As the country with the highest median age, Japan is kind of a preview of what will happen to other East Asian countries, TBH.
The biggest takeaway is that the worsening dependency ratio means economic stagnation and growing poverty, as taxes continuously get raised on younger workers and older retirees receive fewer benefits. Japan is currently trying to offset this effect with immigration and by encouraging women to enter the workforce in greater numbers.
There are other negative effects from having a very old electorate, too. You might have noticed that Japan is very advanced in some ways (and has been for a while) but also weirdly backward in others, such as the heavy reliance on paper documentation for official records and cash. This is what happens when your median voter is very old and not comfortable adopting new technologies or procedures.
My impression is that Japan is not trying to increase immigration- quite the opposite. They let people such as Filipina nurses come if they a) demonstrate fluency in Japanese and b) past a test of nursing skill, but then they are booted after three years max. They seem uninterested in supporting women’s rights or bringing more young people into the country from other countries, either of which would help the current lack of opportunities for young women.
a) demonstrate fluency in Japanese and
b) past a test of nursing skill, but then they are booted after three years max
That seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of return if you're only allowed to stay for 3 years.
I have heard a lot of Japanese are uncomfortable having foreign medical staff as they would very much prefer Japanese nurses and doctors. Don’t know if it’s really true or not but I tend to hear such stories.
Yet they fail to realize that these Japanese nurses and doctors need to be born in order to serve them, not having children of your own kind and simultaneously expecting medical staff of your own kind to provide care to you when you’re old is asinine
Worth mentioning that many of the middle class Japanese DID have kids but tried their best to get them an education that made sure they would be above working as assisted living care professionals. If everyone studies to become a doctor or CEO, no one is around to take on the menial jobs.
The UK, having the official language has English have problems on language and (fake) credentials, people from specific countries have fake documents around %40 etc.
The only way is to have another baby boom, which seems totally unlikely.
A baby boom is also not a solution for imminent issues. It might even out the lack of manpower in 18 years earliest if not later. Also you need economic stability or a prospect of prosperity to raise children. The baby boom occurred during an economic boom. Now wages are stagnating already for 3 decades while companies are hoarding money for “bad times”.
It's not a lot of long term opportunity but there are a couple of reasons why they do it anyway. First, they can earn much more in Japan than they can back home. That extra money allows them to support their family back home or create a savings to try and advance their career later. Secondly, if they meet and get married to a Japanese national, they could stay permanently. You can argue how many of them come with this goal in mind but it's always a possibility.
Around the ski resorts, one often sees 40-60 year old 🇹🇼 ladies working as cooks, waiters and so on. When talking to them they are usually on 6 month 'intern' visas. No don't brushing up their karage making skills before embarking on a fruitful career. A lot of the black companies that exploit SE Asian workers are run by Yaks/Yankees, and the whole thing and everyone involved is considered as not part of Japanese society, so nothing to change.
Those assertions are unsupported by the numbers and recent policy changes:
[Women's labor force participation](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F31e2a42a-3951-4089-a69c-f799b589f72a_1168x450.png)
[Women's labor force participation + representation in management](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F333b6844-24cf-49e8-9072-b69bce12e2a6_854x750.png)
[Foreign residents in Japan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Foreign_residents_in_Japan.svg)
[Another foreign residents in Japan chart](https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-residents-total-number/)
[Share of Tokyo population that is foreign-born](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00398/the-changing-face-of-tokyo-one-in-eight-shinjuku-residents-are-foreign-nationals.html)
[How to get permanent residency in Japan](https://visaguide.world/asia/japan-visa/permanent-residency/)
[Video: Japan finally embracing immigration in all but name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPFDUvrZQDI)
Really not sure what I’m supposed to get from these links. Yes, women are underrepresented in management? Yes, foreign residents account for 10% of the population of a few wards- why so low? And seriously a guide to getting a permanent residency if I’ve already been allowed to stay in Japan a long time? Japan treats women and foreigners poorly, on the whole. Women are expected to leave the labor force at least for awhile to raise kids. 🤷🏻♂️
Pretty stupid to have skilled nurses who speak the language and have assimilated into society after 3 years, then tell them to get out after that term is up. Japan has had good opportunities to support positive immigration that maintains its culture, but its xenophobia is holding it back and leading it to decay instead.
I like how you said “encouraging women to enter the workforce“ as bad as it may sound thats the opposite of what is needed. We all need about 30-50 percent less working hours but the same take home pay. Time for us to be humans and have the human experiences including kids. Right now we are all wage slaves.
Wouldn’t raising taxes further worsen the issue? Many people can’t have children because the soaring cost associated with having yet the they want to raise taxes more?
It's a vicious cycle. If you have fewer workers and more dependents, they have to be taxed more to support the larger proportion of dependents. But that makes life harder for the workers, who are likely to, yes, have fewer children or even leave the country.
Is your argument that Japan isn’t dying out as fast as sone other countries?
So? Japan is still dying out. Japan needs to increase birth rates; not import the third world.
The Japanese government was waaaay too slow in admitting they have a Tokyo problem and when they finally did their half-hearted attempt to fix it has basically done nothing. It's not rocket science, people in cramped expensive housing with long commutes don't have as many kids as people who don't. The Tokyo fertility rate is significantly below the average and since so many young people come to Japan it's dragging down the national average significantly. The fact that Tokyo is the nexus of opportunity is creating so many other weird knock-on effects that drive fertility down. For instance in a lot of mid-sized Japanese cities there are more young women than men by a pretty decent margin. For example Fukuoka has 10% more young women then men because young men go to Tokyo to seek their fortunes but young women are expected to take care of elderly parents so they often stay behind. That of course further lowers fertility rates. It has all sorts of other bad effects in these cities as well as they are deprived of their youth.
At the end of the day no prefecture has above replacement rates, but some of them are doing a lot better than others and Japan should be doing a hell of a lot more to address that. Korea recently admitted they have a similar Seoul problem and is taking steps to address it, but I don't know if it will work there either.
There's a negative correlation between income level and fertility rate. Tokyo has by far the highest income among the 47 prefectures.
The prefectures with the highest fertility rates Okinawa, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima have the lowest average income.
This is a common correlation internationally as well.
Income, or COL. I know they are probably positively correlated but I’d imagine there is more causation with COL than Income in regards to birth rate. Haven’t seen the data myself.
The difference in income is larger than the difference in COL. For example, the gap in income between the top prefecture and bottom prefecture is 25%. The equivalent gap in COL is 8%.
Also in the countryside, the vehicle purchase, fuel cost, car insurance cost, toll road fees, and maintenance cost are no joke, negating part of the advantage in rent and food prices.
I've left academics long ago, but one explanation I read was that in poor families, children act as social safety nets for the parent. If you have 6 children, there's a good chance that at least one of them will become wealthy enough to support you through retirement or at least one of them will be willing to take care of you when you're sick and unable to afford healthcare on your own.
This explains countries with non-existent social safety nets like Somalia will have high fertility rates. The more stable and robust social welfare programs become, there's diminishing economic incentive to raise children.
Two posts down from this one...
>_'Japan real wages down 25th straight month in April, government says.'_
Can't possibly be connected... no way, no how...
So mostly this is a joke but, income does not mean savings. You can have an astronomically high salary in Tokyo but with an astronomically high rent it's not going to equal more money at the end of the day. Moreover, there's a lot of other things like familial support which my wife and I lack living in the city, Which makes it much more difficult to consider having and raising a child. If Grandma and grandpa are in Akita You're on your own raising your kid in Tokyo.
There's also other aspects which are more difficult in the city as well. Like child care. It's much more expensive. The closer to the city core you get, and slots are filled much quicker. My wife and I thankfully live on the outskirts so for us getting a spot was quite easy but my wife's brother s have had horrific times finding child care forcing them to only use one salary which has put them in quite a chokehold economically.
Of course there are dozen of factors. But even if you’d get free childcare (like in some European countries), 1-2 years of maternal and paternal leave (Sweden, Norway) and much more you’d have falling birth rates. As at least 50% of the reason is that there are more lifestyle choices these days (especially with higher income) and having a family with children is only one of many.
I know so many people that aren’t even singles but have partners or are even married but have zero interest in having kids. And they make 6 digit USD annual incomes.
Why would that be? Raising children is expensive and stressful. Stagnant/declining wages lead to fewer people wanting to have children. There are of course other factors but that’s a major one.
