ks replaced pensions and workers have to take more responsibility in their retirement, pensions are still the de factor employee perk in Japan.

That said, pensions are part of the problem. With demographic collapse, the pension system is growingly unsustainable and the likely solution is significant taxes increases over the next few decades.

Other reasons for declining birthrates is social media. For dating, people are exposed to a lot more options which leads to decision paralysis. It's been known that people less populated areas are more likely to marry their high school sweetheart. (Accessible) travel has made less people want to settle down in their 20s and 30s.

As evidence that young people have different different economic priorities, consider the prevalence of fashion consumption in Japan. There's literally a Louis Vuitton store at every major train station around Tokyo. While not at rates similar to China, the luxury goods market is continuing to grow in Japan, despite inflation and economic repercussions of COVID-19. There's 4 Celine stores in Ginza alone, which is an obscure brand to most Americans, but most young Japanese would recognize this. On any given train car in Japan, you will find a young person sporting a garment that's $500+ which is the average rent for a studio in Tokyo.

fxtentacle• 3 years ago

I believe the issue is not the price, but that the distribution of wealth has become highly unequal.

We now have 90% who cannot afford to raise kids well. And 10% who can. But no matter how wealthy, each couple can only get pregnant once at a time.

One solution would be to allow extremely rich people to marry multiple times so that they can produce more kids in parallel. But that's going to cause a lot of societal issues when marriable women become sparse for the majority of the population (see China).

cameldrv• 3 years ago

Not sure about Japan, but I think that there are some less talked about structural factors that contribute to the housing problems we're seeing today.

1. Housing tends to be extremely expensive in large (mostly coastal) metros. 2. College educated professionals tend to move to these cities. 3. Many small and medium sized towns and cities are experiencing depopulation, and so housing tends to be very inexpensive, but no one is buying it.

So, why is this happening?

The company town is dead. It used to be that someone would go to work at a company for their entire career. If that company was the main employer in town, you'd move there after college, work your career, and maybe retire to some place sunny. If you lost/quit your job, you'd probably have to move to a new town. Jobs used to be more stable, so this didn't happen often enough to be too big of a problem.

The other huge issue is that two income households are now the norm. In the past, if the breadwinner needed to pick up stakes for a new job, there was the logistics of moving to a new town, but there wasn't a second job to consider. Now, if both partners are doing specialized work, they're going to need to find a city that has jobs available for both of their two different specialties. This is much easier in a city.

The end result of this is that we get these huge aglomerations of people, because people need to live places where there are a huge variety of jobs within commuting distance. Less stable work and two income households turbocharge this phenomenon.

acd• 3 years ago

Turn off wifi at nights ;). Increase immigration from highest birth rate countries.

bombolo2• 3 years ago

Increase immigration from highest birth rate countries.

I think they'd consider that as even worse than less natality.

digianarchist2• 3 years ago

Personally I'd move to Japan in a heartbeat if discrimination was illegal and they provided a pathway to (dual) citizenship.

From Wikipedia:

Japan lacks any law which prohibits racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination. The country also has no national human rights institutions.[3] Non-Japanese individuals in Japan often face human rights violations that Japanese citizens may not.[4] In recent years, non-Japanese media has reported that Japanese firms frequently confiscate the passports of guest workers in Japan, particularly unskilled laborers.[5][6]

peanuty13• 3 years ago

Can you speak Japanese? Also, I assume you are not African-American or South Asian.

karaokeyoga• 3 years ago

I've lived here (Tokyo and Kyoto) for about ten years and my Japanese is terrible. If you're in a big city here, English-only actually works. There are also some good channels and videos on YouTube talking about the Black experience in Japan (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2eqJ4hZkFg).

bombolo2• 3 years ago

But they don't want you there.

digianarchist2• 3 years ago

Considering how they've treated those with mixed Japanese ancestry then I guess you're right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/global/23immigra...

laurieg• 3 years ago

Here is a case of a foreign citizen winning a lawsuit against a discriminatory car dealership in Japan

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/10/11/issues/att...

hknmtt• 3 years ago

give women voting rights and education and see birthrates plummet. if you call them out on it, you're a misogynist but if you phrase it in a positive way, they will cheer for it.

kergonath• 3 years ago

Well, if the only thing that keeps populations stable is uneducated and subservient women, then we deserve to decline as a species. Besides, there are many other factors involved. First one being the stupidly high cost of housing and childcare.

DoingIsLearning2• 3 years ago

Give humans the buying power and free time to raise kids and see families raise natality rates to a healthy substitution rate. If you call them out on it, you're a socialist but if you phrase it in a positive way, they will cheer for it.

raspyberr• 3 years ago

I do think that women's independence is probably a contributing factor to lower birth rates but it's not the only one. More importantly, it's almost pointless to just state that because it seems to suggest that the simple solution is to remove that independence to hopefully increase the birthrate. That obviously won't be done. So what do you propose can be done with the wisdom you've given?

