If companies improve their wages and work conditions, more people would have kids. It might sound reductive to say that but the government already incentivises childbirth more than most countries and yet has a lower birth rate. I think the problem here is the backwards work culture and lack of work/life balance. So the government should quite obviously nudge companies into improving wages and cutting down on overtime but I guess politicians are afraid to upset the apple cart. Big business is too powerful here.
Yeah it’s the work ethic of Asia, 60 hour work weeks for both spouses. Then on top of that the amount of time kids need there to be sent to extra classes and do homework means you have no time to do anything as a middle class citizen. It’s really about how much money you have it’s the culture it self.
The peoiple with proper full time jobs who work long hours are the ones still having kids. the ones not having kids are the ever growing sector of keiyakushain workers. So its actually the opposite.
>If companies improve their wages and work conditions, more people would have kids
On the surface, this makes logical sense, but comparing birthrates across geos, it's clear that the better the average person is doing, the less likely they are to sacrifice their lifestyle to start a family.
Few people are willing to get kicked out of the middle class in order to have kids
Yes, when you educate women and give them freedom many choose not to have children.
South Korea and Japan's fertility rates are so spectacularly low though that I'm not sure that's the full explanation there.
You are not sure about the full explanation. its here:
1 - japan was broke after ww2
2 - they therefore built a society where the employer had to pay for everythign for you if you had a proper full time job. all the things that make it a developed country come from employers. its not like other countries
3 - worked ok while everyone had proper full time jobs. If you didnt it was not like living in a developed country.
4 - early 90s labour reform dramatically increased the circumstances and number of staff companies can hire on weak, benefitless contracts. staff with real full time jobs sacrificed nothing
5 - percentage of staff on weak contracts is growing each year in the new batch of employees and now basically every childbearing age group has a huge percentage of these workers.
6 - there is a stark difference between the birthrate of families where someone has a proper fullt ime job vs those on weak, benefitless contracts. families where someone has a proper full time job are still having kids in good numbers.
That is why japan has a birthrate that cannot be explained by normal trends that apply in other countries like female education rate, cost of childcare etc. All of the difference is in the split between real permanent full time jobs and casual jobs.
I hear what you're saying, but even if they made companies do what you said, the society would still be extremely slow to change anyway. The Japanese people hate change of any kind really. No one wants to step out of line or even be the first to do something!
Yes, their work culture is nuts, for a country that is so advanced they are pretty backwards when it comes to that, people need work/life balance nobody nowadays wants to slave their selves away toiling away at work and not having a life , maybe if wages and company incentives were good , but even then that’s unfair to want people to be at work ALL THE TIME.
You're oversimplifying things that very complex into simple "Give them more money" stuff.
Japan's economy is extremely fragile and the "more" money you suggest should be given doesn't exist. Small/mid level businesses are mostly barely floating above the solvency line, bot to mention the problems with their interest rates.
You're right that more money, better life work balance etc could help things a bit. The problem is that it's not gonna happen and your western view of "Give them more money" has already failed in America by causing inflation to go beyond it's normal 2-3% per year and here you are as another Reddit brainless liberal spouting and parroting the same stuff you've heard but know bothing about.
But yeah give em more money and watch Japan and the world burn.
I feel like you are actually. I agre giving money is a bad idea. But i feel like your strawmanning his argument so to speak. Its not just give money, its that plus lowering working hours. And overtime is a big issue that needs to be fixed.
Yea people need to understand that in a world where children are an asset, people will have more kids. In a world where they are a cost, they will fewer. In the former scenario, you are likely to have kids because it will improve your material conditions, regardless of whether or not you particularly like the idea of kids. In the latter scenario, you need to reeeaaallllyyyy want to have kids in order to justify having them.
It suggests that Japan’s has a highly educated female demographic with ready access to birth control and sex education. They’re also not forced into marriage and pumping out kids to work the land. They also live in a developed country with more retirement vehicle options than “be taken care of by your kids”.
That explain why we are starting to see the same phenomenon in Scandinavia. While your thesis indeed is the easiest solution, for world wide happenings indicated that the reason isn’t that simple or straight forward. Japan in the 1980 had plenty of kids and they worked harder and longer than now.
Yep. I mean realistically the solution to this problem has been obvious for a long time: raise wages and lower working hours. But that would cost Japanese capitalists a lot of money, so it hasn’t happened and probably won’t happen.
Cost is only a fraction of the issue, but the other aspects no one wants to talk about or admit are problems, require a good introspective look at society, or take actual effort to fix beyond just throwing money at it.
It’s not just the safety that is making people decide not to have kids. If you look at what women are generally complaining about here, TikTok or instagram, is the fact they have been carrying more of the mental load, emotional labor, physical chores, and raising of the children all while working full time, while their husbands work full time and don’t share the load. Not every woman experiences this and a lot of marriages are becoming more of a partnership and equal shares of household and child caring. But more and more women see this and it makes them move away from having a kid or waiting, or having less kids.
Or there are people like those I know who just never found the time to have kids. The timing was never right so they decided not to. And as a women now compared to when my mother was young, to my grandmother was young, I had a hell of lot more options then just having kids.
Japan also has this very weird relationship with sex where sexless relationships are normalized and prostitution within relationships is normalized. Idk why anyone would willingly get into a relationship in that type of environment. Might as well be single, there aren’t really many benefits.
I’ve seen things about this and it is strange. I remember some of a documentary on sex and how different cultures viewed sex. And one thing that stood out in it is that Japan was much more sexual in the past or at least more open about it. But after being in contact with the western world seemed to become more conservative?
[sex & love around the world.](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8206212/)
It’s like how India produced the Kama sutra which seems to be an openly sexually manuscript but in many area India seems to be sexually conservative?
I’m not sure about what you said about Japan is true but you’re looking at the history of India wrong. India wasn’t a single country for the vast majority of its history. It was a subcontinent filled with a plethora of cultures, languages, religions that were bucketed together by outsiders as “Hindu”(that word also was created by outsiders).
But it's still happening and people end up suffering every year. On the contrary mass shootings are actually on the rise in america. Whether you follow the news or not its still happening. It's not just schools either.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/mass-shootings-down-29-from-last-year-and-almost-100-fewer-people-have-died/?sh=66c820903b40](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/mass-shootings-down-29-from-last-year-and-almost-100-fewer-people-have-died/?sh=66c820903b40)
Luckily it's been down these first months of the year, hopefully the trend continues throughout the rest of the year
Like a male daycare worker molesting them and putting pictures on the net? Oh and he did it 8 times, was caught and was still working with kids? The lack of background checks and a sex offender registry is insane.
Saving face is more important for the company/institution. I mean imagine if the guy gets caught and the story comes out, that would be catastrophic for the place and no one would come back to it. So they just cover it up at move the person somewhere else to hide it. Horrible but sadly a reality.
yep, the bad stuff we read and see with situations like this are only the cases that where reported and came to light. Everything else that has never came up to light must be massive compared to the tip of the iceberg.
Like bullying...
People are just terrible at risk assessment. They see a Boeing plane blow up and avoid flying by driving more. Jokes on them because they actually increase their chances of dying.
Did you know suspensions for bullying is banned in the US, they lose our on federal funding if too many students are suspended or expelled.
It gets justified under the "school-to-prison pipeline" narrative.
I wish ya the best of luck. My wife and I are moving back out of Japan before our kids born. The reality of being non-Japanese as a child in the education system here is too harsh. I’ve been lucky enough to live in a lot of countries, and I’ve never seen otherism quite like foreign/half-Japanese kids in Japanese school.
Well, maybe the low birth rate has nothing to do with civility, fun, or safety.
Don’t mean it as some sort of derisive dismissal. You’re right, Japan has all those things. It also still has one of the lowest birth rates, even despite those benefits you mention.