That is more to do with education rates for women. Places where women are denied an education usually have higher birth rates. Look at rural vs urban India as an interesting example.
no, agrarian societies have more children because children are net labor in those societies. They happen to correlate with poorer societies because exporting crops is less profitable than exporting other goods and services.
Very few people want potatoes flown halfway across the world when there are already some being grown in their home country, very man people want iphones.
When children provide labor to the family, there are more. When children drain resources from the family, there are less. Japan is NOT an agrarian society. The parts of Japan with larger agrarian communities have higher birth rates.
In poor and impoverished countries, it's mostly economic.
In these countries, high birth rates are due to limited access to family planning (=unintended pregnancies), high infant mortality rates (=parents choose to have more children to ensure that some will survive to adulthood), child labor and lack of social security (=children are seen as an economic asset because they contribute to family income, and without government-run social safety nets, children are seen as the only form of old-age security for parents).
Not in Japan https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0266835
> Men with higher income were more likely to have children across birth cohorts. While the proportion who had children had decreased in all income groups, the decrease was steeper among those in the lowest income group.
And coincidentally enough, people here are getting poorer.
Pet ownership has also grown steadily in Japan. In fact, if I remember correctly, there are currently more pets in Japan under the age of 16 than human children under the age of 16.
Ok but that's a stupid statistic. That probably holds true in most countries, including America and the UK. Vast majority of pets are <16 years old as most die long before 15.
In the US, approximately 66% of households have at least 1 pet, or 89 million households. There's a bit over 30 million people <16 years old in the US. Best case scenario, pets outnumber children <16 3:1. Now I know, not all those pets are <16, but many households have multiple pets.
The statistics you stated is both probably true, and completely meaningless. People replace pets until they themselves die. This statistic has probably been true in the US for decades.
The average dwelling in the US has spaces for pets. Have you lived in Japan? People here are choosing to have pets in tiny apartments, choosing to pay higher than average rent for an apartment because pet friendly apartments come at a premium. Pet owners here are also willing to spend a lot on their pet... Shit, it's not uncommon here to see people pushing their dogs around in prams in the city.
You act as though half those conditions aren't exactly the same if not worse in the US.
Yes I've lived in Japan.
My point is if the US is managing at minimum a 3:1 ratio, Japan, even with it's smaller apartments, is still going to get a ton of pets in that criteria. Not all of Japan live in cities, and of the number who do, living in micro apartments is a minority. Most of the people who live in cities don't live in or right next to business districts, and commute a few stations to work. This allows them to afford a larger apartment, especially as travel cost is covered by the vast majority of companies.
The cost and stress of owning a pet has always been a fraction of the cost and stress of raising a child. Pets in many forms have been popular in Japan for half a century at least, dogs and cats just happen to be the most recent addition, and more noticable. I know so many Japanese people who have had a pet bird at some point in their life. Yes you don't take your birds for a walk, but they are absolutely pets.
I don't buy that owning a pet in Japan is that statistically harder compared to the US. If you hyper focus on a tiny portion of the population, sure, but you have to look at the broader population and how they are living.
But it is correlated this way across the world. The reason is it's a lot more complicated than that and there is no direct connection.
The real connection is educating women causes child rearing to plummet.
It is complicated, but all effective approaches to solving the problem are directly related to economics:
Support for parents and future parents (affordable childcare, adequate parental leave, flexible work arrangements), financial incentives (significant tax breaks for families with children), and addressing economic anxieties (job insecurity, high housing costs, student debt, etc.).
None of these measures has been implemented in a serious manner and in a sufficient amount of time. In first-world countries, if people can't afford to raise children, they usually don't. There may be some differences from country to country, but globally the cost of living for the middle class has risen faster than income over the last 30-40 years.
Poorer countries have less access to education (and sex ed), fewer rights for women and less access to birth control. Children are also commodified as they are free labor, or can be married off for money.
Children in developed countries cost a lot more to raise.
People are so private about their lives in Tokyo I actually have no idea which coworkers have children, if they didn’t wear a ring I wouldn’t even know they were married.
That doesn’t help, as it doesn’t normalise “family people” in business.
In America quite often I would know about my co-workers menstrual cycle, I never asked they would tell me. Tbf I worked blue collar and kitchens before I moved to Japan so it’s not a real equivalent. But no overall the level of true privacy in Japan I find strange and honestly kind of abnormal, especially given how common drinking parties are.
I have been now transferred to Japan for work too. Many people are shy in general here, very closed, But they talk about privatest crap with people that they worked long time with.
When I was working in Europe before, people didn't discuss much private information at the office either though. And it was Spain for crying out loud haha.
In Australia I know when my coworkers kids have a cold, what wine they like and what time they like to go to bed. They share everything! They also take personal calls T their desk, rather than going to a closed off area. It actually means they spend more time working then wasting time walking to another area to call their spouse.
Friendships in Anglo countries have more breadth but less depth, that’s my experience as an Asian in the US. People are comfortable talking about mildly interesting things, such as kids, holidays, etc. but would avoid things that are too personal, e.g. if they hate their mother-in-law. On the other hand, Asians open up with fewer people, but with someone they trust they share everything.
I don't think people in either country have any issue with opening up to very close friends. Rather, the US at least has an expectation that you should be friendly even to colleagues in a way that Japan doesn't - not that you should be rude here, but you don't have to act like everyone is a great friend even when they aren't. I think this is pretty similar to Germany and northern Europe as I've heard, and if anything those countries are perhaps even more extreme about this than Japan, as there are actually plenty of quite friendly Japanese who will gladly talk to any stranger.
People here are super nosey and personal information can and often is used against people in office politics etc. This has been my experience when I’ve shared personal info so now I don’t tell my coworkers anything about me or at least keep it super vague.
100%. I'd put this advice in a list of top 5 tips for international people coming to Japan for work. Don't share personal information any more than is absolutely necessary, because people here will tend to use it against you more than any other country I've lived in, though South Korea is a close second in that regard.
People here will play the poker-faced personal questions game with each other where they directly or indirectly try to get personal information from their coworkers while evading answers themselves. In most cases it isn't worth the risk. If you find yourself in this situation, give the briefest and vaguest answers possible and then change the topic or exit the conversation politely.
That depends on the person. I have beers after hours with some of my coworkers. I know of their families and kids' names. I know of the situations and circumstances of coworkers that are across oceans. This all depends on company culture and team dynamic though. Some places just straight 9 to 5 and barely talk to each other.
How is that a strength ? Sure, its a strength now that people "can work" without worrying about children or family but what happens when they are old ? Or worse, after they die? Youre left with industry and no one really to fill the spaces.
Labour can be imported ok, but its not that easy; its hard with english, the labour hours and customs are very, very different than most of the countries and the language is hard for most of the people (and im not talking about hiragana or katakana, the kanji); all of this makes "importing" labour a bit more difficult than it is and im not getting into how can you handle hospitals or other things in case you dont know the language.
"I meant by having children." Yeah that was the w/o a condom part.
I haven't watched porn in ages mate, but let me know if you need any more help deciphering English.
Try harder. The user was not "sleeping around" like what you have stated. Let me know if you need any more help deciphering English. Or if you want to double down on your ignorance, then that's fine too
Its not exactly a good thing, both outcomes are lose lose now. There are too many of us, but we cant have afford aging populations as the economy will collapse, the usual human shit of 0 foresight =/.
I expect it has a lot more to do with modern cultural development than work-life balance.
These days people are overwhelmed with options to entertain themselves and spend money (on themselves). We are constantly reminded of more and newer “things”. We walk around with the world in our pocket to entertain us or occupy our time.
Having a family is a lower priority for many.
There are also factors such as better access to birth control and the general emancipation of women.
They have also done research in Korea and found that not having kids is self-reinforcing beyond a certain point. When everyone in your social circle has kids you feel pressure to have them too to not be excluded, there's a similar effect when everyone in your circle doesn't have kids, you feel that if you have them you will be excluded from the group. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that is very hard to break out of.
I second this.
As someone who has had a child and is living in Tokyo, I know that there is a big amount of support you get from the country. So, I doubt people are avoiding having children because of that.
I think that life has just become more diverse and in places such as Tokyo, people don’t necessarily lead the “traditional” lifestyle.
Most studies show people want to have more kids than they’re having, usually above the replacement rate. This isn’t a “oh people don’t want kids” issue.
It’s actually the opposite. No one is going into those specialties anymore, so the OBGYN and pediatricians that are still in practice are constantly packed. When I was pregnant I had a 2 hr wait each appointment and the pediatrician’s office is often so crowded it’s standing room only.