Hermitian909• 3 years ago

What I find really fascinating about this is that even in the depths of the birth rate crisis Japan cannot find the political will to take any of the "obvious" drastic measures. Begin covering childcare costs, subsidize housing for families, etc.

peanuty13• 3 years ago

The current PM has said he'd like to double govt spending on child benefits. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-kishida-...

labster• 3 years ago

They need an order of magnitude more spending. Child care is expensive and hard to find, and so is housing.

grugagag• 3 years ago

It’ll take some time for the effects to materialize. Second, many possible future parents realize how burdened their children would be in the population pyramid which is inverted beyond hope at this point.

DoingIsLearning2• 3 years ago

If child related policies don't cover a fraction of childcare then doubling that fraction won't move the needle.

majikaja4• 3 years ago

Didn't they later say that 'double' was a figure of speech, and that they would increase it /after/ birth rates increase?

Aerroon• 3 years ago

But it probably won't work. The highest birthrates are in poor countries. Every country that became rich(er) ended up with a drastic reduction in birth rates. Piling on more money doesn't seem like it would help the issue. It sounds like you would just enter into an ever-increasing spiral of more spending to try to increase birth rates.

MrVandemar2• 3 years ago

birth rate crisis

There is no crisis. There is the fact that birth-rates are dropping. It might be bad for the economy (gasp!), but it's great if you're worried (and you should be) about climate change and environmental collapse.

Population is a major driver of those things, and reducing the population takes some pressure off.

(... and there's the downvote. The truth is not just inconvenient, it's unpalateable).

sofixa2• 3 years ago

There is no crisis. There is the fact that birth-rates are dropping.

Which is a crisis, but I'll get back to that.

but it's great if you're worried (and you should be) about climate change and environmental collapse.
Population is a major driver of those things, and reducing the population takes some pressure off.

True, less people means less pollution, simplistically looked.

However things aren't that simple. A person in a developed country today pollutes far more (and some like the US are even bigger outliers) than a developing one. Population growth in developing countries is huge though, with massive amounts of young people (was it Nigeria where more than 50% of the population are younger than 20?). So the population crisis in some countries won't have that much of an impact on pollution and climate change, because globally they're being replaced by multiple youngsters in developing countries, who will only pollute more as their countries develop more and more.

Meanwhile, where the crisis hits hard is in social services - for instance pensions, which Japan has, are based on the idea that there will be a young working population to pay for the older non-working one, otherwise the system crumbles. It absolutely is a problem because insanely complicated problems will arrise and tough choices will have to be made - with an older, dying population, some places will simply not have enough people remaining to make it worthwhile to maintain scarce services such as healthcare, fire fighting, etc. There are already problems about companies having to close in rural places because there's nobody to pass the mantle to.

Learning how to do that, and also the changes needed around evaluating everything around economic life (there will be no more growth, probably deflation, spending will have to be cut and Japan is already in massive debts, all things which are considered "bad") absolutely deserve calling it a crisis. Crisis that might have some mid-term benefits, but crisis nonetheless.

majikaja4• 3 years ago

Leading isn't the job of a Japanese politician nowadays, staying in power is.

mettamage• 3 years ago

Is it a bad thing for populations to fluctuate? Should populations only grow?

peanuty13• 3 years ago

Environmentally, it's a fantastic thing considering the frightening rate of deforestation, species going extinct, carbon emissions, and ocean pollution.

Economically, it puts pressure on a smaller cohort of working age people to pay more taxes to support a bigger cohort of elderly people.

midoridensha4• 3 years ago

Environmentally, it's a fantastic thing considering the frightening rate of deforestation, species going extinct, carbon emissions, and ocean pollution.

This assumes that the amount of resources consumed per person is relatively constant. That's not a good assumption. Fewer people can easily hog more resources, especially energy. People spreading out and buying more and bigger cars and living in bigger homes means more energy and pollution, whereas if more people concentrate into a dense metropolis with public transit and tiny apartments, their energy needs are lower per capita.

shagie• 3 years ago

Wildly varying rates of birth and an irregularly shaped population pyramid can result in economic and political instability as the majority becomes retirees who are not contributing to the economy but retain much of the political power.

Silver Democracy: Youth Representation in an Aging Japan - https://escholarship.org/uc/item/54d3f8bz

Japan’s Silver Democracy : The Costs of Letting the Elderly Rule Politics - https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/japan/2013-07-18/jap... ( https://archive.is/hlAya )

riffraff7• 3 years ago

It’s a familiar story throughout East Asia

The same is happening in Europe.