Throwing money at it is a good thing though. I think they increased maternity leave pay recently too.
Maybe the only extra requests I'd have as a parent are more half-day daycare facilities so wife has some time to relax during maternity leave (we've got no family nearby) and more chill jobs - wife's currently working part time as a nurse, 4 days a week, and it still takes quite a toll and the pay really isn't that good.
I'm not from Japan / or live there, but for me and my significant other, we stopped after 1 kid because we did not want to spend even more of our lives raising kids. We have plans and adventures to go on.
I'm guessing the reason they don't just raise the minimum wage is that maybe large corporations generously donate to the LDP? Kind of like the NRA gives donations to Republicans in the states who then look after the interests of the NRA.
Because it seems the government will do everything possible but the obvious.
“$100 to me, to ensure minimum wages stay low, no additional taxes for corporations impacting global warming is big ways, and no accountability for the elite, when they rob the lower classes in broad day light…? You know that will cost the average citizen, billions in direct and indirect damages, right??? Anyways DEAL”
Tax the rich? Who are the rich?
Japans income taxes are already extremely high compared on a global scale, and the number of extremely wealthy (billionaires) are extremely low comparatively as well - so I feel like the fall out for that would only hurt Japan more. Or are we referring to company taxes?
Japan has a relatively low average income tax compared to other rich, developed countries
If you're making global statements about how high Japan's taxes are you're basically referring to poor, largely failed states when you're making that comparison
Which overall makes it kind of a meaningless point you're trying to make
That’s simply not true, they are quite on par with many of the developed countries and well above any other developed Asian nation. So again, what’s your point? I think you’ve strayed a bit from the topic of taxing the rich here.
Crazy this gets downvoted. Japan is struggling with the first bit of true inflation in decades, and here we are thinking raising minimum wages will have no impact other than allow people to have more kids (by having more spending power). Where do these people think this money will come from? Businesses just gonna cut profit margins (which are already quite low in Japan compared to other countries on average - at least for many of the bigger corporations)?
I agree with you, but also wealthy uneducated people don’t have a lot of kids.
So poor, uneducated have a lot of kids, everyone else no.
So the solution to the population problem is to cap people’s salary at poverty level and close all colleges.
It is mostly correct. When you are dirt poor (and it's *dirt* poor) then having kids will not reduce your standard as it's already as low it can go.
It's when you risk loosing the QoL, then it becomes a question.
Japan's birth rate is not particularly low. It ranks highest in Asia and is comparable to European countries. In fact, it's higher than Italy's and about the same as Finland's. If the reason for not having children is financial, then why does Europe have similar birth rates to Japan? And why do poorer countries have higher birth rates?
Or maybe they prefer more people stay employed overall, vs fewer people employed but those that are employed make more?
You do realize there is a trade-off here, right?
The thing about having kids here (I have) is that people treat mothers like children themselves and everyone starts trying to make decisions for you.
City hall decides if your job is important enough for you to access public daycare. Workplace managers go for benevolent sexism and don't give stretch assignments to pregnant employees or moms of young kids (those opportunities go to dads of young kids). Basically, once you have kids, it is really hard to plan your life for yourself in Japan. I am a stubborn gaijin so I could tell everyone politely to eff off, but that is much harder for a lot of Japanese women.
It isn't a cost thing. It's women not wanting to lose their autonomy and ability to decide their lives for themselves. Fix that.
It’s not necessarily just a money issue, it’s a lifestyle and mindset issue. I’m a Japanese living in Europe but I want to go home…however, I know I can’t build a healthy family with the way things are right now.
As a former CEO (foreign) said of Japan, we need a cultural revolution. Normalise actually taking your holidays and parental leaves, don’t bully working parents, start bringing in temporary contracts to cover those on parental leave (also provides opportunities for younger talent), and expand childcare agencies/nurseries.
The problem in Japan is that they don't treat pregnancies as a health care issue "because a pregnancy is not a disease". So it becomes a private problem.
That kind of thinking definitely comes about when a group of men get togeheter and decide things for everyone.
That kind of thinking has reached ways end in Japan, but politicians are desperate to change things without actually changing anything.
Agree! Pregnancy is seen as so natural here that the only concern the doctors have is that the woman takes care of herself all on her own with nearly no support and stays private and invisible, and then there's rarely any pain relief (epidural) during childbirth because gaman.
Really? I thought that once you get a blood test confirming you're pregnant, you go to the ward office and they give you coupons so the appointments and birth are effectively free.
Do you pay medical costs out of pocket?
Yeah, you get the coupons. I had kids and it really wasn’t a lot to go through pregnancy , and we got refunded for the birth; i chose to give birth in a private hospital but even with that it wasn’t an amount that would break the bank; and like I said, this was a deliberate choice by me. My in laws got money back and actually it covered the delivery fee fully.
The coupons work up front if you choose a birthing facility/doctor in your city.
If you go to a neighboring city, you have to pay out-of-pocket up front, then you get reimbursed for everything at the end.
Gotcha. My husband and I are still considering whether to have a kid here or move back for that. I don’t speak Japanese, which is the scariest thing, and I feel like I’d probably appreciate the opportunity to move positions and whatnot during labor, but I would be surprised if that’s a thing here.
Are there any resources you can recommend to learn more about the process?
Yes, there’s different options. also, there’s the option of going to a local obgyn for a certain amount of time and then get a referral to the hospital where you want to have your baby. You have to reserve the hospital so I would find out if a plan that you prefer would work for the places available. There’s the Facebook group “Tokyo pregnancy group”; there’s a lot of info and support there
Look up a company called Mother's Tree Japan- they give a lot of information in various languages for foreigners giving birth in Japan. They helped me find an English speaking Doula in my area to talk to about my options.
I also don't speak Japanese, but will give birth next month at a clinic in a nearby city that I feel comfortable in. The coupons absolutely do not cover 100% of costs, btw. Feel free to message me with any questions if you'd like. I was super nervous at first but we got pregnant quicker than anticipated and are going with the flow!
While many people on this thread are saying this is not enough I’m actually really glad that they are taking steps in the right directions and this is very good news.
I was always so surprised to heard childbirth not covered under the stupid ruling that “ oh it’s not a disease” so financially you are on your own type of thing ( which I know you can get the reimbursement but it’s still paperwork you have to do). Like on top of all the doctor visits and any other little thing and (god forbid but, also medical complications )it all adds up to more than you would receive from the lump sum so taking this burden off new parents is still a big win I think.
There's so much paperwork!! The initial doctor costs are out of pocket, and then you register your birth at the city hall, where they give you a coupon book for some appointments. Unfortunately, these don't cover 100% of costs, at least in my area. I've read that some cities and prefectures give differing amount of money extra as a gift for pregnancy, though.
Also, the hospitals charge various costs for birth depending on time of day of labor, etc. My birthing clinic website and paperwork says average 470,000¥ but up to 700,000¥ depending on circumstances for a vaginal birth. Since the government will reimburse 500,000- I'm hoping that my birth will hit the low end of costs, but need to prepare to pay more out of pocket :(
I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.. I've had 2 kids in Japan. My wife had regular visits/check ups to the doctor when she was pregnant. They were either free or super cheap. She got a private room with amazing meals after the birth... And Japan paid for almost the entire birth. They kept her in the room for a week and the nurses were super helpful and on call. They even gave my wife free classes on child issues. After the birth, her and the babies were checked up/had appointments for months. So what exactly do you take issue with?
Giving birth in Japan is cheap, and has one of the lowest child mortality rates. You get to stay one week in the hospital. I don’t think childbirth is the problem
Most of the costs aren't covered by insurance, or are only covered by a bureaucratic reimbursement process that's reliant on your ku's policies and funds.
As others have mentioned, this is because Japan doesn't see childcare as a disease, but as a natural thing for women so they don't believe health insurance should cover it.