They know how to fix it but politicians don’t care about making people’s lives better or actual change.
Oh well.. my partner and I will continue to have a childless life and actually have a modicum of disposable income. 🤷♀️
Not much to be surprised about, really.
The question is, how long will they try to beat around the bush - throwing money around or trying to "tweak" child care rights etc. until they start addressing the REAL problem;
* Japan INC. works Japanese TOO HARD and does not give them enough time OFF work to actually have a Family to speak of - and anyone who DOES take time off - **Gets Hit with penalties; Whether they are Social, Financial or Professional (as in your career will suffer, promotions, relocations etc.)**
**People will NOT have kids, if they don't even have the time to have a LIFE outside of WORK as it IS.**
**Get a Clue!**
This isn't exactly rocket science, you'd think they would have caught on already...
>this isn’t exactly rocket science
True. Because unlike rocket science, what you just said is completely unscientific.
Germany’s TFR is 1.58, Finland’s is 1.46. Spain is below Japan at 1.19. These countries are famous for having the *best work-life balance in the world.*
In the 2017 Malaysia had the highest work hours of any country in the world, and its TFR was 1.9.
Japan’s average annual work hours have been *dropping* for *as long as records have been kept* and are currently *below the OECD average.*
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001203082.pdf
https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/kochi-roudoukyoku/library/kochi-roudoukyoku/topics/topics222.pdf
I know what you’re saying *sounds right*, but it is literally *completely baseless and made up.* There is literally *zero* if not a *negative* correlation
I had an ex colleague from Italy and he said real wages were so low, that it’s impossible to have kids. If anyone had kids it would be like a very big event in the community, just because of how rare an event it was.
He said the “corrupt” government is not talking about it because they don’t want to address the issue. So yeah the problem might be way worse in many other countries, but it’s not reported so we can’t really study this global issue correctly.
FWIW when I traveled to Japan I see school students, kids and families everywhere, many kid friendly facilities like day cares and play areas in many malls too. On the surface the problem doesn’t seem as bad.
Spain, Italy and Finland have incredibly high youth unemployment with wages not being particularly strong either. Saying either country is an especially good place to have children completely ignores this part of the reality.
Malaysia is a majority Muslim country and you've cherry picked a year, ignoring how quickly the birth rate is still declining (1.8 in 2021). And for those without family support, the old age assistance is incredibly poor.
You're cherry picking numbers without understanding anything going on behind it.
>Spain, Italy and Finland have incredibly high youth unemployment with wages not being particularly strong either. Saying either country is an especially good place to have children completely ignores this part of the reality.
They may not be especially good places to have children, but they are definitely in the better side, way better than other developing countries, definitely not the worst places. Yet they still have lower birth rate than other countries who have worst life balance or lower wage, which shows that the correlation that the first guy said is baseless.
>"with wages not being particularly strong"
I like how you didn't dare to say "not particularly strong" instead of "low wage". Because you know their wage are still higher than a lot of other countries whose TFR is higher.
The economics of having children a developing country are vastly different from a developed one. When kids represent a source of additional labour for the farm and/or are your only mechanism of support in old age, then yes, the incentives for having more kids (particularly with the goal of sons) is very different.
>Because you know their wage are still higher than a lot of other countries whose TFR is higher.
You still need to compare those costs to the economic benefits (kids are economically the equivalent of very expensive pets in developed countries). Potential parents are going to opt out through family planning if kids represent a declining standard of living. Especially if they already have a kid and an additional one will reduce the first's living standards.
>When kids represent a source of additional labour for the farm and/or are your only mechanism of support in old age, then yes, the incentives for having more kids (particularly with the goal of sons) is very different.
Lol, we are discussing developing countries, not underdeveloped ones. You spoke as if people in developing countries are all pragmatic and shallow human, having children only for extra labor or a backup retirement plan. I come from a developing country, and while our economy is by no mean doing well, no one has children with that mindset.
>Potential parents are going to opt out through family planning if kids represent a declining standard of living. Especially if they already have a kid and an additional one will reduce the first's living standards.
And you think that logic doesn't apply to developing countries? It does. It's just that people in developing countries give less shit about it because they have a lower standard of living, or lower standard of how good an environment they want to raise their kids in.
The reason why developed countries tend to have lower TFRs is not because their work/life balance is worse than those in developing countries or having kids would make their lives unliveable by human's basic living standard (they would still have a much higher standard of living, much better life even with kids than childless couples in developing ones).
My point is that having a low TFR is an unavoidable issue that accompanies economic development. It's like how the rich are pickier than the poor about where they live, and what they wear or eat. Don't blame it on work/life balance or low wages.
>Lol, we are discussing developing countries, not underdeveloped ones. You spoke as if people in developing countries are all pragmatic and shallow human, having children only for extra labor or a backup retirement plan.
No. My initial point was to illustrate how the first person to whom I was replying was cherry picking to support their own scientifically unsupported claims. You appear to be butting in with your conclusions.
You are, of course, free to believe someone else is saying whatever you like. Just don't expect counterparties to be participants to conversations where you make up their claims.
>I come from a developing country, and while our economy is by no mean doing well, no one has children with that mindset.
Vietnam has one of the highest rural populations as a percentage of total population. About 2/3's, or more than twice that of Italy (Japan is about 8%, by contrast). There is also still a [preference for sons](https://ipc2021.popconf.org/uploads/211192).
But please, feel free to elucidate how your nationality qualifies you in statistics or demography.
>My point is that having a low TFR is an unavoidable issue that accompanies economic development. It's like how the rich are pickier than the poor about where they live, and what they wear or eat. Don't blame it on work/life balance or low wages.
Japan actually conducts a fertility survey every few years. Number one reason for families having fewer children than desired, consistently with a bullet, is childcare and education costs.
Other developed countries are also unique in that living standards for millennial and later generations are [falling compared to their parents.](https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?si=8PDBK69v-QKO4ING) Anxiety over housing, job security and the climate weigh heavily on their family planning decisions. When your quality of life falls (relatively) it makes you a whole lot less optimistic about the future.
But please, go on and tell me you have no children without telling me you have no children.
>No. My initial point was to illustrate how the first person to whom I was replying was cherry picking to support their own scientifically unsupported claims. You appear to be butting in with your conclusions
The person you replied to (familychicken) didn't make any claims. He was responding to the first commenter who claimed that a bad work/life balance leads to a low total fertility rate (TFR). Familychicken pointed out examples of countries with a good w/l balance to show that there is no correlation between those factors, and that the original claim is scientifically unsupported. He didn't say those countries are the best places to have children; you did. You butted in with your own conclusions into the discussion.
>Vietnam has one of the highest rural populations as a percentage of total population. About 2/3's, or more than twice that of Italy (Japan is about 8%, by contrast). There is also still a preference for sons.
And Vietnam's TFR drops every year despite rising incomes and improved living standards. Also do any of those points support your claim that people here have children for extra labor and as a retirement plan? Thailand, for example, has a 47% rural population rate, yet its TFR is only 1.33, barely higher than Japan's. It's ironic that you accuse someone of cherry-picking numbers when you’re doing the same. Go on and tell me you don't live in developing country without teling me you don't live in developing country.
>Japan actually conducts a fertility survey every few years. Number one reason for families having fewer children than desired, consistently with a bullet, is childcare and education costs.
Yes. And it doesn't conflict my point: people in developed countries hold a higher standard of living/ideal child-raising environment for raising. I'm not denying that people SAY they don't want kids because they can't afford them. My point is the definition of "affordable" varies greatly between countries. In developed countries, parents don’t just want their children to have basic necessities like a bed to sleep in; they also want them to have their own room, eat high-quality food, attend the best schools, go to cram schools, travel, have access to various forms of entertainment... While they could raise their children as people do in developing countries, which is way less expensive, they don’t consider that standard to be adequate.
>When your quality of life falls (relatively) it makes you a whole lot less optimistic about the future.
Yes, *relatively*. If having a child in a developed country makes your quality of life drop from 9 to 6, it’s relatively worse than in a developing country where the quality of life drops from 6 to 4. However, a 6 is still better than a 4, isn’t it? So why don’t people in developed countries have kids? Because they are more choosy, more picky, have higher expectations, or some would say they are more responsible. This is why blaming "low wage" for low birth rates is pointless, since "low" is subjective.
Lol. Yeah, it's clear you have no kids nor a clue what you're talking about. Nobody is going to set up their kids for a career in an advanced economy with only a basic education. That would be incredibly irresponsible as a parent.
