5 ms·

It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years (see https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/Tokyo%E2%80%99s-lates

It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years (see https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/Tokyo%E2%80%99s-latest-plan-to-boost-birth-rate-Pay-people-100-000-yen-per-baby-they-give-birth-to#:~:text=A%20new%20proposal%20would%20award,the%20award%20more%20than%20once https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/Tokyo%E2%...). The real impediment is that it is now too costly to raise more than 1-2 children and also not enough time. UN 2015 report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/24/Policy_Briefs/PB_Japan.pdf https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf... To summarize, they've started policies and measures since 1992-1994 but UN reports and I quote: "Despite these efforts, Japan’s family policy so far appears to have been largely ineffective." There are other news opinion articles from Japan: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/06/04/editorials/uphill-battle-reverse-falling-birth-rate/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2020/06/04/editorials/u...

dragonwriter 5y ago
> It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years Not...really. > UN report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts: And details defects in the specific policies (notably, these defects are, one who is familiar with policies of the type will notice, ways they fall short of the support policies in many European countries that aren't even specifically trying to boost birth rates.) E.g., a paid family leave policy with low payments and lacking legal force, so many employers haven't actually implemented it. This is a government making a pro forma show of “doing something” about a problem, not a serious policy effort.
- twelve40 5y ago
  > Encouraging births isn't hard if a government decides its important Do you have any examples or even just any precedents how decades of declines and lowest birth rate in the world have been easily and successfully turned around, or this is all just hypothetically probably not hard?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    As far as I can tell, there has yet to exist a condition under which the political will to really tackle this problem has been present, so you would not expect to see an example of a country successfully addressing it. This is pretty normal for humans -- waiting until a problem becomes catastrophic to do anything about it -- as we have seen in other areas recently. We will see how things are going in another few decades.
    - ffwszgf 5y ago
      You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate. Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving. No amount of policy will change that
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate. Ethnicity is more memetic than genetic. > Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving. Culture isn't transmitted by reproduction but by socialization. Immigration tends to involve socialization; indeed, the usual observation about future generations of immigrant populations aligning to preexisting native low birthrates in the developed world is evidence of either culture transfer (meaning reproduction not key to preserving culture) or that birth rates are a product of material incentives not culture (indicating that reversing low birth rates at need is a matter of changing material incentives, not culture.) Either way, the low current birth rates = irreversible drive to cultural death claim is inconsistent with the evidence.
  - novok 5y ago
    The examples are older and from authoritarian countries, but china and iran had state sponsored baby booms. China was started by mao, iran was also started by the revolutionaries shortly after the revolution. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/06/why-does-iran-have-such-a-young-population.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/06/why-does-iran-ha...
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
There's trying and then there's trying. Japan is doing the first kind, where you put some effort in, but it's kind of limp. The other kind of trying is when you put vigorous effort into making it easier to have children. Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger families, but still with decent commutes. Etc.
- novok 5y ago
  I think the real changes needed are also politically unpopular with a bunch of old people and other politically powerful classes. Making children more viable for the young will probably mean making real estate not a good investment for one example, making house spouse / the homer simpson lifestyle more viable, thus reducing the labor force and increasing the cost of labor and so on. For now, it's easier to kick the can down the road.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    This is right too. Although on some level one suspects parts of this problem are self correcting over a longer timescale. If the predicted population implosions begin to manifest, there will also be a corresponding decrease in the demand for housing, and a corresponding increase in wages paid to labor as it becomes more scarce. These trends will make having children easier. I know it's hard to picture that world but many times it has come to pass that we have arrived after twenty years at a world that would have been hard to predict.
- iammisc 5y ago
  > Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger families, but still with decent commutes. Etc. Where has this been shown to work? By and large, the nations with more childcare support, more protections for pregnant women, etc have lower birthrates than those that don't. For example, if we look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d..., then America seems to be the developed country with the highest birth rate despite having little of the social policies you mention. In fact, based on that chart, it would seem the opposite is true. The less social safety net, the more kids. This makes intuitive sense since if government isn't taking care of you, you'll need children to.
terrorOf 5y ago
as if Japan is gold standard to compare lol. See how disfunction Japan is at this Olympics first and think more.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> It is actually quite hard to raise the birth rate, Japan has been trying for years Not...really. > UN report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts: And details defects in the specific policies (notably, these defects are, one who is familiar with policies of the type will notice, ways they fall short of the support policies in many European countries that aren't even specifically trying to boost birth rates.) E.g., a paid family leave policy with low payments and lacking legal force, so many employers haven't actually implemented it. This is a government making a pro forma show of “doing something” about a problem, not a serious policy effort.

twelve40 5y ago
> Encouraging births isn't hard if a government decides its important Do you have any examples or even just any precedents how decades of declines and lowest birth rate in the world have been easily and successfully turned around, or this is all just hypothetically probably not hard?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, there has yet to exist a condition under which the political will to really tackle this problem has been present, so you would not expect to see an example of a country successfully addressing it. This is pretty normal for humans -- waiting until a problem becomes catastrophic to do anything about it -- as we have seen in other areas recently. We will see how things are going in another few decades.
  - ffwszgf 5y ago
    You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate. Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving. No amount of policy will change that
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > You can’t rescue ethnic groups that refuse to procreate. Ethnicity is more memetic than genetic. > Look at Norway and Sweden, the people in those countries long ago decided their culture was not worth preserving. Culture isn't transmitted by reproduction but by socialization. Immigration tends to involve socialization; indeed, the usual observation about future generations of immigrant populations aligning to preexisting native low birthrates in the developed world is evidence of either culture transfer (meaning reproduction not key to preserving culture) or that birth rates are a product of material incentives not culture (indicating that reversing low birth rates at need is a matter of changing material incentives, not culture.) Either way, the low current birth rates = irreversible drive to cultural death claim is inconsistent with the evidence.
- novok 5y ago
  The examples are older and from authoritarian countries, but china and iran had state sponsored baby booms. China was started by mao, iran was also started by the revolutionaries shortly after the revolution. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/06/why-does-iran-have-such-a-young-population.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2009/06/why-does-iran-ha...

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

There's trying and then there's trying. Japan is doing the first kind, where you put some effort in, but it's kind of limp. The other kind of trying is when you put vigorous effort into making it easier to have children. Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger families, but still with decent commutes. Etc.

novok 5y ago
I think the real changes needed are also politically unpopular with a bunch of old people and other politically powerful classes. Making children more viable for the young will probably mean making real estate not a good investment for one example, making house spouse / the homer simpson lifestyle more viable, thus reducing the labor force and increasing the cost of labor and so on. For now, it's easier to kick the can down the road.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  This is right too. Although on some level one suspects parts of this problem are self correcting over a longer timescale. If the predicted population implosions begin to manifest, there will also be a corresponding decrease in the demand for housing, and a corresponding increase in wages paid to labor as it becomes more scarce. These trends will make having children easier. I know it's hard to picture that world but many times it has come to pass that we have arrived after twenty years at a world that would have been hard to predict.
iammisc 5y ago
> Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger families, but still with decent commutes. Etc. Where has this been shown to work? By and large, the nations with more childcare support, more protections for pregnant women, etc have lower birthrates than those that don't. For example, if we look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d..., then America seems to be the developed country with the highest birth rate despite having little of the social policies you mention. In fact, based on that chart, it would seem the opposite is true. The less social safety net, the more kids. This makes intuitive sense since if government isn't taking care of you, you'll need children to.

terrorOf 5y ago

as if Japan is gold standard to compare lol. See how disfunction Japan is at this Olympics first and think more.