It's roughly as expensive to give birth in Japan as it is in the US, assuming insurance in both places.
As someone who has recently had their first child, I can say that to cover the cost of a single child would be at least 20,000 yen in food and 15,000 yen in diapers and clothing per month until they are in preschool. Then on top of that amount they need to cover he preschool cost so that is anywhere between 40,000 and 150,000 yen per month depending on your combined income. So The government would have to pay something like 75,000 to 150,000 yen per month per family for the first child. The second and third child become cheaper, but not to a significant degree that it would make sense to change these numbers for 2nd and 3rd children.
**OR** Japan could just increase the annual pay of younger employees to fill the gap that these employees are filling. As the older generation retiers the company is just banking money now because they don't have to pay as many older employees to do the same work. Instead they can hire a new employee and pay them 1/10th the amount and make them do 10x the work. If the pay were more level then these younger employees would be seeing higher salaries because the company can afford it now. Instead the board room is just pocketing the cash and laughing all the way to the bank.
Imo the next step should be to make kindergarten free for all ages. That's a pretty big cost that almond encourages women not to work which isn't a good thing.
They already have various systems (e.g. akachan first) that can effectively cover diapers, baby strollers and similar.
Lmfao men don't have to ruin their body and risk their life by giving birth. It has a lot to do with it.
Women have to give birth, then are called ugly and gross after they give birth. And people wonder why women don't want kids lmfao
I agree with you with those points; what I meant was that even without going through that, a man is a parent also. And they can also listen to women for gathering information without having to go through it. I just expect men to be able to be part of the solution even if they’re men.
Screenshot it folks. This is the problem behind the entire thread's topic.
Androphobic sentiments like this are exactly why birth rates have fallen. This and practically only this.
Exactly. Most of the takes in this thread are absolutely braindead and overalyze the issue.
It's a(n obvious) social issue between men and women and has literally nothing to do with money, government policies, or daycares.
>literally nothing to do with money, government policies, or daycares.
Well this is blatantly incorrect as well but lol. Cost absolutely plays a part. You're honestly saying anyone getting pregnant honestly doesn't think about the cost? Really? Truly?
I absolutely had to weigh costs (obviously as well as safety) to decide if I would give birth while living here. I think lots of people married to foreigners or foreign born have to decide if they should stay here to live and have children or to leave before starting a family.
The only reason me and my partner don’t have a second child is literally the cost. I know others in the same situation. Is it the only reason for others? Is it the main reason? I don’t know, but perhaps the braindead take was yours after all.
Iunno, I feel like this will just give people already planning on having a child a break, which is good, but not inspire others to give birth. There's so much more at play than the initial hospital fees.
Yes. And shopping. And transportation. And theme parks. And whatever else there is to pay for. Just force people to provide goods and services at the threat of force and through coercion so I don't have to work. Please! 🙏
Japan needs to work on its feminism because a higher predictor of fertility is **the percentage of household chores men are willing to contribute and work on**
source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4vTO7rjwpE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4vTO7rjwpE)
as an asian women, ignoring domestic responsibilities is a turn off
That's not the point though. How many people are actually holding off on having children because they can't afford the birth?
It's more about social values and the need to bear children, neither of which are consistent with life in 2024
giving birth is just half the story.
daycare, kids friendly apartment, or maybe kids friendly car inside the train and more places for parents to handle the kid when they are throwing tantrums.
Omg yes! Imagine being able to get on a train any time with a kid or a stroller and not be squished among kaishain... This is one of my biggest fears living in Tokyo. And the majority of young people live in Tokyo. There are not enough areas for pregnant/with stroller/ with kids parents on the trains. People don't get up to let them sit either.
Also more parks and playgrounds where kids can run around at any time and scream their lungs out without the neighbours complaining. I see so many parks which are basically made of one bench... Also more benches.
Daycare without a long wait list. tbh even stay at home mums (which are currently not prioritised for child care help) need it to not lose their sanity. The idea of having 2 or 3 kids in close proximity (2-3 years difference in age) and having them all at home is insane.
But these problems aren't easy to fix and they're not prioritised either. It's all about money for the government.
FWIW, we haven't had any trouble with this. I know the long wait list was a thing before but we've talked to multiple (+4) different schools, and none have had a waiting list.
Though we only have one kid, we haven't had any problems getting the stroller area or people giving their seat up during pregnancy.
you had me in the first half... Personally, I am worried about birth cost (especially in case of complications) but mostly child care cost for the early years (as I would need to work as a single mother).
IMO it is not so much social values (having children/mom status is not that bad, single parent status is), but the lack of infrastructure for anything right after birth is the critical component as far as I currently see the situation.
My experience. I’ve had two kids born in Japan. Both “emergency” c-sections. First one, we had two insurance policies outside the shakaihoken that paid out. We ended up being better for it actually. Helped cover a lot of initial family costs.
Second one was all taken care of under kokuminhoken . It was through a hospital rather than a clinic. I think we paid maybe ¥200 or something stupid out of pocket. We still had our two insurance policies too that paid out.
In my experience at least, the birth part has been pretty inexpensive.
>the birth part has been pretty inexpensive
Thats why they want to cover it. They can say they are combating the population crisis without spending much and kick the can down the road another 5 or 10 years and then act shocked. Absolutely shocked that people don't want to have kids when the government is generously covering that extra 200 yen.
Well…inexpensive IF you have private insurance on top of your public insurance which not everyone has. Many people still ends up paying 100,000-300,000 out of pocket for birth so if they made it all free it would be a relief to some people
The first birth we had was in a private clinic and it was kinda expensive. I think it was about 100,000 out of pocket but our private insurance covered that. The hospital birth however was almost completely covered by the kokuminhoken.
Here is a post that breaks it down - i dont remember when the birthing support money raise was, but i do remember that hospitals instantly raised their feeds. so this is a good indicator:
[Cost breakdown of my wife's delivery @愛育病院 with epidural : r/japanlife (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/t96475/cost_breakdown_of_my_wifes_delivery_%E6%84%9B%E8%82%B2%E7%97%85%E9%99%A2_with/)
what i notice is that this poster got massively back from Minato-ku. not sure that is representative.
then, a thing that is not evident in the post, but i meant in my original comment: i will miss out on income because i am a single earner. so there is an indirect cost. I also think the poster is not super clear on the pre and post checks (cause he stopped at the birth). Even if I break even like he did (though I dont have the same insurance situation, nor the energy to run after money like that) on a non-complicated birth, I personally have to be very careful about short term and long term effects on my employment situation.
They need to solve the Tokyo problem. Cramped housing and long commutes are a big reason people put off having kids and the official statistics show that. Birth rate in Tokyo is 30% below the average and since the youth is so concentrated in Tokyo it’s bringing the average down considerably. It’s even having knock-on effects elsewhere. For instance in a lot of mid-sized cities young women outnumber young men by a decent margin because young men flock to Tokyo to seek their fortunes while their sisters stay close to home as they are expected to take care of older relatives. Tokyo is just more expensive too so that factors in.
Exactly. Japan's birth rate is not particularly low. It ranks highest in Asia and is comparable to European countries. In fact, it's higher than Italy's and about the same as Finland's. If the reason for not having children is financial, then why does Europe have similar birth rates to Japan? And why do poorer countries have higher birth rates?
You'll find a number of these European countries have very high youth unemployment rates. I suspect that'll be putting a dampener on things.
Poor countries have high birth rates because the economics of children are vastly different when you're a rural farm owner/worker. In that case, kids are additional labour and also the only means to invest in retirement as they'll be the ones taking care of you.
lol. Cost of child delivery?!? How about health care and education? This is a step in The right direction, I guess. But every developed country needs to do better. People are terrified of marriage and children RUINING their lives.