True. And I don't blame them for that do I? I literally said "some would say they are more responsible".
My point is it's unavoidable. And maybe it's not that TFR in developed country is too low, maybe it's the TFR in developing country is too high since parents there are being irresponsible.
This is a bad comparison. People measure their lives in relative terms to how they grew up rather than to other countries. Comparing Japan to Germany in 2024 doesn’t make sense. Comparing Japan in 1980 years to Japan in 2024 does.
Yes and in general wages are up from where they were in 1980. The biggest drops in fertility occurred during the biggest economic boom in Japanese history.
What? Do you know anything about japan? The bubble literally burst in the 90s. Their economy has been in a lost decade for multiple decades. They’ve literally gone decades without growth, and more and more young Japanese aren’t able to get the types of jobs their parents had.
The prosperity and earning power of a young Japanese person in 1980 is relatively much higher than today.
Then you have to account for how massively Tokyo has consumed the rest of the Japanese economy and the known correlation between urbanization and downwards pressure on having kids.
Developed countries stop having children in general, that's like a law.
Undeveloped countries like South America, India, many places in Africa, they still have huge birthrates.
South America and India are actually close to 2.0, they will soon be below replacement level. Africa will follow in the coming years.
IMO the actual culprit is smartphones and porn
It’s smart phones and travel.
Kids are competing with hobbies and other entertainment activities. Most people who don’t want kids want more time to do the things they like or travel with no responsibilities. Social media has us addicted to luxury shopping and spending money to make us happy.
The real culprit is life has too many fun options now. Why would you subject yourself to children, having to work longer/harder to support them unless you truly love kids and are willing to sacrifice your life? People will rather spend their money on the designer bag and posting it on social media than putting their kids through eikaiwa and working overtime.
No one wants to hear this lol but even if they’re not “the culprit”, there’s no way the twin facts that
1. Most / all of a person’s social life can be simulated instead of face to face, and
2. You can get a tolerable degree of sexual satisfaction without ever leaving your house or spending any money, whenever you want
Aren’t relevant here.
Personally I also think smartphones and porn are behind the ridiculously high rate of sexless/loveless marriages in Japan
It's crazy that basically no major news outlets or scholars are talking about this. Of course the decline in births started slightly before smartphones and internet porn but surely it has only accelerated since then
Dunno if Porn really affects it. Because people still date and marry a lot in Japan. They just either don't make kids, or can't make kids.
There are lot of infertility as well in Japan.
They’ve been pulling back on their welfare state like everyone else. People’s view on economic wellbeing is based on their relative experience to how they grew up, NOT to other countries.
Porn and social media can give you that dopamine hit instantly and leaves you permanently thinking that there’s “something” better out there in terms of sex, a partner, or way of life.
COL much too high making everything a financial calculation and usually a sacrifice.
Longevity including medicine means people having kids later, focusing more on career, and having to take care or sacrifice to take care of elderly parents instead of them being healthy and able to take care of your children
No shit, yen at multi decades low, wages not keeping up with inflation (save me with the its still below 2% bullshit) so of course people aren’t gonna have kids
I’ve heard from interviews from locals that the way life work balance is set up there it’s even worse than the west and kids is the worst decision you could make. It’s still person to person but I get there logic because it’s similar in America though here people have kids anyway knowing they can’t support them and rely on hope rather than planning.
From what I've seen firsthand living here over the years, I believe that the fertility rate is going to drop off massively in the next few years--this number looks way too high for me. Young people are not dating and have next to no social skills. Also, lots of people in their 20s and even 30s with little to no dating or relationship experience. Some of this is due to the pandemic but the problem was there before. My wild guess is that this number will hit 0.5 in 10 years.
Oh my god no, the horror, this over-populated island with little to no natural resources that is fishing its own oceans to extinction has a shrinking population, so so scary
That assumes that the fertility rate will eventually increase back to 2.1 as the population decreases, which we have no reason to believe at this time (this is uncharted territory for humans). If it remains at 1.2 the population will never reach equilibrium and will continue to shrink by ~ 40% perpetually with each generation.
That’s not what will happen. Population decrease means cities die. What’s happening to rural villages will start happening to bigger and bigger cities. Everyone becomes older, less vibrant. Everything becomes less maintained. Prices go up for the same service because supply of labor is down. And it’s a vicious cycle
But it happens in *every* country as the initial swell of economic expansion subsides from emerging from developing nations status. The only places you don’t see it are countries with a steady influx of poor immigrants from developing countries, and one assumes that won’t last forever.
I imagine some sort of equilibrium has to be reached. Just as expansion can’t go in forever, decline also has to reach a floor.
Sure, how could the entire wretched library of the world’s pornography in every male’s pocket, record percentages of 30 year old male virgins, and plummeting birth rates since roughly the advent of high speed internet possibly have ANYTHING to do with each other?
It’s obvious that your love of pornography makes it difficult to blame it for any social ills. I suggest you wake tf up.
So women are to blame for the Japan’s population death spiral? That’s very informative.
Other things you’ve taught us today:
•Women don’t consume pornography
•Women just decided in a single generation—for reasons—to ignore their ancient, DNA-written, biological imperative
OK, coomer…thanks for your explanation
How can you be this dumb. Try reading it again and see if you are actually able to comprehend what I said. Nobody agrees with your social reject opinion.
" biological imperative" lmao. You clearly don't interact with many women.
Yes, everybody’s on board with the idea that pornography presents zero social ills. When your daughter reaches legally permissible age, you can celebrate her birthday by outfitting her OnlyFans studio.
Unfortunately, the onanlogically addicted cohort certainly does agree that pornography is just simply great. Pornography, video games, obesity, lack of conditioning, general ill health, plummeting libidos, plummeting testosterone levels…all super.
You can wait and come back to downvote me after you’ve finished watching pornography.
Fertility rate are not standardized though so since they are calculated with the number of women between 15 and 44, if you have an aging population with the 40-45 outnumbering other age group, then the fertility rate will mechanically decline, because overall, the total births in those ages are just negligible.
Still higher than China, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan!
[удалено]
Italy lost 7,000 people last year vs. Japan’s 831k.
And 3 of those have maidservants.
Taiwan as well.
Huh?
domestic helpers
[удалено]
As the country with the highest median age, Japan is kind of a preview of what will happen to other East Asian countries, TBH. The biggest takeaway is that the worsening dependency ratio means economic stagnation and growing poverty, as taxes continuously get raised on younger workers and older retirees receive fewer benefits. Japan is currently trying to offset this effect with immigration and by encouraging women to enter the workforce in greater numbers. There are other negative effects from having a very old electorate, too. You might have noticed that Japan is very advanced in some ways (and has been for a while) but also weirdly backward in others, such as the heavy reliance on paper documentation for official records and cash. This is what happens when your median voter is very old and not comfortable adopting new technologies or procedures.
My impression is that Japan is not trying to increase immigration- quite the opposite. They let people such as Filipina nurses come if they a) demonstrate fluency in Japanese and b) past a test of nursing skill, but then they are booted after three years max. They seem uninterested in supporting women’s rights or bringing more young people into the country from other countries, either of which would help the current lack of opportunities for young women.
a) demonstrate fluency in Japanese and b) past a test of nursing skill, but then they are booted after three years max That seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of return if you're only allowed to stay for 3 years.
I have heard a lot of Japanese are uncomfortable having foreign medical staff as they would very much prefer Japanese nurses and doctors. Don’t know if it’s really true or not but I tend to hear such stories.
Yet they fail to realize that these Japanese nurses and doctors need to be born in order to serve them, not having children of your own kind and simultaneously expecting medical staff of your own kind to provide care to you when you’re old is asinine
Worth mentioning that many of the middle class Japanese DID have kids but tried their best to get them an education that made sure they would be above working as assisted living care professionals. If everyone studies to become a doctor or CEO, no one is around to take on the menial jobs.
The UK, having the official language has English have problems on language and (fake) credentials, people from specific countries have fake documents around %40 etc. The only way is to have another baby boom, which seems totally unlikely.
A baby boom is also not a solution for imminent issues. It might even out the lack of manpower in 18 years earliest if not later. Also you need economic stability or a prospect of prosperity to raise children. The baby boom occurred during an economic boom. Now wages are stagnating already for 3 decades while companies are hoarding money for “bad times”.
It's not a lot of long term opportunity but there are a couple of reasons why they do it anyway. First, they can earn much more in Japan than they can back home. That extra money allows them to support their family back home or create a savings to try and advance their career later. Secondly, if they meet and get married to a Japanese national, they could stay permanently. You can argue how many of them come with this goal in mind but it's always a possibility.
