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Asia’s advanced economies now have lower birth rates than Japan

110 points by LastNevadan 4y ago

matheusmoreira 4y ago
Is Japan even doing anything about this? The japanese people are going to disappear if this goes on for long enough. I always assumed the 98% ethnically homogeneous nation would want to prevent such an outcome.
- rapsey 4y ago
  Is any country really doing anything of substance like fixing structural problems in their societies?
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Maybe France? Generous childcare and parental leave should encourage birthrates. Also improving the whole idea of what a family is: Want to be unmarried and have a child? Go for it. But have the supports available to make it work. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/21/france-population-europe-fertility-rate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/21/france-populat...
    - anon291 4y ago
      There is no evidence such things work and in fact evidence of the opposite
      - Scoundreller 4y ago
        Your source? The article states the opposite of your claims: > The fertility rate is high in European countries where family norms are flexible, women feel free to work, pro-child policies are generous and childcare is well organised – in short, in countries that have come to terms with gender equality.
        anon291 4y ago
        If you restrict yourself to Europe sure. The United States has had a higher fertility rate than France and Europe for many years despite having a notoriously porous social safety net. The stats may change but whereas Europe has been below 2 for a long time, that's a more recent development in the United States.
        klipt 4y ago
        > The fertility rate is high in European countries "High" is very relative, France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts. Meanwhile very religious groups like the Amish have much higher fertility rates without any of those interventions. Maybe a deep belief that god wants you to have kids is just much more effective than any policy?
        Scoundreller 4y ago
        > France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts. From the article I quoted: > Since the early 2000s France has consistently topped European rankings. After two decades of decline, in the 1970s-80s, the fertility rate started picking up again in the late 1990s. Since then the country has registered scores just short of the mythical threshold of 2.1 children per woman, which would secure a steady population. Its fertility rate in 2014 was 2.01.
        klipt 4y ago
        Isn't that rate disproportionately owed to religious immigrants? Seems to me even France mostly relies on a religious drive to have kids, just an imported one. Among the non religious population, the rate is well below replacement and all the extra welfare barely moves the needle.
        astrange 4y ago
        European countries all have lower birth rates than the US, and poorer people tend to have higher birth rates than richer ones. So it’s not like people are making rational calculations about how much raising kids costs. It seems like being more religious is more effective at changing minds than any of those policies.
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      I think elective C-section would help. Force natural births makes a lot of woman scared in an age of internet.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Someone is scared of natural child birth and prefers invasive surgery instead? How does that make any sense? The recovery for c-section is way longer than natural child birth. They are literally cutting open your abdominal muscles to access the baby.
        philliphaydon 4y ago
        One is painful. One isn’t.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        C section recovery is not painless. Epidurals are a better option if goal is just reducing pain.
        philliphaydon 4y ago
        People I know personally who have done both said they would never choose natural if they had known what it would be like. We did elective C-section for both our kids. Recovery was fine. Wife up and walking at the end of the first day.
        nostromo123 4y ago
        "Recovery was fine. Wife up and walking at the end of the first day." So, exactly like a vaginal birth (speaking from my own experience) ;-) I don't understand the big fuss - sure it hurts, but it's endurable. And for the child there are benefits to being born vaginally. Of course, everyone is free to do as they see fit, but I am very happy and proud of my Klingon birth experience :D
- quacked 4y ago
  Not a sound comment, population of Japan on 1873 was estimated to be 35M. Current population of Japan is 100M+
  - georgeecollins 4y ago
    Right, and at the rate they are going their population would "disappear" in 500 years or more. I am sure nothing will change between now and then. These demographic crises arguments are no better than the population bomb arguments of the 1960s. You can project forward and get all kinds of results but over the decades things change.
    - thriftwy 4y ago
      "Disappear" should not get in quotes. I once wrote a simple simulation of society with low birth rate and was shocked how fast they all went away to zero. Had a nice population bulge initially.
      - bigDinosaur 4y ago
        There are probably subgroups of Japanese people with birth rates higher than replacement. There may also be major advantages to having a child in 2100 that are not evident now (vast tracts of unclaimed land to exploit?).