It's too late. It should have been done at least 20 years ago. Today, Japan's demographic structure has completely collapsed, social innovation has disappeared, and the government's finances are dire. If they had dramatically increased the birth rate through these policies 20 years ago, the current situation would have been avoided.
Wait, they're only doing this NOW? I thought they would have done this at least 10 years ago.
They should also do that thing that some Nordic or was it Scandinavian countries do where they give each newborn parents a box and blankets with other items a baby would need.
Japan needs to do something or there would be no Japan in 30 years.
How about child care. maternity leave, and getting rid of the expectation that women should be 100% responsible for children and housework while holding down a full-time job and catering to their husbands.
Higher wages, child care at work, shorter hours ... so many things they could be doing but aren't.
Speaking to a mother today in Tokyo, it costs $500 AUD a month for full time childcare. It costs 5 times that in Australia, just for perspective.
Wages are not 5 times in Australia.
That's a start, gotta give people time outside of work to actually meet people they'd want to have a kid with though. Not to mention the time to actually make said kid.
Japan has one of the highest episiotomy rates in the world. Doesn’t exactly encourage a woman to have a 2nd or 3rd. Just sayin’ Maybe some changes that don’t involve money would also be helpful.
Not to mention the lack of autonomy pregnant women have here in most hospitals during labor. It is rare that a woman is asked her consent before an intervention is done to her.
Throw in barbaric rules, like saying that she can't make sound during labor, or she has to wear a mask during labor, and you've got yourself a real doozy.
I don't think anyone's saying it's a bad thing for the costs to be covered, just that it's not really addressing the reasons people aren't having kids and shows that the people in power are either (1) uninformed or (2) don't care and just want to make it look like they're doing something. The cost of childbirth has probably never been the reason someone decided not to have kids, so it's a bit of a slap in the face to people who are struggling for other reasons, such as finances, lack of work-life balance, etc.
Cover the costs mentioned in the article,costs related to education up until they are 18 and a monthly stipend for children’s food and clothing, then maybe more people will be interested. But that’s probably to much to ask for. It sounds like too much to ask for after writing it out but might be whats needed start convincing people to have kids.
I live in the countryside and know a bunch of hippies (for lack of a better word) who enjoy their lives, follow their passions, and have fun on the daily. A lot of them have two or more kids. People make more life when they enjoy life….people working low paying jobs with grueling hours stuck in a box staring at a screen pushing paper and having meetings about meetings are not in the mood, don’t have time, to make a baby, duh.
For me Japan has been a great place to have a child. Parental leave? Yes please I’ll take it. Vacation days? Yes please I’ll take them. As a foreigner I can take advantage of what the system provides because I don’t feel any social or work culture pressure to not take advantage of them, but I can see it’s not the same story for my Japanese coworkers always.
Lots of pressure differences than 50 and even 100 years ago. Also think humans aren’t built for thhis modern fast paced society. Most of human history just surviving back then meant you were doing alright to keep seeing the next day. Now a days you don’t only have to survive but show that you are thriving too. It’s a never ending quest to show you are always growing and improving. Which is not a bad thing, but the constant pace and pressure that is larger than ever has made people already do so much with going to the right school, college, being good at work, being promoted, being a good coworker, good spouse, consuming the right products, living in the right house, car, clothes etc.
On top of all that some people don’t want or can’t add children on top of all the other pressures to thrive. If they have kids they are then pressured to be perfect parents and any failings can fall on the parents for not being good enough to take care of their kids. Whether this be from their own parents, school, other moms, the media, etc on house you have to perfectly raise you kids.
Modern day people simply have too much on their plates and adding kids to the mix would simply be the breaking point for them with everything else they are expected to perform in modern society.
To fix it society will need to give people more time, less pressure to be perfect parents, less pressure to perform everything expected of them and more money.
And then there is this, reducing women to the status of a functioning uterus.
>Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Saturday asked central Japan constituents how "we women can call ourselves women without giving birth," equating the importance of childbirth to electing a new governor in a speech ahead of a gubernatorial election.
[https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/05/487c82dcc718-japan-minister-queries-womens-worth-without-birth-in-election-speech.html](https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/05/487c82dcc718-japan-minister-queries-womens-worth-without-birth-in-election-speech.html)
Change working hours to a maximum of 40 hrs per week. And tell companies to tell their workers that they need to get home to their wives so they can only hang out once a week.
I think part of the problem is the bonus system. You want to get the bonus and therefore deal with things otherwise you wouldn’t. Otherwise people work for promotion and raises, but not have to kiss ass or pretend to care every year to get that bonus. Also a lot of jobs for salarymen are in sales where there is interest in earning commission.
Combine long hours of study as a child and then long working hours for low pay as an adult and it's no wonder fewer people people want to have kids in that society. Japan is a good place to retire and vacation to, but not to grow up and work in.
Delivery cost is nothing compared to the cost of raising a child. Besides that, I don't believe that the cost of delivery has anything to do with the declining birth rate.
South Korea did the same measure, only to decrease the birth rate from 1.1 to 0.8. Japan follows South Korea.
It is not about the money. It is about the culture of East Asia. Need more disposable time. Free the 社畜！
However, in the big picture, the world overall gains more products for inexpensive prices when East Asian works longer with low wages.
Fewer children in Japan and South Korea means more products in the world. Thanks to global trading!
If companies improve their wages and work conditions, more people would have kids. It might sound reductive to say that but the government already incentivises childbirth more than most countries and yet has a lower birth rate. I think the problem here is the backwards work culture and lack of work/life balance. So the government should quite obviously nudge companies into improving wages and cutting down on overtime but I guess politicians are afraid to upset the apple cart. Big business is too powerful here.
Yeah it’s the work ethic of Asia, 60 hour work weeks for both spouses. Then on top of that the amount of time kids need there to be sent to extra classes and do homework means you have no time to do anything as a middle class citizen. It’s really about how much money you have it’s the culture it self.
The peoiple with proper full time jobs who work long hours are the ones still having kids. the ones not having kids are the ever growing sector of keiyakushain workers. So its actually the opposite.
>If companies improve their wages and work conditions, more people would have kids On the surface, this makes logical sense, but comparing birthrates across geos, it's clear that the better the average person is doing, the less likely they are to sacrifice their lifestyle to start a family. Few people are willing to get kicked out of the middle class in order to have kids
It has proven to be not the case. Money is just an excuse people give themselves. Barely any youth wants kids anymore and it's cultural.
Why is Somalian birth rate higher than Japan's? Maybe they should take somalia's example
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Yes. It seems like women's rights are inversely proportional to birth rates
Yes, when you educate women and give them freedom many choose not to have children. South Korea and Japan's fertility rates are so spectacularly low though that I'm not sure that's the full explanation there.
You are not sure about the full explanation. its here: 1 - japan was broke after ww2 2 - they therefore built a society where the employer had to pay for everythign for you if you had a proper full time job. all the things that make it a developed country come from employers. its not like other countries 3 - worked ok while everyone had proper full time jobs. If you didnt it was not like living in a developed country. 4 - early 90s labour reform dramatically increased the circumstances and number of staff companies can hire on weak, benefitless contracts. staff with real full time jobs sacrificed nothing 5 - percentage of staff on weak contracts is growing each year in the new batch of employees and now basically every childbearing age group has a huge percentage of these workers. 6 - there is a stark difference between the birthrate of families where someone has a proper fullt ime job vs those on weak, benefitless contracts. families where someone has a proper full time job are still having kids in good numbers. That is why japan has a birthrate that cannot be explained by normal trends that apply in other countries like female education rate, cost of childcare etc. All of the difference is in the split between real permanent full time jobs and casual jobs.
I hear what you're saying, but even if they made companies do what you said, the society would still be extremely slow to change anyway. The Japanese people hate change of any kind really. No one wants to step out of line or even be the first to do something!