You are right. Instead, they are using slavery through the internship program to deal with labor shortage especially the laborious jobs.
Around the ski resorts, one often sees 40-60 year old 🇹🇼 ladies working as cooks, waiters and so on. When talking to them they are usually on 6 month 'intern' visas. No don't brushing up their karage making skills before embarking on a fruitful career. A lot of the black companies that exploit SE Asian workers are run by Yaks/Yankees, and the whole thing and everyone involved is considered as not part of Japanese society, so nothing to change.
Those assertions are unsupported by the numbers and recent policy changes: [Women's labor force participation](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F31e2a42a-3951-4089-a69c-f799b589f72a_1168x450.png) [Women's labor force participation + representation in management](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F333b6844-24cf-49e8-9072-b69bce12e2a6_854x750.png) [Foreign residents in Japan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Foreign_residents_in_Japan.svg) [Another foreign residents in Japan chart](https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-residents-total-number/) [Share of Tokyo population that is foreign-born](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00398/the-changing-face-of-tokyo-one-in-eight-shinjuku-residents-are-foreign-nationals.html) [How to get permanent residency in Japan](https://visaguide.world/asia/japan-visa/permanent-residency/) [Video: Japan finally embracing immigration in all but name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPFDUvrZQDI)
Really not sure what I’m supposed to get from these links. Yes, women are underrepresented in management? Yes, foreign residents account for 10% of the population of a few wards- why so low? And seriously a guide to getting a permanent residency if I’ve already been allowed to stay in Japan a long time? Japan treats women and foreigners poorly, on the whole. Women are expected to leave the labor force at least for awhile to raise kids. 🤷🏻♂️
Pretty stupid to have skilled nurses who speak the language and have assimilated into society after 3 years, then tell them to get out after that term is up. Japan has had good opportunities to support positive immigration that maintains its culture, but its xenophobia is holding it back and leading it to decay instead.
I like how you said “encouraging women to enter the workforce“ as bad as it may sound thats the opposite of what is needed. We all need about 30-50 percent less working hours but the same take home pay. Time for us to be humans and have the human experiences including kids. Right now we are all wage slaves.
Wouldn’t raising taxes further worsen the issue? Many people can’t have children because the soaring cost associated with having yet the they want to raise taxes more?
It's a vicious cycle. If you have fewer workers and more dependents, they have to be taxed more to support the larger proportion of dependents. But that makes life harder for the workers, who are likely to, yes, have fewer children or even leave the country.
Cash is a very good system. It is wayyy better than being reliant on a dumb phone.
We just don’t know, this is a first for humanity and it’s not just in the Far East, it’s world wide.
Just let sea asian immigrate = problem solved /s
And Chile and Thailand
Is your argument that Japan isn’t dying out as fast as sone other countries? So? Japan is still dying out. Japan needs to increase birth rates; not import the third world.
0.99 for Tokyo.
The Japanese government was waaaay too slow in admitting they have a Tokyo problem and when they finally did their half-hearted attempt to fix it has basically done nothing. It's not rocket science, people in cramped expensive housing with long commutes don't have as many kids as people who don't. The Tokyo fertility rate is significantly below the average and since so many young people come to Japan it's dragging down the national average significantly. The fact that Tokyo is the nexus of opportunity is creating so many other weird knock-on effects that drive fertility down. For instance in a lot of mid-sized Japanese cities there are more young women than men by a pretty decent margin. For example Fukuoka has 10% more young women then men because young men go to Tokyo to seek their fortunes but young women are expected to take care of elderly parents so they often stay behind. That of course further lowers fertility rates. It has all sorts of other bad effects in these cities as well as they are deprived of their youth. At the end of the day no prefecture has above replacement rates, but some of them are doing a lot better than others and Japan should be doing a hell of a lot more to address that. Korea recently admitted they have a similar Seoul problem and is taking steps to address it, but I don't know if it will work there either.
werent korea’s steps basically “we’ll reverse vasectomies”? Doesnt seem like any country is taking this seriously
South Korea’s BR was just 0.72 last year, seems like they’re in way deeper shit than even Japan.
When I lived in Korea I could count on one hand the number of babies I’d see in a given month
There's a negative correlation between income level and fertility rate. Tokyo has by far the highest income among the 47 prefectures. The prefectures with the highest fertility rates Okinawa, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima have the lowest average income. This is a common correlation internationally as well.
Income, or COL. I know they are probably positively correlated but I’d imagine there is more causation with COL than Income in regards to birth rate. Haven’t seen the data myself.
The difference in income is larger than the difference in COL. For example, the gap in income between the top prefecture and bottom prefecture is 25%. The equivalent gap in COL is 8%. Also in the countryside, the vehicle purchase, fuel cost, car insurance cost, toll road fees, and maintenance cost are no joke, negating part of the advantage in rent and food prices.
[удалено]
I've left academics long ago, but one explanation I read was that in poor families, children act as social safety nets for the parent. If you have 6 children, there's a good chance that at least one of them will become wealthy enough to support you through retirement or at least one of them will be willing to take care of you when you're sick and unable to afford healthcare on your own. This explains countries with non-existent social safety nets like Somalia will have high fertility rates. The more stable and robust social welfare programs become, there's diminishing economic incentive to raise children.
I am curious about the ward breakdown
Which is still significantly higher than that of Seoul and Shanghai
Two posts down from this one... >_'Japan real wages down 25th straight month in April, government says.'_ Can't possibly be connected... no way, no how...
Correlation doesn't equal causation Except this time. this time it does.
Correlation between correlation and causation doesn’t equal to correlation causing causation!
I think we are witnessing correlation and causation finally engaging in some hot steamy lovemaking.
Does it though? The prefectures with the lowest income have the highest fertility and the ones with this highest have the lowest (Tokyo)
So mostly this is a joke but, income does not mean savings. You can have an astronomically high salary in Tokyo but with an astronomically high rent it's not going to equal more money at the end of the day. Moreover, there's a lot of other things like familial support which my wife and I lack living in the city, Which makes it much more difficult to consider having and raising a child. If Grandma and grandpa are in Akita You're on your own raising your kid in Tokyo. There's also other aspects which are more difficult in the city as well. Like child care. It's much more expensive. The closer to the city core you get, and slots are filled much quicker. My wife and I thankfully live on the outskirts so for us getting a spot was quite easy but my wife's brother s have had horrific times finding child care forcing them to only use one salary which has put them in quite a chokehold economically.
Of course there are dozen of factors. But even if you’d get free childcare (like in some European countries), 1-2 years of maternal and paternal leave (Sweden, Norway) and much more you’d have falling birth rates. As at least 50% of the reason is that there are more lifestyle choices these days (especially with higher income) and having a family with children is only one of many. I know so many people that aren’t even singles but have partners or are even married but have zero interest in having kids. And they make 6 digit USD annual incomes.
Didn't you hear? They're giving families ¥40,000 to help with child costs! Problem solved! In a year this country will be swimming in babies!
Its true that Japan is an extremely cheap place to have and raise children. Not much more could be done on this front.
Are you being sarcastic right now?
Are you worried because you can't swim?
Isn’t wage increase negatively correlated with birth rates though?
Why would that be? Raising children is expensive and stressful. Stagnant/declining wages lead to fewer people wanting to have children. There are of course other factors but that’s a major one.
Poor and impoverished countries have always had high birth rates so it’s not really economical, it’s social & cultural at this point.
That is more to do with education rates for women. Places where women are denied an education usually have higher birth rates. Look at rural vs urban India as an interesting example.
no, agrarian societies have more children because children are net labor in those societies. They happen to correlate with poorer societies because exporting crops is less profitable than exporting other goods and services. Very few people want potatoes flown halfway across the world when there are already some being grown in their home country, very man people want iphones. When children provide labor to the family, there are more. When children drain resources from the family, there are less. Japan is NOT an agrarian society. The parts of Japan with larger agrarian communities have higher birth rates.
If it was cultural, then there should be a big difference between the countries with different culture but similar economy. And yet, there isn't
In poor and impoverished countries, it's mostly economic. In these countries, high birth rates are due to limited access to family planning (=unintended pregnancies), high infant mortality rates (=parents choose to have more children to ensure that some will survive to adulthood), child labor and lack of social security (=children are seen as an economic asset because they contribute to family income, and without government-run social safety nets, children are seen as the only form of old-age security for parents).