      - tsimionescu 4y ago
        This is like the old saying - statisticians will happily tell you how long your nails will be 40 years from now (with the mild assumption that you won't cut them). A country of 100M people will change its birth patterns long long long before it "disappears".
      - quacked 4y ago
        The only way populations go to zero is in a Children of Men situation, if the city dwelling populations all choose not to reproduce eventually the country will have a lower population by be more comprised of religious cults with high reproduction rates
- QuillianR 4y ago
  There is probably some equilibrium number at some point, but might be a lot less than current population.
- deaddodo 4y ago
  And therein lies the issue with assumptions.
- skinpop 4y ago
  the government spent some money to build a dating app.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  They are, actually. Japan is a very good country to raise children in. Basically everything from giving birth, to kindergarden to medical care is completely free for kids. It’s a really weird experience to go to the emergency ward of one of the most famous childrens hospitals in Japan and have the guy say ‘your bill comes to $0’ after. Both parents can take up to 1 year of combined childcare leave after a birth (part of that at 60% salary). There’s “Children’s hall” s scattered across the neighborhoods that are basically a free playroom, toy repository and library for kids up to high school age. Kindergardens have been sprouting up like trees all over the country. I think the last time I read any stats about it there were like 6000 kids on a waiting list in the entire country. And again, free or mostly free. Housing is relatively small, but also affordable, even in the 23 wards of Tokyo. If you go outside Tokyo you can find really nice houses for dirt cheap. At least it’s not for lack of facilities/benefits that Japan isn’t having children.
  - gusgus01 4y ago
    I recently watched this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/_pAJMdx14V0 https://youtu.be/_pAJMdx14V0 As an American, that delivery is comparatively cheap and extravagant, but it's hardly free.
  - borissk 4y ago
    >> It’s a really weird experience to go to the emergency ward of one of the most famous children's hospitals in Japan and have the guy say ‘your bill comes to $0’ after. Having lived in US and in a few countries with completely free healthcare, I'd have to correct you that the really weird experience is going to a hospital and getting a 6 figure bill.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      A $100k+ bill in the USA would be weird too. Assuming you are insured (86%), most people would get a bill for $3k to $10k (including C section and epidural). Legally, the most it could be is $18k. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...
- astrange 4y ago
  Japan is not “98% ethnically homogeneous”; any number you see like that is very out of date and means Japanese citizens, not ethnicity.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    That number comes from Japan's own 2018 census, actually.
mroche 4y ago
https://archive.vn/9At4b https://archive.vn/9At4b (Article from May 2022)
jalino23 4y ago
its like the whole world’s population is a pyramid scheme not sustainable
- Ygg2 4y ago
  Problem is most social services depend on there being people to pay for you when you get older. That or your private pension holder might go for some risky investment.
  - zwkrt 4y ago
    Weve been "paying" to take care of our elders in various ways since the beginning of humanity. The only problem is that in our ponzi scheme capitalist culture if someone can't make money they are considered dead weight.
    - dotnet00 4y ago
      Pretty much every culture ever has considered people who are unable to contribute to the functioning of society to be dead weight (thus why being disabled had been a curse unless you happened to be born into wealth and why female infanticide was so common in much of the world). Being old didn't tend to be as much of an issue in the past as people regularly living past the typical retirement age of ~60 is a fairly recent phenomenon. Modern societies (especially the so called "ponzi scheme capitalist culture" ones) tend to go far beyond pretty much all past societies to support such people.
    - astrange 4y ago
      The main people forgetting about non-workers are the ones who think you can eliminate poverty by raising minimum wage. The US hasn’t. Almost all of our social programs are aimed at the elderly; they’re the ones who vote!
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      What do you think happened to people in nomadic tribes that could no longer move with the tribe?
fifticon 4y ago
I wonder if we understand our low birth rates. What if a significant factor is, that after WW2, we all insist both parents work outside fulltime jobs? I feel humanity is like the guy teaching his horse not to eat.
- mjfl 4y ago
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    It's like we forget the pre-WII poverty and long work hours plaguing pre-world war industrial society.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Most concerns about poverty on the internet have little to do with history or concern themselves with becoming well informed about economics beforehand.
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack.