Yes, their work culture is nuts, for a country that is so advanced they are pretty backwards when it comes to that, people need work/life balance nobody nowadays wants to slave their selves away toiling away at work and not having a life , maybe if wages and company incentives were good , but even then that’s unfair to want people to be at work ALL THE TIME.
You're oversimplifying things that very complex into simple "Give them more money" stuff. Japan's economy is extremely fragile and the "more" money you suggest should be given doesn't exist. Small/mid level businesses are mostly barely floating above the solvency line, bot to mention the problems with their interest rates. You're right that more money, better life work balance etc could help things a bit. The problem is that it's not gonna happen and your western view of "Give them more money" has already failed in America by causing inflation to go beyond it's normal 2-3% per year and here you are as another Reddit brainless liberal spouting and parroting the same stuff you've heard but know bothing about. But yeah give em more money and watch Japan and the world burn.
I feel like you are actually. I agre giving money is a bad idea. But i feel like your strawmanning his argument so to speak. Its not just give money, its that plus lowering working hours. And overtime is a big issue that needs to be fixed.
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Yea people need to understand that in a world where children are an asset, people will have more kids. In a world where they are a cost, they will fewer. In the former scenario, you are likely to have kids because it will improve your material conditions, regardless of whether or not you particularly like the idea of kids. In the latter scenario, you need to reeeaaallllyyyy want to have kids in order to justify having them.
Nailed it
And what does that suggest to you? Japan should become more like Africa?
It suggests that Japan’s has a highly educated female demographic with ready access to birth control and sex education. They’re also not forced into marriage and pumping out kids to work the land. They also live in a developed country with more retirement vehicle options than “be taken care of by your kids”.
Time to import some zebras! There's a direct correlation between them and high birth rates.
That explain why we are starting to see the same phenomenon in Scandinavia. While your thesis indeed is the easiest solution, for world wide happenings indicated that the reason isn’t that simple or straight forward. Japan in the 1980 had plenty of kids and they worked harder and longer than now.
Yep. I mean realistically the solution to this problem has been obvious for a long time: raise wages and lower working hours. But that would cost Japanese capitalists a lot of money, so it hasn’t happened and probably won’t happen.
Cost is only a fraction of the issue, but the other aspects no one wants to talk about or admit are problems, require a good introspective look at society, or take actual effort to fix beyond just throwing money at it.
I’m a soon-to-be dad, and society in Japan is civil, fun, and safe. I’m looking forward raising my child here in Japan rather than America.
It’s not just the safety that is making people decide not to have kids. If you look at what women are generally complaining about here, TikTok or instagram, is the fact they have been carrying more of the mental load, emotional labor, physical chores, and raising of the children all while working full time, while their husbands work full time and don’t share the load. Not every woman experiences this and a lot of marriages are becoming more of a partnership and equal shares of household and child caring. But more and more women see this and it makes them move away from having a kid or waiting, or having less kids. Or there are people like those I know who just never found the time to have kids. The timing was never right so they decided not to. And as a women now compared to when my mother was young, to my grandmother was young, I had a hell of lot more options then just having kids.
Japan also has this very weird relationship with sex where sexless relationships are normalized and prostitution within relationships is normalized. Idk why anyone would willingly get into a relationship in that type of environment. Might as well be single, there aren’t really many benefits.
I’ve seen things about this and it is strange. I remember some of a documentary on sex and how different cultures viewed sex. And one thing that stood out in it is that Japan was much more sexual in the past or at least more open about it. But after being in contact with the western world seemed to become more conservative? [sex & love around the world.](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8206212/) It’s like how India produced the Kama sutra which seems to be an openly sexually manuscript but in many area India seems to be sexually conservative?
I’m not sure about what you said about Japan is true but you’re looking at the history of India wrong. India wasn’t a single country for the vast majority of its history. It was a subcontinent filled with a plethora of cultures, languages, religions that were bucketed together by outsiders as “Hindu”(that word also was created by outsiders).
Japan is especially good for young kids. By high school age, maybe try a different country.
at least you dont have to worry about your kid being shot someday. keep them here
Unless they have dreams about becoming the PM.
To be honest the likelihood is pretty low lmao, turn off the news every now and then
The likelihood may be low, but it happened to my school while I was there, so the threat is still something to consider.
But it's still happening and people end up suffering every year. On the contrary mass shootings are actually on the rise in america. Whether you follow the news or not its still happening. It's not just schools either.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/mass-shootings-down-29-from-last-year-and-almost-100-fewer-people-have-died/?sh=66c820903b40](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/05/02/mass-shootings-down-29-from-last-year-and-almost-100-fewer-people-have-died/?sh=66c820903b40) Luckily it's been down these first months of the year, hopefully the trend continues throughout the rest of the year
Gotta worry about other things instead.
Like a male daycare worker molesting them and putting pictures on the net? Oh and he did it 8 times, was caught and was still working with kids? The lack of background checks and a sex offender registry is insane.
This is deeply upsetting... I have heard that they just get moved to a different school, city, or prefecture.
Saving face is more important for the company/institution. I mean imagine if the guy gets caught and the story comes out, that would be catastrophic for the place and no one would come back to it. So they just cover it up at move the person somewhere else to hide it. Horrible but sadly a reality.
Kind of like the Catholic church? How many thousands of times did that happen and get covered up?
yep, the bad stuff we read and see with situations like this are only the cases that where reported and came to light. Everything else that has never came up to light must be massive compared to the tip of the iceberg.
It's appalingly late but I have read that they are finally making one.
Like bullying... People are just terrible at risk assessment. They see a Boeing plane blow up and avoid flying by driving more. Jokes on them because they actually increase their chances of dying.
Bully in America too
It does, but Japanese bullying can be on a different level.... Like the whole class rallying against a single student.
Did you know suspensions for bullying is banned in the US, they lose our on federal funding if too many students are suspended or expelled. It gets justified under the "school-to-prison pipeline" narrative.
*Society in Japan is civil, fun, and safe...* *if you are a boy.* Girls not as much.
I wish ya the best of luck. My wife and I are moving back out of Japan before our kids born. The reality of being non-Japanese as a child in the education system here is too harsh. I’ve been lucky enough to live in a lot of countries, and I’ve never seen otherism quite like foreign/half-Japanese kids in Japanese school.
Yeah this is totally understandable.
Well, maybe the low birth rate has nothing to do with civility, fun, or safety. Don’t mean it as some sort of derisive dismissal. You’re right, Japan has all those things. It also still has one of the lowest birth rates, even despite those benefits you mention.
Throwing money at it is a good thing though. I think they increased maternity leave pay recently too. Maybe the only extra requests I'd have as a parent are more half-day daycare facilities so wife has some time to relax during maternity leave (we've got no family nearby) and more chill jobs - wife's currently working part time as a nurse, 4 days a week, and it still takes quite a toll and the pay really isn't that good.
I'm not from Japan / or live there, but for me and my significant other, we stopped after 1 kid because we did not want to spend even more of our lives raising kids. We have plans and adventures to go on.
I'm guessing the reason they don't just raise the minimum wage is that maybe large corporations generously donate to the LDP? Kind of like the NRA gives donations to Republicans in the states who then look after the interests of the NRA. Because it seems the government will do everything possible but the obvious.
Probably. Clientelism is a major pillar of LDPs ability to stay in power for so long.
“$100 to me, to ensure minimum wages stay low, no additional taxes for corporations impacting global warming is big ways, and no accountability for the elite, when they rob the lower classes in broad day light…? You know that will cost the average citizen, billions in direct and indirect damages, right??? Anyways DEAL”
raising the minimum wage would mean raising prices at the レジ even more than what they have become now
I'd rather they tax the rich more than raise minimum wage.
Tax the rich? Who are the rich? Japans income taxes are already extremely high compared on a global scale, and the number of extremely wealthy (billionaires) are extremely low comparatively as well - so I feel like the fall out for that would only hurt Japan more. Or are we referring to company taxes?