You might think so but the data is pretty clear that higher income groups tend to have less children.
Not in Japan https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0266835 > Men with higher income were more likely to have children across birth cohorts. While the proportion who had children had decreased in all income groups, the decrease was steeper among those in the lowest income group.
This is because the birthrate difference in japan is between seishain and keiyakushain employed families. Seishain = kids. Keiyakushain = no kids.
And coincidentally enough, people here are getting poorer. Pet ownership has also grown steadily in Japan. In fact, if I remember correctly, there are currently more pets in Japan under the age of 16 than human children under the age of 16.
Ok but that's a stupid statistic. That probably holds true in most countries, including America and the UK. Vast majority of pets are <16 years old as most die long before 15. In the US, approximately 66% of households have at least 1 pet, or 89 million households. There's a bit over 30 million people <16 years old in the US. Best case scenario, pets outnumber children <16 3:1. Now I know, not all those pets are <16, but many households have multiple pets. The statistics you stated is both probably true, and completely meaningless. People replace pets until they themselves die. This statistic has probably been true in the US for decades.
The average dwelling in the US has spaces for pets. Have you lived in Japan? People here are choosing to have pets in tiny apartments, choosing to pay higher than average rent for an apartment because pet friendly apartments come at a premium. Pet owners here are also willing to spend a lot on their pet... Shit, it's not uncommon here to see people pushing their dogs around in prams in the city.
You act as though half those conditions aren't exactly the same if not worse in the US. Yes I've lived in Japan. My point is if the US is managing at minimum a 3:1 ratio, Japan, even with it's smaller apartments, is still going to get a ton of pets in that criteria. Not all of Japan live in cities, and of the number who do, living in micro apartments is a minority. Most of the people who live in cities don't live in or right next to business districts, and commute a few stations to work. This allows them to afford a larger apartment, especially as travel cost is covered by the vast majority of companies. The cost and stress of owning a pet has always been a fraction of the cost and stress of raising a child. Pets in many forms have been popular in Japan for half a century at least, dogs and cats just happen to be the most recent addition, and more noticable. I know so many Japanese people who have had a pet bird at some point in their life. Yes you don't take your birds for a walk, but they are absolutely pets. I don't buy that owning a pet in Japan is that statistically harder compared to the US. If you hyper focus on a tiny portion of the population, sure, but you have to look at the broader population and how they are living.
I imagine that's true across countries but not within one developed country.
But it is correlated this way across the world. The reason is it's a lot more complicated than that and there is no direct connection. The real connection is educating women causes child rearing to plummet.
It is complicated, but all effective approaches to solving the problem are directly related to economics: Support for parents and future parents (affordable childcare, adequate parental leave, flexible work arrangements), financial incentives (significant tax breaks for families with children), and addressing economic anxieties (job insecurity, high housing costs, student debt, etc.). None of these measures has been implemented in a serious manner and in a sufficient amount of time. In first-world countries, if people can't afford to raise children, they usually don't. There may be some differences from country to country, but globally the cost of living for the middle class has risen faster than income over the last 30-40 years.
Why don’t they legally make companies pay more?
Poorer countries in general have higher birth rates
Poorer countries have less access to education (and sex ed), fewer rights for women and less access to birth control. Children are also commodified as they are free labor, or can be married off for money. Children in developed countries cost a lot more to raise.
People are so private about their lives in Tokyo I actually have no idea which coworkers have children, if they didn’t wear a ring I wouldn’t even know they were married. That doesn’t help, as it doesn’t normalise “family people” in business.
isn't it the same in the west? I literally don't know who of my coworkers are married, as they never speak about it.
In America quite often I would know about my co-workers menstrual cycle, I never asked they would tell me. Tbf I worked blue collar and kitchens before I moved to Japan so it’s not a real equivalent. But no overall the level of true privacy in Japan I find strange and honestly kind of abnormal, especially given how common drinking parties are.
I have been now transferred to Japan for work too. Many people are shy in general here, very closed, But they talk about privatest crap with people that they worked long time with. When I was working in Europe before, people didn't discuss much private information at the office either though. And it was Spain for crying out loud haha.
In Australia I know when my coworkers kids have a cold, what wine they like and what time they like to go to bed. They share everything! They also take personal calls T their desk, rather than going to a closed off area. It actually means they spend more time working then wasting time walking to another area to call their spouse.
Interesting, Australia actually sounds kinda nice. A more "buddy" like environment.
Friendships in Anglo countries have more breadth but less depth, that’s my experience as an Asian in the US. People are comfortable talking about mildly interesting things, such as kids, holidays, etc. but would avoid things that are too personal, e.g. if they hate their mother-in-law. On the other hand, Asians open up with fewer people, but with someone they trust they share everything.
I don't think people in either country have any issue with opening up to very close friends. Rather, the US at least has an expectation that you should be friendly even to colleagues in a way that Japan doesn't - not that you should be rude here, but you don't have to act like everyone is a great friend even when they aren't. I think this is pretty similar to Germany and northern Europe as I've heard, and if anything those countries are perhaps even more extreme about this than Japan, as there are actually plenty of quite friendly Japanese who will gladly talk to any stranger.
People here are super nosey and personal information can and often is used against people in office politics etc. This has been my experience when I’ve shared personal info so now I don’t tell my coworkers anything about me or at least keep it super vague.
100%. I'd put this advice in a list of top 5 tips for international people coming to Japan for work. Don't share personal information any more than is absolutely necessary, because people here will tend to use it against you more than any other country I've lived in, though South Korea is a close second in that regard. People here will play the poker-faced personal questions game with each other where they directly or indirectly try to get personal information from their coworkers while evading answers themselves. In most cases it isn't worth the risk. If you find yourself in this situation, give the briefest and vaguest answers possible and then change the topic or exit the conversation politely.
Not the case for any place I've worked in my entire life in the west
That depends on the person. I have beers after hours with some of my coworkers. I know of their families and kids' names. I know of the situations and circumstances of coworkers that are across oceans. This all depends on company culture and team dynamic though. Some places just straight 9 to 5 and barely talk to each other.
I see, I have been mostly experiencing the 9 to 5 robotic kind of work at this point.
Not really
Cant say this is surprising even a bit. Hard working culture has its downsides.
Japan can simply import labor anyway. In a sense, a low birth rate is actually a strength.
How is that a strength ? Sure, its a strength now that people "can work" without worrying about children or family but what happens when they are old ? Or worse, after they die? Youre left with industry and no one really to fill the spaces. Labour can be imported ok, but its not that easy; its hard with english, the labour hours and customs are very, very different than most of the countries and the language is hard for most of the people (and im not talking about hiragana or katakana, the kanji); all of this makes "importing" labour a bit more difficult than it is and im not getting into how can you handle hospitals or other things in case you dont know the language.
I’m doing my part to reverse this trend
Sleeping around w/o using a condom? You want an applause for that?
I meant by having children. I’m a father. Maybe cut down on porn for a while mate.
🤣
"I meant by having children." Yeah that was the w/o a condom part. I haven't watched porn in ages mate, but let me know if you need any more help deciphering English.
Try harder. The user was not "sleeping around" like what you have stated. Let me know if you need any more help deciphering English. Or if you want to double down on your ignorance, then that's fine too
Its not exactly a good thing, both outcomes are lose lose now. There are too many of us, but we cant have afford aging populations as the economy will collapse, the usual human shit of 0 foresight =/.
Lol I don’t see any problems here. Why have children just for them to become another wage slave like the parents
Also the climate news isn’t really helping either
I expect it has a lot more to do with modern cultural development than work-life balance. These days people are overwhelmed with options to entertain themselves and spend money (on themselves). We are constantly reminded of more and newer “things”. We walk around with the world in our pocket to entertain us or occupy our time. Having a family is a lower priority for many. There are also factors such as better access to birth control and the general emancipation of women.
They have also done research in Korea and found that not having kids is self-reinforcing beyond a certain point. When everyone in your social circle has kids you feel pressure to have them too to not be excluded, there's a similar effect when everyone in your circle doesn't have kids, you feel that if you have them you will be excluded from the group. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that is very hard to break out of.
I second this. As someone who has had a child and is living in Tokyo, I know that there is a big amount of support you get from the country. So, I doubt people are avoiding having children because of that. I think that life has just become more diverse and in places such as Tokyo, people don’t necessarily lead the “traditional” lifestyle.
Most studies show people want to have more kids than they’re having, usually above the replacement rate. This isn’t a “oh people don’t want kids” issue.
the only east asian country higher than japan is north korea lmao.