Hungary just published the result of a census ten years after the last one: turns out there's 300k less people than they expected (total population is 9.6M), and the country population is back to the size of ~1950.

sofixa2• 3 years ago

Hungary and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and even Southern Europe for that matter, have the added problem of EU-wide migration - lots of people, especially young people, choose to go live in a more developed country in the Western EU (usually France and Germany).

midoridensha4• 3 years ago

"more developed country" = country that isn't run by a sycophant of Putin. Small wonder so many young people are fleeing Hungary.

Gustomaximus• 3 years ago

Endless variable but I think key 5 things they could do to help;

- Reduce house prices, couples often want to get the house while they have 2 incomes and then have kids. Pricing people out is going to add delay here making it harder to start a family and how many kids you can have.

- Reduce education debt for the same reason as above, let youth start life without a burden holding them back.

- Put tax break on kids. Have something like an extra $5k added to each parents tax free threshold for every child you have. This benefits people having children plus those returning to work which is good for society.

- Paid maternity of a significant lenght for both the mum and dad. I was fortunate to have my kids in Norway where (more detail but roughly) you get 12 months paid to split between the mum and the dad. And the dad must take 3 month minimum. This was it normalises all people out of work for having kids and really helps the attitude to exit/entry and all sorts of benefits, its a real game changes to helping support families having a few kids IMO.

- Subsided preschool - in Australia it was hardly worth my wife returning to work for the cost of 2 kids in pre-school. She wanted to but its a huge financial burden in many countries. Kids are covered when they get to school age but there is a window here that is financially very tough on families.

freetime2• 3 years ago

Japan already has many of these things.

Preschool is free. And after-school programs are either free or very inexpensive for elementary school students with working parents. And there are tax breaks as well as a monthly stipend that gets deposited into your bank account for people with children (not sure of the exact amount off the top of my head). Housing is also quite affordable compared to many developed countries.

_nalply• 3 years ago

But why do Japanese parents seem to struggle?

frontman1988• 3 years ago

Perhaps it is not sustainable to have more than 100 million people on a small island with limited resources for the long term.

People talking about population collapse forget that the population explosion that has happened in the recent past is quite the exception in human history and such high population growth was never sustainable in the long run.

Continuously increasing the population while maintaining a good quality of life is a challenging task. The current population "crisis" may simply be a return to the norm, as nature seeks to establish a stable equilibrium. Japan has prospered as a civilization for thousands of years without being as densely populated as it is now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Japan_b...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Empire_of_Ja...

MrVandemar2• 3 years ago

Indeed. It is very telling that the article characterises it as a "crisis". We are facing the twin existential threats climate change and environmental collapse, and population is a staggeringly huge driver of both those problems. Reduction in population is generally a good thing.

That's if you care about existential threats. Most people don't. The media doesn't talk about this. It's not a safe topic to discuss and if you dare to you are instantly politisied and become "the scary bad person".

People care about the economy, they care about jobs, they care about growth, they care about having kids, they care about petrol prices, they care about a bigger TV and having a lithium battery drone they play with for a couple of weeks and then put it in the cupboard, they care about driving a 4WD in a city because the advertising made it look rugged and outdoorsy and anyway, Fred has one so you need one too, they care about having an electric car because it's painted "green" (it's not; the environmental costs are abstracted away to a place where you don't have to think about it).

"Crisis"? Yes, but not in population.

NalNezumi4• 3 years ago

I think almost everyone is actually talking about the aging population problem rather than the declining population problem.

We simply haven't seen a situation yet where such a massive proportion of the population is old and economically not contributing, while being supported by a welfare state (and pension) and having disproportionate political power (and incentives) to not correct the course

tanh• 3 years ago

It's no wonder it's in decline.

We are considering having our second (we live in Japan) but the lack of daycare places is really hurting us. Even private daycares are fully subscribed. Moreover, if my wife gives birth, our child will have to come out of any public daycare she gets into.

Here we are, in our mid 30s, with a good household income and have ruled out a third already. We are not far from ruling out a second as well.

shrubble• 3 years ago

Japan 1950: ~84 million people

Japan 2023: ~123 million data from: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population-g...

How is this a crisis?

refurb8• 3 years ago

You making jam with those cherries you picked?

nine_zeros• 3 years ago

The common narrative always appears to be money. I would contend that the modern life is too fragile. Day to day life is so filled with stress and anxiety that young people don't mate until it's too late.

Life has become too complicated. There is far too much paperwork, government bureaucracy and things to keep on top of. If you don't keep up on the bureaucracy, you will get penalized harshly.

E.g. why the fuck does a car need to be registered every year? If I need to register a car, why can't I do it online? If I can do it online, why can't I do it if I change my address? Why do I need to present a thousand documents for 5 mins worth of work? Why does the registration have to be sent via snail mail? What happens if USPS loses it?