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  I feel like it's rather: if given fulfilling alternatives to reproduction, people will choose them over reproducing. Poor people are ironically some of the hardest-working in Western societies, and they also reproduce the most (for lack of alternatives provided by higher education). They also abort pregnancies a lot, though.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    If you have nothing else to do, your TV and Netflix are cut off, at least you still have a bed and each other. Makes sense to me.
csa 4y ago
The article compares data from 1990 and 2020, yet doesn’t mention covid as a confounding variable (while talking a lot about housing). I think the more telling numbers will be over the next few years. Will there be a post-covid bump and then normalize back to pre-covid levels? Will things just stay the same with incredibly low covid-level birth rates? Only time will tell, but this article is sloppy. The economist can do better.
- mvnuweucxqokii 4y ago
  In some places (i.e. the U.S. iirc), COVID actually caused a mild baby boom rather than suppressing childbirths.
  - csa 4y ago
    > In some places (i.e. the U.S. iirc), COVID actually caused a mild baby boom rather than suppressing childbirths. Sure. But the response to covid in the US and the response to covid in the Asian countries mentioned was quite different both in an administrative way as well as a cultural way. Covid was at least worth a mention if not more.
- glandium 4y ago
  Covid really started in March. Most births that happened in 2020 were conceived before that.
- cjblomqvist 4y ago
  "Nor is this a temporary blip caused by the pandemic: Japan’s figure was higher than all those countries in 2019, too."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lefstathiou 4y ago
My unsolicited and uninformed opinion: Marriage is becoming a status symbol and I personally believe low birth rates are being driven by men more so than women. If you’re a medium to high earning male in NYC, there are so many women to choose from that are pining for commitment (I believe biology plays a factor here). Most of my well to do friends are uninterested in marriage and are just churning through girls. I am happily married - largely driven by personal values religiously influenced moral principle. For most my friends, the question they pose is what is the benefit of marriage? You tie yourself down to monogamy, give up your personal life and risk losing half of it plus a life of child support and alimony in a divorce. I don’t have an answer but I think the root cause may be different than increasing access to child care (which certainly helps) on the margin. Edit for another random anecdote: almost all my Jewish friends in their mid 30s who are well to do are married. Can’t think of one that isn’t. I believe there are cultural correlations that can be drawn.
- symlinkk 4y ago
  I make 6 figures and I get rejected by girls that work at Chick Fil A
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
  - s5300 4y ago
    - symlinkk 4y ago
      Because I’m not attractive. None of the stuff you listed matters if you’re not attractive.
      - astrange 4y ago
        Everything they listed is what being attractive is. Every part of being attractive is under your control. Often other people are not good at telling you what you need to do to get there though.
georgeecollins 4y ago
What if we tend to have less children as we get crowded together, and this is a compensation for over population. Japan has like 10x the population it probably averaged for the last two millennium. Maybe its population could half at that would be OK. I know, I know. Less growth, less innovations and all the things the economists say. But the innovation per capita would be the same. And probably purchasing power parity would be better.
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  I think the thing hammering Japan is also just the ratio of old people to young. Right now we still need warm young bodies to stack shelves, care for old people, reap crops and so on. With ageing populations you have no less old people but far less young uns to do the work. Also less surplus to do novel stuff too. Oh and Japan is not keen on immigration either.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    Except in Japan nearly everyone who grows the food (or knows how), is old. Young people mostly just play Nintendo and drink high-balls in Tokyo.
    - andrewjl 4y ago
      There are exceptions[1], at least in urban areas. [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2020/04/04/food/urban-agriculture-tokyo/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2020/04/04/food/urban-agri...
- hjgjhyuhy 4y ago
  More population sure raises the value of land, making housing more expensive which sucks for raising a family. IMO urbanisation and modern tech are a big factor here. If you lived off land in a manner requiring heavy manual labour, then children could really help and provided continuity. Lack of old people’s care was a big encouragement too, and really different generations living together helped with childcare.
akmittal 4y ago
India which has second largest population after China has reduced fertility of 2.1(lower than replacement rate of 2.2)
Mistletoe 4y ago
Does anyone have an intelligent strategy for investing in a world with low birth rates and an aging population? It's happening everywhere including the USA. I don't think stocks etc. will work in a world without constantly growing GDP. https://www.afrugaldoctor.com/home/japans-lost-decades-30-years-of-negative-returns-from-the-nikkei-225 https://www.afrugaldoctor.com/home/japans-lost-decades-30-ye... If we look to Japan as the model and forerunner for what is happening to the rest of the world, what investments worked there the past few decades if any?