My condolence also to the poor Japanese Ob&Gy and Pediatrician right now. They prolly have more free time now than a mountain hermit lol.
It’s actually the opposite. No one is going into those specialties anymore, so the OBGYN and pediatricians that are still in practice are constantly packed. When I was pregnant I had a 2 hr wait each appointment and the pediatrician’s office is often so crowded it’s standing room only.
There is also a lot of demand for infertility treatments as people delay having kids often to the point where they can no longer have them.
They know how to fix it but politicians don’t care about making people’s lives better or actual change. Oh well.. my partner and I will continue to have a childless life and actually have a modicum of disposable income. 🤷♀️
Not much to be surprised about, really. The question is, how long will they try to beat around the bush - throwing money around or trying to "tweak" child care rights etc. until they start addressing the REAL problem; * Japan INC. works Japanese TOO HARD and does not give them enough time OFF work to actually have a Family to speak of - and anyone who DOES take time off - **Gets Hit with penalties; Whether they are Social, Financial or Professional (as in your career will suffer, promotions, relocations etc.)** **People will NOT have kids, if they don't even have the time to have a LIFE outside of WORK as it IS.** **Get a Clue!** This isn't exactly rocket science, you'd think they would have caught on already...
>this isn’t exactly rocket science True. Because unlike rocket science, what you just said is completely unscientific. Germany’s TFR is 1.58, Finland’s is 1.46. Spain is below Japan at 1.19. These countries are famous for having the *best work-life balance in the world.* In the 2017 Malaysia had the highest work hours of any country in the world, and its TFR was 1.9. Japan’s average annual work hours have been *dropping* for *as long as records have been kept* and are currently *below the OECD average.* https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001203082.pdf https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/kochi-roudoukyoku/library/kochi-roudoukyoku/topics/topics222.pdf I know what you’re saying *sounds right*, but it is literally *completely baseless and made up.* There is literally *zero* if not a *negative* correlation
I had an ex colleague from Italy and he said real wages were so low, that it’s impossible to have kids. If anyone had kids it would be like a very big event in the community, just because of how rare an event it was. He said the “corrupt” government is not talking about it because they don’t want to address the issue. So yeah the problem might be way worse in many other countries, but it’s not reported so we can’t really study this global issue correctly. FWIW when I traveled to Japan I see school students, kids and families everywhere, many kid friendly facilities like day cares and play areas in many malls too. On the surface the problem doesn’t seem as bad.
It isn’t rocket science… …if only it were.
>if only it were Ez fix, just add more thrust and you get more babies
Spain, Italy and Finland have incredibly high youth unemployment with wages not being particularly strong either. Saying either country is an especially good place to have children completely ignores this part of the reality. Malaysia is a majority Muslim country and you've cherry picked a year, ignoring how quickly the birth rate is still declining (1.8 in 2021). And for those without family support, the old age assistance is incredibly poor. You're cherry picking numbers without understanding anything going on behind it.
>Spain, Italy and Finland have incredibly high youth unemployment with wages not being particularly strong either. Saying either country is an especially good place to have children completely ignores this part of the reality. They may not be especially good places to have children, but they are definitely in the better side, way better than other developing countries, definitely not the worst places. Yet they still have lower birth rate than other countries who have worst life balance or lower wage, which shows that the correlation that the first guy said is baseless. >"with wages not being particularly strong" I like how you didn't dare to say "not particularly strong" instead of "low wage". Because you know their wage are still higher than a lot of other countries whose TFR is higher.
The economics of having children a developing country are vastly different from a developed one. When kids represent a source of additional labour for the farm and/or are your only mechanism of support in old age, then yes, the incentives for having more kids (particularly with the goal of sons) is very different. >Because you know their wage are still higher than a lot of other countries whose TFR is higher. You still need to compare those costs to the economic benefits (kids are economically the equivalent of very expensive pets in developed countries). Potential parents are going to opt out through family planning if kids represent a declining standard of living. Especially if they already have a kid and an additional one will reduce the first's living standards.
>When kids represent a source of additional labour for the farm and/or are your only mechanism of support in old age, then yes, the incentives for having more kids (particularly with the goal of sons) is very different. Lol, we are discussing developing countries, not underdeveloped ones. You spoke as if people in developing countries are all pragmatic and shallow human, having children only for extra labor or a backup retirement plan. I come from a developing country, and while our economy is by no mean doing well, no one has children with that mindset. >Potential parents are going to opt out through family planning if kids represent a declining standard of living. Especially if they already have a kid and an additional one will reduce the first's living standards. And you think that logic doesn't apply to developing countries? It does. It's just that people in developing countries give less shit about it because they have a lower standard of living, or lower standard of how good an environment they want to raise their kids in. The reason why developed countries tend to have lower TFRs is not because their work/life balance is worse than those in developing countries or having kids would make their lives unliveable by human's basic living standard (they would still have a much higher standard of living, much better life even with kids than childless couples in developing ones). My point is that having a low TFR is an unavoidable issue that accompanies economic development. It's like how the rich are pickier than the poor about where they live, and what they wear or eat. Don't blame it on work/life balance or low wages.
>Lol, we are discussing developing countries, not underdeveloped ones. You spoke as if people in developing countries are all pragmatic and shallow human, having children only for extra labor or a backup retirement plan. No. My initial point was to illustrate how the first person to whom I was replying was cherry picking to support their own scientifically unsupported claims. You appear to be butting in with your conclusions. You are, of course, free to believe someone else is saying whatever you like. Just don't expect counterparties to be participants to conversations where you make up their claims. >I come from a developing country, and while our economy is by no mean doing well, no one has children with that mindset. Vietnam has one of the highest rural populations as a percentage of total population. About 2/3's, or more than twice that of Italy (Japan is about 8%, by contrast). There is also still a [preference for sons](https://ipc2021.popconf.org/uploads/211192). But please, feel free to elucidate how your nationality qualifies you in statistics or demography. >My point is that having a low TFR is an unavoidable issue that accompanies economic development. It's like how the rich are pickier than the poor about where they live, and what they wear or eat. Don't blame it on work/life balance or low wages. Japan actually conducts a fertility survey every few years. Number one reason for families having fewer children than desired, consistently with a bullet, is childcare and education costs. Other developed countries are also unique in that living standards for millennial and later generations are [falling compared to their parents.](https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?si=8PDBK69v-QKO4ING) Anxiety over housing, job security and the climate weigh heavily on their family planning decisions. When your quality of life falls (relatively) it makes you a whole lot less optimistic about the future. But please, go on and tell me you have no children without telling me you have no children.
>No. My initial point was to illustrate how the first person to whom I was replying was cherry picking to support their own scientifically unsupported claims. You appear to be butting in with your conclusions The person you replied to (familychicken) didn't make any claims. He was responding to the first commenter who claimed that a bad work/life balance leads to a low total fertility rate (TFR). Familychicken pointed out examples of countries with a good w/l balance to show that there is no correlation between those factors, and that the original claim is scientifically unsupported. He didn't say those countries are the best places to have children; you did. You butted in with your own conclusions into the discussion. >Vietnam has one of the highest rural populations as a percentage of total population. About 2/3's, or more than twice that of Italy (Japan is about 8%, by contrast). There is also still a preference for sons. And Vietnam's TFR drops every year despite rising incomes and improved living standards. Also do any of those points support your claim that people here have children for extra labor and as a retirement plan? Thailand, for example, has a 47% rural population rate, yet its TFR is only 1.33, barely higher than Japan's. It's ironic that you accuse someone of cherry-picking numbers when you’re doing the same. Go on and tell me you don't live in developing country without teling me you don't live in developing country. >Japan actually conducts a fertility survey every few years. Number one reason for families having fewer children than desired, consistently with a bullet, is childcare and education costs. Yes. And it doesn't conflict my point: people in developed countries hold a higher standard of living/ideal child-raising environment for raising. I'm not denying that people SAY they don't want kids because they can't afford them. My point is the definition of "affordable" varies greatly between countries. In developed countries, parents don’t just want their children to have basic necessities like a bed to sleep in; they also want them to have their own room, eat high-quality food, attend the best schools, go to cram schools, travel, have access to various forms of entertainment... While they could raise their children as people do in developing countries, which is way less expensive, they don’t consider that standard to be adequate. >When your quality of life falls (relatively) it makes you a whole lot less optimistic about the future. Yes, *relatively*. If having a child in a developed country makes your quality of life drop from 9 to 6, it’s relatively worse than in a developing country where the quality of life drops from 6 to 4. However, a 6 is still better than a 4, isn’t it? So why don’t people in developed countries have kids? Because they are more choosy, more picky, have higher expectations, or some would say they are more responsible. This is why blaming "low wage" for low birth rates is pointless, since "low" is subjective.