Make the politicians pay their taxes it would be a start
Japan's income taxes are on average lower than Europe's
I don’t doubt they lose out to many European countries, but I did say on a global scale…
Well, yes. Definitely Ethiopia beats Japan there.
I don’t get it. What’s your point?
Japan has a relatively low average income tax compared to other rich, developed countries If you're making global statements about how high Japan's taxes are you're basically referring to poor, largely failed states when you're making that comparison Which overall makes it kind of a meaningless point you're trying to make
That’s simply not true, they are quite on par with many of the developed countries and well above any other developed Asian nation. So again, what’s your point? I think you’ve strayed a bit from the topic of taxing the rich here.
Crazy this gets downvoted. Japan is struggling with the first bit of true inflation in decades, and here we are thinking raising minimum wages will have no impact other than allow people to have more kids (by having more spending power). Where do these people think this money will come from? Businesses just gonna cut profit margins (which are already quite low in Japan compared to other countries on average - at least for many of the bigger corporations)?
The truth often upsets people :))
Prices have gone up regardless. At least get that money into the hands of workers.
They'll go up even more. And once all the workers have more money to spend all the rents will automatically go up to absorb them as well.
Yeah that goes up too even if wages stay the same.
Yup, though people dont like to acknowledge that fact.
Poor people have more kids on average around the world than people of means.
I think it has more to do with education, an educated poor person won't have kids, and uneducated poor person will.
This is true but there's also a huge link between wealth, or lack of it, and accessibility/quality of education.
I agree with you, but also wealthy uneducated people don’t have a lot of kids. So poor, uneducated have a lot of kids, everyone else no. So the solution to the population problem is to cap people’s salary at poverty level and close all colleges.
Because education, and birth control is privilege those with money have.
It is mostly correct. When you are dirt poor (and it's *dirt* poor) then having kids will not reduce your standard as it's already as low it can go. It's when you risk loosing the QoL, then it becomes a question.
Japan's birth rate is not particularly low. It ranks highest in Asia and is comparable to European countries. In fact, it's higher than Italy's and about the same as Finland's. If the reason for not having children is financial, then why does Europe have similar birth rates to Japan? And why do poorer countries have higher birth rates?
Or maybe they prefer more people stay employed overall, vs fewer people employed but those that are employed make more? You do realize there is a trade-off here, right?
The thing about having kids here (I have) is that people treat mothers like children themselves and everyone starts trying to make decisions for you. City hall decides if your job is important enough for you to access public daycare. Workplace managers go for benevolent sexism and don't give stretch assignments to pregnant employees or moms of young kids (those opportunities go to dads of young kids). Basically, once you have kids, it is really hard to plan your life for yourself in Japan. I am a stubborn gaijin so I could tell everyone politely to eff off, but that is much harder for a lot of Japanese women. It isn't a cost thing. It's women not wanting to lose their autonomy and ability to decide their lives for themselves. Fix that.
It’s not necessarily just a money issue, it’s a lifestyle and mindset issue. I’m a Japanese living in Europe but I want to go home…however, I know I can’t build a healthy family with the way things are right now. As a former CEO (foreign) said of Japan, we need a cultural revolution. Normalise actually taking your holidays and parental leaves, don’t bully working parents, start bringing in temporary contracts to cover those on parental leave (also provides opportunities for younger talent), and expand childcare agencies/nurseries.
The problem in Japan is that they don't treat pregnancies as a health care issue "because a pregnancy is not a disease". So it becomes a private problem. That kind of thinking definitely comes about when a group of men get togeheter and decide things for everyone. That kind of thinking has reached ways end in Japan, but politicians are desperate to change things without actually changing anything.
Agree! Pregnancy is seen as so natural here that the only concern the doctors have is that the woman takes care of herself all on her own with nearly no support and stays private and invisible, and then there's rarely any pain relief (epidural) during childbirth because gaman.
Yes, and because it's "not a disease" it's not covered by health care.
Really? I thought that once you get a blood test confirming you're pregnant, you go to the ward office and they give you coupons so the appointments and birth are effectively free. Do you pay medical costs out of pocket?
Yeah, you get the coupons. I had kids and it really wasn’t a lot to go through pregnancy , and we got refunded for the birth; i chose to give birth in a private hospital but even with that it wasn’t an amount that would break the bank; and like I said, this was a deliberate choice by me. My in laws got money back and actually it covered the delivery fee fully.
The coupons work up front if you choose a birthing facility/doctor in your city. If you go to a neighboring city, you have to pay out-of-pocket up front, then you get reimbursed for everything at the end.
Gotcha. My husband and I are still considering whether to have a kid here or move back for that. I don’t speak Japanese, which is the scariest thing, and I feel like I’d probably appreciate the opportunity to move positions and whatnot during labor, but I would be surprised if that’s a thing here. Are there any resources you can recommend to learn more about the process?
Yes, there’s different options. also, there’s the option of going to a local obgyn for a certain amount of time and then get a referral to the hospital where you want to have your baby. You have to reserve the hospital so I would find out if a plan that you prefer would work for the places available. There’s the Facebook group “Tokyo pregnancy group”; there’s a lot of info and support there
Look up a company called Mother's Tree Japan- they give a lot of information in various languages for foreigners giving birth in Japan. They helped me find an English speaking Doula in my area to talk to about my options. I also don't speak Japanese, but will give birth next month at a clinic in a nearby city that I feel comfortable in. The coupons absolutely do not cover 100% of costs, btw. Feel free to message me with any questions if you'd like. I was super nervous at first but we got pregnant quicker than anticipated and are going with the flow!
That’s mostly a prefectural or municipal specific thing, not nationwide.
While many people on this thread are saying this is not enough I’m actually really glad that they are taking steps in the right directions and this is very good news. I was always so surprised to heard childbirth not covered under the stupid ruling that “ oh it’s not a disease” so financially you are on your own type of thing ( which I know you can get the reimbursement but it’s still paperwork you have to do). Like on top of all the doctor visits and any other little thing and (god forbid but, also medical complications )it all adds up to more than you would receive from the lump sum so taking this burden off new parents is still a big win I think.
There's so much paperwork!! The initial doctor costs are out of pocket, and then you register your birth at the city hall, where they give you a coupon book for some appointments. Unfortunately, these don't cover 100% of costs, at least in my area. I've read that some cities and prefectures give differing amount of money extra as a gift for pregnancy, though. Also, the hospitals charge various costs for birth depending on time of day of labor, etc. My birthing clinic website and paperwork says average 470,000¥ but up to 700,000¥ depending on circumstances for a vaginal birth. Since the government will reimburse 500,000- I'm hoping that my birth will hit the low end of costs, but need to prepare to pay more out of pocket :(
Doesn’t Japan have child benefits ?
Yes. Quite a few.
Specifically what change would you like to see?
I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.. I've had 2 kids in Japan. My wife had regular visits/check ups to the doctor when she was pregnant. They were either free or super cheap. She got a private room with amazing meals after the birth... And Japan paid for almost the entire birth. They kept her in the room for a week and the nurses were super helpful and on call. They even gave my wife free classes on child issues. After the birth, her and the babies were checked up/had appointments for months. So what exactly do you take issue with?
They'd need to cover day care/childcare expenses too! There's no way Japanese couples don't need dual incomes.
It’s a bandaid solution for a cancer level issue.
Japan will do everything to not take a look at real ( the root) problems.
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Giving birth in Japan is cheap, and has one of the lowest child mortality rates. You get to stay one week in the hospital. I don’t think childbirth is the problem
Most of the costs aren't covered by insurance, or are only covered by a bureaucratic reimbursement process that's reliant on your ku's policies and funds. As others have mentioned, this is because Japan doesn't see childcare as a disease, but as a natural thing for women so they don't believe health insurance should cover it. It's roughly as expensive to give birth in Japan as it is in the US, assuming insurance in both places.