- nikolayasdf123 4y ago
  hunch: real estate in prime areas
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    I thought this too but this graph doesn't look promising for residential. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QJPN628BIS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QJPN628BIS
- samus 4y ago
  Aren't stocks supposed to yield dividends or are people only buying it to speculate on the resale value? If it is the latter, then stocks seem to merely be a volatile gold equivalent: valuable, but not because of having much inherent value.
  - Mistletoe 4y ago
    Unfortunately almost always the latter these days.
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      The P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is somewhat reasonable at the moment. https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-ea...
swang720 4y ago
This is a good thing for the environment and may help us avoid malthusian catastrophe.
- samus 4y ago
  The Malthusian catastrophe was averted when birth control became commonplace and socially acceptable.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > birth control became commonplace and socially acceptable Birth control is not a standard practice everywhere. (And its history is ancient, with "social acceptability" involving some cultures and times - as opposed to being some "general state of things".) The fertility rate in Niger is over 6.5 children per women; that of South Korea is near 1; the rounded quintiles are 1.5 .. 4.0 .
purecoolnesss 4y ago
This might be a long shot argument but I think a big issue with what is now making societies bad for having large families is individualism. People are so different and have a hard time agreeing on things they find it hard to get married. Then those who do find it hard to stay married. Those who marry and have kids have a hard time finding families to be friends with. The world is changing at such a rapid pace, If you have no shared values you will just have too large a range to find points of commonality. Also in large cities the the density is a problem. Abundance of choice creates paralysis. Choice of partners and lifestyle. Creates more ways to cheat on your spouse without being caught. Life in general is more complex. I believe that there is a lag between rural people moving to cities and low birthrates. They may have more kids due to their families being large but their kids will most likely have less kids. Also large cities seem lonely because you become a replaceable part of it. Sure I making child care more accessible is great and should be done but I don't think that's the one thing holding people back.
- astrange 4y ago
  Almost all problems in American cities are caused by lack of density, which causes overcrowding. If you have to drive everywhere or you have roommates dating isn’t as fun.
  - abyssin 4y ago
    Low reproduction rates are found in dense cities too.
- enkid 4y ago
  If anything, the correlation between low birth rates and Individalism (at least the way academics use it) goes the other way. Asian countries have some of the lowest birth rates of the developed world and are culturally the least individualistic. The United States is the most individualistic country in the world, and maintains one of the highest birthrate in the developing world.
- 0dayz 4y ago
  Asian culture overall is very much in the opposite of individualistic and not only that but they do share "values", just that those values just like their societies expectations, traditions and norms very outdated and not design with necessarily good intentions in mind. It's not that people in Asia don't want to get family and all that, it just simply coming down to: 1. The economy has not been adjusted with families in mind (we in the west have barely started). 2. Said traditional 'values' and norms were encouraged at a time when democracy nor universal human rights was a thing, which in the past did cost the country some social cohesion but it endured state stability, today however it just puts obstacles for people to try something new and different. 3. Because of 2 people find easier alternatives to family: Want a patrner with no consequences? Simply order a partner as a service. Want to be sexually fulfilled? Online porn or sex worker. Etc.
akokanka 4y ago
Raising children in advanced economies for what we call well off life is really hard. Advanced economy capitalism is enforcing 1 child or none per family much better than China ever did.
oxff 4y ago
First developed country to enact anti anti-natalist policies (restricting birth control, strengthening marriage etc) to win; or you could just drive off the fertility cliff like lemmings with females all working or in edu until 45+.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Vatican City?