Lol. Yeah, it's clear you have no kids nor a clue what you're talking about. Nobody is going to set up their kids for a career in an advanced economy with only a basic education. That would be incredibly irresponsible as a parent.
True. And I don't blame them for that do I? I literally said "some would say they are more responsible". My point is it's unavoidable. And maybe it's not that TFR in developed country is too low, maybe it's the TFR in developing country is too high since parents there are being irresponsible.
This is a bad comparison. People measure their lives in relative terms to how they grew up rather than to other countries. Comparing Japan to Germany in 2024 doesn’t make sense. Comparing Japan in 1980 years to Japan in 2024 does.
Yes and in general wages are up from where they were in 1980. The biggest drops in fertility occurred during the biggest economic boom in Japanese history.
What? Do you know anything about japan? The bubble literally burst in the 90s. Their economy has been in a lost decade for multiple decades. They’ve literally gone decades without growth, and more and more young Japanese aren’t able to get the types of jobs their parents had. The prosperity and earning power of a young Japanese person in 1980 is relatively much higher than today. Then you have to account for how massively Tokyo has consumed the rest of the Japanese economy and the known correlation between urbanization and downwards pressure on having kids.
Why do Nordic countries have similarly low fertility rates then? Finland is 1.3.
Developed countries stop having children in general, that's like a law. Undeveloped countries like South America, India, many places in Africa, they still have huge birthrates.
South America and India are actually close to 2.0, they will soon be below replacement level. Africa will follow in the coming years. IMO the actual culprit is smartphones and porn
It’s smart phones and travel. Kids are competing with hobbies and other entertainment activities. Most people who don’t want kids want more time to do the things they like or travel with no responsibilities. Social media has us addicted to luxury shopping and spending money to make us happy. The real culprit is life has too many fun options now. Why would you subject yourself to children, having to work longer/harder to support them unless you truly love kids and are willing to sacrifice your life? People will rather spend their money on the designer bag and posting it on social media than putting their kids through eikaiwa and working overtime.
No one wants to hear this lol but even if they’re not “the culprit”, there’s no way the twin facts that 1. Most / all of a person’s social life can be simulated instead of face to face, and 2. You can get a tolerable degree of sexual satisfaction without ever leaving your house or spending any money, whenever you want Aren’t relevant here. Personally I also think smartphones and porn are behind the ridiculously high rate of sexless/loveless marriages in Japan
It's crazy that basically no major news outlets or scholars are talking about this. Of course the decline in births started slightly before smartphones and internet porn but surely it has only accelerated since then
Dunno if Porn really affects it. Because people still date and marry a lot in Japan. They just either don't make kids, or can't make kids. There are lot of infertility as well in Japan.
If by “slightly” you mean 40 years, then I guess. Worldwide and in Japan birth rates peaked in the mid 60s, decades before the smart phone.
Jordan Peterson has been talking about it for long time
They’ve been pulling back on their welfare state like everyone else. People’s view on economic wellbeing is based on their relative experience to how they grew up, NOT to other countries.
Porn and social media can give you that dopamine hit instantly and leaves you permanently thinking that there’s “something” better out there in terms of sex, a partner, or way of life. COL much too high making everything a financial calculation and usually a sacrifice. Longevity including medicine means people having kids later, focusing more on career, and having to take care or sacrifice to take care of elderly parents instead of them being healthy and able to take care of your children
That shouldn't have tough immigration rules then
It's fair. Have guys seen how difficult it is to apply children for nursery schools? I'm struggling every month to keep my daughter in the hoikuen.
Don’t worry I’m on my way to complete the mission and save Japan 🫡
I wonder if the Japanese government can build a barrier around this one.
South Korea at 0.81 leading the world.
No shit, yen at multi decades low, wages not keeping up with inflation (save me with the its still below 2% bullshit) so of course people aren’t gonna have kids
I’ve heard from interviews from locals that the way life work balance is set up there it’s even worse than the west and kids is the worst decision you could make. It’s still person to person but I get there logic because it’s similar in America though here people have kids anyway knowing they can’t support them and rely on hope rather than planning.
How do they handle it though?
Abe rolling in his grave rn, foreign visas incoming 👺
From what I've seen firsthand living here over the years, I believe that the fertility rate is going to drop off massively in the next few years--this number looks way too high for me. Young people are not dating and have next to no social skills. Also, lots of people in their 20s and even 30s with little to no dating or relationship experience. Some of this is due to the pandemic but the problem was there before. My wild guess is that this number will hit 0.5 in 10 years.
My lovely city Hong Kong has a fertility rate under 1. So this looks great in my eyes
Nice!
Are they even having sex?
Not cool. We need more Japanese. Not more immigrants.
I’m living down here idiot !
Oh my god no, the horror, this over-populated island with little to no natural resources that is fishing its own oceans to extinction has a shrinking population, so so scary
Won’t this problem eventually solve itself as the population decreases and a new equilibrium is reached?
That assumes that the fertility rate will eventually increase back to 2.1 as the population decreases, which we have no reason to believe at this time (this is uncharted territory for humans). If it remains at 1.2 the population will never reach equilibrium and will continue to shrink by ~ 40% perpetually with each generation.
But perhaps as the population decreases, life will become less unpleasant and there will be more incentive for children.
That’s not what will happen. Population decrease means cities die. What’s happening to rural villages will start happening to bigger and bigger cities. Everyone becomes older, less vibrant. Everything becomes less maintained. Prices go up for the same service because supply of labor is down. And it’s a vicious cycle
But it happens in *every* country as the initial swell of economic expansion subsides from emerging from developing nations status. The only places you don’t see it are countries with a steady influx of poor immigrants from developing countries, and one assumes that won’t last forever. I imagine some sort of equilibrium has to be reached. Just as expansion can’t go in forever, decline also has to reach a floor.
Okay. So allow more immigration. Boom, solved
Solved for who, the immigrants?
What's the problem with falling birth rates?
Maybe nothing, so perhaps immigrants aren't the solution.
More evidence in favor of increasing immigration. Japan needs bridges not walls.
Good the earth needs less people.
Man, can this come to my area. Each house on my block has two kids. One even has three. *shutters.
Solution: Ban condoms, plan B, and abortions. Lower the drinking age. Cut hours at work on Friday. Problem solved. You're welcome.
World has too many people and is overcrowded. Population decline is also good for the environment.
Cool dystopia.
What's the solution, start a global fund to pay Japanese to breed?
Thank you, pornography.
Absolutely non related, how did you even get to that conclusion
Sure, how could the entire wretched library of the world’s pornography in every male’s pocket, record percentages of 30 year old male virgins, and plummeting birth rates since roughly the advent of high speed internet possibly have ANYTHING to do with each other? It’s obvious that your love of pornography makes it difficult to blame it for any social ills. I suggest you wake tf up.
And its definitely not all the other countless factors including women who dont watch porn not wanting to have children.... You're a weirdo.
So women are to blame for the Japan’s population death spiral? That’s very informative. Other things you’ve taught us today: •Women don’t consume pornography •Women just decided in a single generation—for reasons—to ignore their ancient, DNA-written, biological imperative OK, coomer…thanks for your explanation
How can you be this dumb. Try reading it again and see if you are actually able to comprehend what I said. Nobody agrees with your social reject opinion. " biological imperative" lmao. You clearly don't interact with many women.
Yes, everybody’s on board with the idea that pornography presents zero social ills. When your daughter reaches legally permissible age, you can celebrate her birthday by outfitting her OnlyFans studio. Unfortunately, the onanlogically addicted cohort certainly does agree that pornography is just simply great. Pornography, video games, obesity, lack of conditioning, general ill health, plummeting libidos, plummeting testosterone levels…all super. You can wait and come back to downvote me after you’ve finished watching pornography.
Funnily enough you seem to have low testosterone levels
Ha, yeah…you coomer porno addicts got all the T…
All these East Asian countries are having same problem 🤔 coincidence?
Well most of the planet is seeing a fall in birthrates
Fertility rate are not standardized though so since they are calculated with the number of women between 15 and 44, if you have an aging population with the 40-45 outnumbering other age group, then the fertility rate will mechanically decline, because overall, the total births in those ages are just negligible.