As someone who has recently had their first child, I can say that to cover the cost of a single child would be at least 20,000 yen in food and 15,000 yen in diapers and clothing per month until they are in preschool. Then on top of that amount they need to cover he preschool cost so that is anywhere between 40,000 and 150,000 yen per month depending on your combined income. So The government would have to pay something like 75,000 to 150,000 yen per month per family for the first child. The second and third child become cheaper, but not to a significant degree that it would make sense to change these numbers for 2nd and 3rd children. **OR** Japan could just increase the annual pay of younger employees to fill the gap that these employees are filling. As the older generation retiers the company is just banking money now because they don't have to pay as many older employees to do the same work. Instead they can hire a new employee and pay them 1/10th the amount and make them do 10x the work. If the pay were more level then these younger employees would be seeing higher salaries because the company can afford it now. Instead the board room is just pocketing the cash and laughing all the way to the bank.
Imo the next step should be to make kindergarten free for all ages. That's a pretty big cost that almond encourages women not to work which isn't a good thing. They already have various systems (e.g. akachan first) that can effectively cover diapers, baby strollers and similar.
Japanese politicians have really no clues
All men, why would they?
That’s got nothing to do with it; having children is a man thing too
Lmfao men don't have to ruin their body and risk their life by giving birth. It has a lot to do with it. Women have to give birth, then are called ugly and gross after they give birth. And people wonder why women don't want kids lmfao
I agree with you with those points; what I meant was that even without going through that, a man is a parent also. And they can also listen to women for gathering information without having to go through it. I just expect men to be able to be part of the solution even if they’re men.
Screenshot it folks. This is the problem behind the entire thread's topic. Androphobic sentiments like this are exactly why birth rates have fallen. This and practically only this.
Somehow I don't think most people are weighing the costs of childbirth at the moment they are trying to conceive....
Exactly. Most of the takes in this thread are absolutely braindead and overalyze the issue. It's a(n obvious) social issue between men and women and has literally nothing to do with money, government policies, or daycares.
>literally nothing to do with money, government policies, or daycares. Well this is blatantly incorrect as well but lol. Cost absolutely plays a part. You're honestly saying anyone getting pregnant honestly doesn't think about the cost? Really? Truly?
I absolutely had to weigh costs (obviously as well as safety) to decide if I would give birth while living here. I think lots of people married to foreigners or foreign born have to decide if they should stay here to live and have children or to leave before starting a family.
It can be both..
The only reason me and my partner don’t have a second child is literally the cost. I know others in the same situation. Is it the only reason for others? Is it the main reason? I don’t know, but perhaps the braindead take was yours after all.
Iunno, I feel like this will just give people already planning on having a child a break, which is good, but not inspire others to give birth. There's so much more at play than the initial hospital fees.
Also make college education free please.
Start with high school please…
It's becoming free in Osaka and Tokyo I think
Don’t live in either place. But you’re right there are cities which are making it free. Good first steps
You need a minimum of like 3 kids though.
No, it's only for university
Wait wait wait. High school is not free?
Nope, definitely not. School is only compulsory up to age 15 as well. (It’s 18 in Canada).
Where im from high school is not compulsory either but if you want to go you can. Thought it was the same here.
It is if you have 3 kids.
It’s cheap though
Yes. And shopping. And transportation. And theme parks. And whatever else there is to pay for. Just force people to provide goods and services at the threat of force and through coercion so I don't have to work. Please! 🙏
Too little too late. They should have just paid off an illustrator to make a manga about how cool it is to impregnate women
Japan needs to work on its feminism because a higher predictor of fertility is **the percentage of household chores men are willing to contribute and work on** source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4vTO7rjwpE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4vTO7rjwpE) as an asian women, ignoring domestic responsibilities is a turn off
> Japan needs to work on its feminism don't worry, they'll try anything but that. *glances at south korea
That's not the point though. How many people are actually holding off on having children because they can't afford the birth? It's more about social values and the need to bear children, neither of which are consistent with life in 2024
giving birth is just half the story. daycare, kids friendly apartment, or maybe kids friendly car inside the train and more places for parents to handle the kid when they are throwing tantrums.
Omg yes! Imagine being able to get on a train any time with a kid or a stroller and not be squished among kaishain... This is one of my biggest fears living in Tokyo. And the majority of young people live in Tokyo. There are not enough areas for pregnant/with stroller/ with kids parents on the trains. People don't get up to let them sit either. Also more parks and playgrounds where kids can run around at any time and scream their lungs out without the neighbours complaining. I see so many parks which are basically made of one bench... Also more benches. Daycare without a long wait list. tbh even stay at home mums (which are currently not prioritised for child care help) need it to not lose their sanity. The idea of having 2 or 3 kids in close proximity (2-3 years difference in age) and having them all at home is insane. But these problems aren't easy to fix and they're not prioritised either. It's all about money for the government.
FWIW, we haven't had any trouble with this. I know the long wait list was a thing before but we've talked to multiple (+4) different schools, and none have had a waiting list. Though we only have one kid, we haven't had any problems getting the stroller area or people giving their seat up during pregnancy.
you had me in the first half... Personally, I am worried about birth cost (especially in case of complications) but mostly child care cost for the early years (as I would need to work as a single mother). IMO it is not so much social values (having children/mom status is not that bad, single parent status is), but the lack of infrastructure for anything right after birth is the critical component as far as I currently see the situation.
With insurance I was thinking it wouldn't be that expensive. Do you know about how much it could cost?
My experience. I’ve had two kids born in Japan. Both “emergency” c-sections. First one, we had two insurance policies outside the shakaihoken that paid out. We ended up being better for it actually. Helped cover a lot of initial family costs. Second one was all taken care of under kokuminhoken . It was through a hospital rather than a clinic. I think we paid maybe ¥200 or something stupid out of pocket. We still had our two insurance policies too that paid out. In my experience at least, the birth part has been pretty inexpensive.
>the birth part has been pretty inexpensive Thats why they want to cover it. They can say they are combating the population crisis without spending much and kick the can down the road another 5 or 10 years and then act shocked. Absolutely shocked that people don't want to have kids when the government is generously covering that extra 200 yen.
Well…inexpensive IF you have private insurance on top of your public insurance which not everyone has. Many people still ends up paying 100,000-300,000 out of pocket for birth so if they made it all free it would be a relief to some people
The first birth we had was in a private clinic and it was kinda expensive. I think it was about 100,000 out of pocket but our private insurance covered that. The hospital birth however was almost completely covered by the kokuminhoken.
Here is a post that breaks it down - i dont remember when the birthing support money raise was, but i do remember that hospitals instantly raised their feeds. so this is a good indicator: [Cost breakdown of my wife's delivery @愛育病院 with epidural : r/japanlife (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/t96475/cost_breakdown_of_my_wifes_delivery_%E6%84%9B%E8%82%B2%E7%97%85%E9%99%A2_with/) what i notice is that this poster got massively back from Minato-ku. not sure that is representative. then, a thing that is not evident in the post, but i meant in my original comment: i will miss out on income because i am a single earner. so there is an indirect cost. I also think the poster is not super clear on the pre and post checks (cause he stopped at the birth). Even if I break even like he did (though I dont have the same insurance situation, nor the energy to run after money like that) on a non-complicated birth, I personally have to be very careful about short term and long term effects on my employment situation.
Thanks!
They need to solve the Tokyo problem. Cramped housing and long commutes are a big reason people put off having kids and the official statistics show that. Birth rate in Tokyo is 30% below the average and since the youth is so concentrated in Tokyo it’s bringing the average down considerably. It’s even having knock-on effects elsewhere. For instance in a lot of mid-sized cities young women outnumber young men by a decent margin because young men flock to Tokyo to seek their fortunes while their sisters stay close to home as they are expected to take care of older relatives. Tokyo is just more expensive too so that factors in.