These questions may sound trivial but for someone who may lose their job due to slow bureaucracy, this is a matter of their life.

And now, imagine the same bureaucracy with income tax, property tax, drivers license, voter registration, health insurance, property insurance, car insurance, healthcare providers with a zillion portals, loan providers and their bullshit paperwork etc.

One mistake with any of them will add even more burden on you to clear your records, pay things on time etc.

Life has become too burdensome. And after living 30 years with this, the thought of more paperwork for kids seems awful.

This all discounts how unstable jobs and incomes are. Without income stability, all of the above becomes crazier.

hn_throwaway_993• 3 years ago

While I won't be around, really curious as to what the world will look like in 100 years time. Fertility rates are below replacement levels in virtually all developed areas (and even some less developed areas as well), except for the giant exception of Africa, to a lesser extent some Middle Eastern countries, and some poorer South/Central American countries.

I think vast migration will be inevitable, especially with the added affects of climate change, and I think great strife will be a part of that migration.

majikaja4• 3 years ago

I often hear people saying say they're ok with not getting married and having children because they have their (also not married, childless) friends, pets or other sources of comfort/distraction. Just kick away these other supports to make people feel isolated and fearful and they will act accordingly. Give up on financial perks for people with kids, shift to negative reinforcement.

Also, promote generation warfare in the form of painting the current generation of people in their 30s and 40s as feckless hedonists responsible for the economic troubles of the generation below. Probably half of older people would go along with it so this can become a political wedge. Make it clear to young people that their careers will ultimately be crushed by the dying economy unless their generation has children.

All that's needed is a Trump-like figure who isn't scared to sow discord

majikaja4• 3 years ago

More seriously, just today there has been some suggestion of lowering university debt repayments for people with children. Some Japanese people on twitter are displaying real anger complaining it's discriminatory towards people without children and backward for placing expectations on women to give birth.

What else can you do but divide society along political lines like it is in the US and let the side that wants to die out do as they wish. Why should the people who want to have a sustainable society so their kids aren't forced to flee a collapsing nation have to include those who are aggrieved by that?

To understand the situation you have to come here and see it for yourselves. Meet guys who never outgrew their high school friendship group and are still spending the same amount of time on video games at 30 as when they were 20, while complaining online that the government is to blame for their wages not going up. Listen to the young women blather on about their career aspirations but point-blank say they don't give a shit about other people and that they just want money for luxuries and status. Work next to the 60-year old guy who coasted along in life, never saw the need for kids and doesn't see any irony in being addicted to 18-year old prostitutes. These people beyond the influence of traditional government levers are not fringe groups!

I can only imagine how insane things are in Korea... probably get murdered for suggesting people spend more on family and less on Louis Vuitton.

hulitu• 3 years ago

Japan births fall to record low as population crisis deepens

So it is not a good time for Japan to become militaristic again. /s.

The solution is simple: do as the (catholic) church does: ban abortion and condoms.

rado• 3 years ago

Is there any (non) government org there to promote building a family?

minebreaker• 3 years ago

It is a common misconception that the birthrate is declining because of poor childcare support from the government. It is declining because people aren't getting married. The birthrate among married couples remains unchanged over the years. [0]

Personally, I'm quite happy with this trend because the social 空気 that the grown man must get married is getting weaker and weaker. Why would I want to get married when I can't even pay for my own shit?

[0] https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/644174 (Japanese)

lifthrasiir• 3 years ago

Well people aren't getting married because of poor childcare support among others. I think otherwise you are spot on though---I recall the same kind of statistics in South Korea. Trying to convince people to get married or have children won't work, in any case it will need an extensive social restructuring.

fomine3• 3 years ago

Yes it's the problem. Everyone confuse about parenting support and improving birthrate. Fist of all, separate surname must be legal to support getting married.

Connor_Creegan• 3 years ago

Unfortunately, the people here in the comments attributing this phenomenon to feminism tend not to go deep enough. Yes, feminism is cancerous, but most of these teenage-level critiques just play into the hands of enemies by arguing on the same terms of liberals, utilitarians and socialists. I invite you not to dialogue with these people, who are largely unaware of the occult roots of their own belief systems, and instead look to logical conclusions of feminism being an historical error.

If you follow the trail long enough I think you will find that the only thing like a "solution" to this "problem" lies in catechizing youth in a consistent doctrine of sex before they grow too old, proud and familiar with justifying their own passions with pre-packaged ideology like many of us have throughout our lives. This doctrine of sex is as an ordering toward procreative ends (impregnation in the case of males, gestation in the case of females), and the conjugal act as having the intrinsic, divinely-ordained primary end of conception, rather than viewing conception as merely a natural consequence relating only to design in the case of humans actively attempted to conceive.

Japan births fall to record low as population crisis deepens

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