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    While the parent commenter is obviously bigoted and being absurd, Vatican City is not a good example, as all citizens must be members of the church, and the majority of those have to take vows of celibacy.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It'd likely have to combine all that with exit visas.
hjgjhyuhy 4y ago
Competitive working life, expensive housing, poor quality childcare, long distance from my and spouse’s parents and the climate change are the main reasons why I seriously consider whether to have another child. Out of these housing, childcare and distance from parents could be solved simply by companies offering full remote work as an option. Even better if also educational institutions followed. Forcing people to move into cities for work sucks.
kikokikokiko 4y ago
People like to criticize it every time someone says it, but anyway here it goes: Idiocracy is a documentary. When the pill was invented, people all of a sudden discovered an easy, "100% effective", way of avoiding having an "unexpected" baby. Guess what: for most of human history, most of the babies were "unexpected". People can try to deny it, but having a kid is a HARD JOB, expensive and, for many people, just not worth it. From a thermodynamic point of view, we are beings that exist in a universe where you are rewarded for expending the least ammount of energy you can. So, we're basically LAZY, on average. Nature "knows" this, so it put sexual pleasure encoded in our genes in order to make us reproduce, even if in every other area of our life, we are rewarded for choosing the easiest alternative. So, "unexpected" babies it was for 99.999999999999999% of human history. Now, everyone who has an IQ of 100 or more is able to avoid those unexpected pregnancies, and so they are doing it. And it leads to the UNAVOIDABLE conclusion that as time passes, the average IQ of the people that keep having babies will be lowered. Natural selection is a law of physics in this universe. Over time, birth rates will start to go up again, be it in 100 years or more, but it will. Since the people of the future will be the descendants of the people that, even today, with easy and effective contraception, choose to still have kids (or simply had no idea how to no to). But I'm pretty sure we're not headed to the Star Trek future, it's Idiocracy from now on. I really don't care. I'm lazy and probably will end my lineage at this point in time anyway.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Lazy and a pricker disturbing our rightful laziness, given the amount of cleanup your position elicits. You have no idea of "drives", or you would know how some will make having children paramount; you seem to have no idea of the economic choices involved, which made people marry, have children etc.; you also seem oblivious of the positional (ethical) stances, the convinctions inserted in a world view, that have people take such decisions. > 100% effective Not even the procedure of sterilization nullifies the chance of pregnancy. This instance of imprecision looks like a recurrent pattern. You said it that you are lazy, but here you are relating.
- imtringued 4y ago
  The countries with less unexpected babies have higher average IQ scores. This is because of less malnutrition.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
Great, this is how it should be. The real problem is trying to artificially induce population growth in highly developed and consuming countries, rather than allowing them to naturally peak and reach a sustainable level.
bamboozled 4y ago
It's fitting that this article is from "economist.com" because mostly, the only people who care so much about this are "economists". Find me an environmentalist who is worried about there being less people because frankly, I doubt they exist. Yes, having less people in a relatively short amount of time won't be without issue, but I do feel like the people who seemed most worried about low birth rates are politicians and economists. We need to keep the consumers coming right? I'm optimistic because while there is obviously going to be issues with there being less people on earth, it feels like the planet could do with a rest.
- adrianN 4y ago
  There are a lot of people who don't particularly worry about economic growth, but do worry that the ponzi schemes that are called social security and pensions in most countries will collapse.
  - tetris11 4y ago
    How though? What is required for elderly care to work? In my mind its a problem of free housing, and having a cyclic workforce of part-time volunteers (e.g. like military service). That or robots.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Money and people are needed. Not too long ago four people paid for one pensioneer. Soon it will be 1:1.
      - tetris11 4y ago
        Paid for what though - likely, housing and care. These can both be provided for free with the right government.
        adrianN 4y ago
        People don't work for free, regardless of government. Somebody has to pay for the people constructing and maintaining the housing and providing the care.
dools 4y ago
https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI
karmasimida 4y ago
Because East Asia is all about competition The competition starts from kindergarten, parents are competing with each other for things like: 1. How many English words your kid know already? 2. How many classic poetries they can recite? 3. Mathematics above requirement etc. It is a rat race and it is suffocating. And in East Asian system, one failed academic assessment is pretty much a failure and deemed useless, you will be discriminated in so many aspects of your life. And it is curve based system, so no matter how hard you try, 50% will never go to college anyway. And ofc, this system will accompany you all they way through your career as well. People are always looking for something they can compare against, pick the winner and loser, and judge you upon it. As a result, having kids and raising them up to societal standard costs big money, people choose to have none or one and invest everything they can to that one kid.