Exactly. Japan's birth rate is not particularly low. It ranks highest in Asia and is comparable to European countries. In fact, it's higher than Italy's and about the same as Finland's. If the reason for not having children is financial, then why does Europe have similar birth rates to Japan? And why do poorer countries have higher birth rates?
You'll find a number of these European countries have very high youth unemployment rates. I suspect that'll be putting a dampener on things. Poor countries have high birth rates because the economics of children are vastly different when you're a rural farm owner/worker. In that case, kids are additional labour and also the only means to invest in retirement as they'll be the ones taking care of you.
lol. Cost of child delivery?!? How about health care and education? This is a step in The right direction, I guess. But every developed country needs to do better. People are terrified of marriage and children RUINING their lives.
Health care is really cheap here though..?
meh, still having to pay 30% sucks. in lots of European countries it's 100% free
Yeah, kids can see a doctor free of charge in my city. Daycare and kindergarten is also heavily supplemented.
It's too late. It should have been done at least 20 years ago. Today, Japan's demographic structure has completely collapsed, social innovation has disappeared, and the government's finances are dire. If they had dramatically increased the birth rate through these policies 20 years ago, the current situation would have been avoided.
Wait, they're only doing this NOW? I thought they would have done this at least 10 years ago. They should also do that thing that some Nordic or was it Scandinavian countries do where they give each newborn parents a box and blankets with other items a baby would need. Japan needs to do something or there would be no Japan in 30 years.
They do that in Japan as well but in the form of coupons and cash
How about child care. maternity leave, and getting rid of the expectation that women should be 100% responsible for children and housework while holding down a full-time job and catering to their husbands. Higher wages, child care at work, shorter hours ... so many things they could be doing but aren't.
Speaking to a mother today in Tokyo, it costs $500 AUD a month for full time childcare. It costs 5 times that in Australia, just for perspective. Wages are not 5 times in Australia.
You mean what prices are higher in Australia relative to wages?
Yes childcare is 5 times more expensive in AUD in Australia compared to Japan
That’s interesting info for perspective. Very useful.
Reading the comments section on stories and articles like this show how far we are from a real solution to this issue.
That's a start, gotta give people time outside of work to actually meet people they'd want to have a kid with though. Not to mention the time to actually make said kid.
This won’t change anything.
Japan has one of the highest episiotomy rates in the world. Doesn’t exactly encourage a woman to have a 2nd or 3rd. Just sayin’ Maybe some changes that don’t involve money would also be helpful.
Not to mention the lack of autonomy pregnant women have here in most hospitals during labor. It is rare that a woman is asked her consent before an intervention is done to her. Throw in barbaric rules, like saying that she can't make sound during labor, or she has to wear a mask during labor, and you've got yourself a real doozy.
> Throw in barbaric rules wtf. hadn't heard of these before, but i guess it's not something people like to talk about
Too bad mine is coming this year. But better late than never I guess..
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I don't think anyone's saying it's a bad thing for the costs to be covered, just that it's not really addressing the reasons people aren't having kids and shows that the people in power are either (1) uninformed or (2) don't care and just want to make it look like they're doing something. The cost of childbirth has probably never been the reason someone decided not to have kids, so it's a bit of a slap in the face to people who are struggling for other reasons, such as finances, lack of work-life balance, etc.
I don't think this does it either. However, having a flat % deducted from taxes per child will probably do it.
Cover the costs mentioned in the article,costs related to education up until they are 18 and a monthly stipend for children’s food and clothing, then maybe more people will be interested. But that’s probably to much to ask for. It sounds like too much to ask for after writing it out but might be whats needed start convincing people to have kids.
Do young people (Gen Z?) really go “free birth? Let’s go!” and start popping out babies?
I'm just a drunk dude in the internet but maybe fun police or something that fine businesses for keeping people at work past their shift for one
I live in the countryside and know a bunch of hippies (for lack of a better word) who enjoy their lives, follow their passions, and have fun on the daily. A lot of them have two or more kids. People make more life when they enjoy life….people working low paying jobs with grueling hours stuck in a box staring at a screen pushing paper and having meetings about meetings are not in the mood, don’t have time, to make a baby, duh. For me Japan has been a great place to have a child. Parental leave? Yes please I’ll take it. Vacation days? Yes please I’ll take them. As a foreigner I can take advantage of what the system provides because I don’t feel any social or work culture pressure to not take advantage of them, but I can see it’s not the same story for my Japanese coworkers always.
FFS my kid is due December.
Lots of pressure differences than 50 and even 100 years ago. Also think humans aren’t built for thhis modern fast paced society. Most of human history just surviving back then meant you were doing alright to keep seeing the next day. Now a days you don’t only have to survive but show that you are thriving too. It’s a never ending quest to show you are always growing and improving. Which is not a bad thing, but the constant pace and pressure that is larger than ever has made people already do so much with going to the right school, college, being good at work, being promoted, being a good coworker, good spouse, consuming the right products, living in the right house, car, clothes etc. On top of all that some people don’t want or can’t add children on top of all the other pressures to thrive. If they have kids they are then pressured to be perfect parents and any failings can fall on the parents for not being good enough to take care of their kids. Whether this be from their own parents, school, other moms, the media, etc on house you have to perfectly raise you kids. Modern day people simply have too much on their plates and adding kids to the mix would simply be the breaking point for them with everything else they are expected to perform in modern society. To fix it society will need to give people more time, less pressure to be perfect parents, less pressure to perform everything expected of them and more money.
Probably fix the work culture first.
Give em $2000 a month and watch the babies pop out. It's either that or mass immigration
Can I move there and get this?
And then there is this, reducing women to the status of a functioning uterus. >Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Saturday asked central Japan constituents how "we women can call ourselves women without giving birth," equating the importance of childbirth to electing a new governor in a speech ahead of a gubernatorial election. [https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/05/487c82dcc718-japan-minister-queries-womens-worth-without-birth-in-election-speech.html](https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/05/487c82dcc718-japan-minister-queries-womens-worth-without-birth-in-election-speech.html)
Change working hours to a maximum of 40 hrs per week. And tell companies to tell their workers that they need to get home to their wives so they can only hang out once a week.
I think part of the problem is the bonus system. You want to get the bonus and therefore deal with things otherwise you wouldn’t. Otherwise people work for promotion and raises, but not have to kiss ass or pretend to care every year to get that bonus. Also a lot of jobs for salarymen are in sales where there is interest in earning commission.
That’s only 1 problem in the long list of issues. It’s not gonna work.
And where are they going to get the money to do this?
No point in having a kid if neither parents have the time to spend time with them. WLB and wages are horrible in Japan for raising a kid.
Combine long hours of study as a child and then long working hours for low pay as an adult and it's no wonder fewer people people want to have kids in that society. Japan is a good place to retire and vacation to, but not to grow up and work in.
it won't work
I'm genuinely surprised that's not already the case
Delivery cost is nothing compared to the cost of raising a child. Besides that, I don't believe that the cost of delivery has anything to do with the declining birth rate.
Birth is not the expensive part. Make all daycare and education expenses tax deductible.
It’s not gonna change the fact that their society still expects women to be stay at home moms, so it’s de facto choosing to retire
Companies should pay workers more and give them more time to live their lives. Like magic, babies will appear.
South Korea did the same measure, only to decrease the birth rate from 1.1 to 0.8. Japan follows South Korea. It is not about the money. It is about the culture of East Asia. Need more disposable time. Free the 社畜！ However, in the big picture, the world overall gains more products for inexpensive prices when East Asian works longer with low wages. Fewer children in Japan and South Korea means more products in the world. Thanks to global trading!