- reustle 4y ago
  I've lived in Japan for nearly a decade on and off now, and have never heard of parents comparing their children's TOEIC scores, nor talking about classic poetry. School level competition exists, but I don't think these are the points they focus on. Those seem more like China specific things.
  - karmasimida 4y ago
    Might not apply to Japan that much. But this is 100% to other Asia's advanced economies, those with Chinese ethnicity majority or heavily influenced by Confucianism historically. China/HK/Taiwan/Singapore/Korea No one can escape this. Japan is actually an oddball here, I think Japan had never imported the 科举 system from China, that might be the key
    - fomine3 4y ago
      科挙 was somewhat imported but it seems that now there are just less competition compared to China/Korea (except richer parents in metropolis). Perhaps that's part of a reason why their birth rate is lower.
- 4y ago
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Kids are expensive. If you can barely pay rent (forget about getting buying something with a mortgage) and living expenses, then how possibly could you raise children? Add to that many people working very long and sometimes uncertain hours. It's a perfectly rational outcome for people to realize they don't have the resources for kids and so they remain childless.

110 points by LastNevadan 4y ago

Is Japan even doing anything about this? The japanese people are going to disappear if this goes on for long enough. I always assumed the 98% ethnically homogeneous nation would want to prevent such an outcome.

rapsey 4y ago
Is any country really doing anything of substance like fixing structural problems in their societies?
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Maybe France? Generous childcare and parental leave should encourage birthrates. Also improving the whole idea of what a family is: Want to be unmarried and have a child? Go for it. But have the supports available to make it work. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/21/france-population-europe-fertility-rate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/21/france-populat...
  - anon291 4y ago
    There is no evidence such things work and in fact evidence of the opposite
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      Your source? The article states the opposite of your claims: > The fertility rate is high in European countries where family norms are flexible, women feel free to work, pro-child policies are generous and childcare is well organised – in short, in countries that have come to terms with gender equality.
      - anon291 4y ago
        If you restrict yourself to Europe sure. The United States has had a higher fertility rate than France and Europe for many years despite having a notoriously porous social safety net. The stats may change but whereas Europe has been below 2 for a long time, that's a more recent development in the United States.
      - klipt 4y ago
        > The fertility rate is high in European countries "High" is very relative, France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts. Meanwhile very religious groups like the Amish have much higher fertility rates without any of those interventions. Maybe a deep belief that god wants you to have kids is just much more effective than any policy?
        Scoundreller 4y ago
        > France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts. From the article I quoted: > Since the early 2000s France has consistently topped European rankings. After two decades of decline, in the 1970s-80s, the fertility rate started picking up again in the late 1990s. Since then the country has registered scores just short of the mythical threshold of 2.1 children per woman, which would secure a steady population. Its fertility rate in 2014 was 2.01.
        klipt 4y ago
        Isn't that rate disproportionately owed to religious immigrants? Seems to me even France mostly relies on a religious drive to have kids, just an imported one. Among the non religious population, the rate is well below replacement and all the extra welfare barely moves the needle.
      - astrange 4y ago
        European countries all have lower birth rates than the US, and poorer people tend to have higher birth rates than richer ones. So it’s not like people are making rational calculations about how much raising kids costs. It seems like being more religious is more effective at changing minds than any of those policies.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    I think elective C-section would help. Force natural births makes a lot of woman scared in an age of internet.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Someone is scared of natural child birth and prefers invasive surgery instead? How does that make any sense? The recovery for c-section is way longer than natural child birth. They are literally cutting open your abdominal muscles to access the baby.
      - philliphaydon 4y ago
        One is painful. One isn’t.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        C section recovery is not painless. Epidurals are a better option if goal is just reducing pain.
        philliphaydon 4y ago
        People I know personally who have done both said they would never choose natural if they had known what it would be like. We did elective C-section for both our kids. Recovery was fine. Wife up and walking at the end of the first day.
        nostromo123 4y ago
        "Recovery was fine. Wife up and walking at the end of the first day." So, exactly like a vaginal birth (speaking from my own experience) ;-) I don't understand the big fuss - sure it hurts, but it's endurable. And for the child there are benefits to being born vaginally. Of course, everyone is free to do as they see fit, but I am very happy and proud of my Klingon birth experience :D
quacked 4y ago
Not a sound comment, population of Japan on 1873 was estimated to be 35M. Current population of Japan is 100M+
- georgeecollins 4y ago
  Right, and at the rate they are going their population would "disappear" in 500 years or more. I am sure nothing will change between now and then. These demographic crises arguments are no better than the population bomb arguments of the 1960s. You can project forward and get all kinds of results but over the decades things change.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    "Disappear" should not get in quotes. I once wrote a simple simulation of society with low birth rate and was shocked how fast they all went away to zero. Had a nice population bulge initially.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      There are probably subgroups of Japanese people with birth rates higher than replacement. There may also be major advantages to having a child in 2100 that are not evident now (vast tracts of unclaimed land to exploit?).
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      This is like the old saying - statisticians will happily tell you how long your nails will be 40 years from now (with the mild assumption that you won't cut them). A country of 100M people will change its birth patterns long long long before it "disappears".
    - quacked 4y ago
      The only way populations go to zero is in a Children of Men situation, if the city dwelling populations all choose not to reproduce eventually the country will have a lower population by be more comprised of religious cults with high reproduction rates
QuillianR 4y ago
There is probably some equilibrium number at some point, but might be a lot less than current population.
deaddodo 4y ago
And therein lies the issue with assumptions.
skinpop 4y ago
the government spent some money to build a dating app.
Aeolun 4y ago
They are, actually. Japan is a very good country to raise children in. Basically everything from giving birth, to kindergarden to medical care is completely free for kids. It’s a really weird experience to go to the emergency ward of one of the most famous childrens hospitals in Japan and have the guy say ‘your bill comes to $0’ after. Both parents can take up to 1 year of combined childcare leave after a birth (part of that at 60% salary). There’s “Children’s hall” s scattered across the neighborhoods that are basically a free playroom, toy repository and library for kids up to high school age. Kindergardens have been sprouting up like trees all over the country. I think the last time I read any stats about it there were like 6000 kids on a waiting list in the entire country. And again, free or mostly free. Housing is relatively small, but also affordable, even in the 23 wards of Tokyo. If you go outside Tokyo you can find really nice houses for dirt cheap. At least it’s not for lack of facilities/benefits that Japan isn’t having children.
- gusgus01 4y ago
  I recently watched this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/_pAJMdx14V0 https://youtu.be/_pAJMdx14V0 As an American, that delivery is comparatively cheap and extravagant, but it's hardly free.
- borissk 4y ago
  >> It’s a really weird experience to go to the emergency ward of one of the most famous children's hospitals in Japan and have the guy say ‘your bill comes to $0’ after. Having lived in US and in a few countries with completely free healthcare, I'd have to correct you that the really weird experience is going to a hospital and getting a 6 figure bill.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    A $100k+ bill in the USA would be weird too. Assuming you are insured (86%), most people would get a bill for $3k to $10k (including C section and epidural). Legally, the most it could be is $18k. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-insurance.htm https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-limit https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...
astrange 4y ago
Japan is not “98% ethnically homogeneous”; any number you see like that is very out of date and means Japanese citizens, not ethnicity.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  That number comes from Japan's own 2018 census, actually.

mroche 4y ago

https://archive.vn/9At4b https://archive.vn/9At4b (Article from May 2022)

jalino23 4y ago

its like the whole world’s population is a pyramid scheme not sustainable

Ygg2 4y ago
Problem is most social services depend on there being people to pay for you when you get older. That or your private pension holder might go for some risky investment.
- zwkrt 4y ago
  Weve been "paying" to take care of our elders in various ways since the beginning of humanity. The only problem is that in our ponzi scheme capitalist culture if someone can't make money they are considered dead weight.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    Pretty much every culture ever has considered people who are unable to contribute to the functioning of society to be dead weight (thus why being disabled had been a curse unless you happened to be born into wealth and why female infanticide was so common in much of the world). Being old didn't tend to be as much of an issue in the past as people regularly living past the typical retirement age of ~60 is a fairly recent phenomenon. Modern societies (especially the so called "ponzi scheme capitalist culture" ones) tend to go far beyond pretty much all past societies to support such people.
  - astrange 4y ago
    The main people forgetting about non-workers are the ones who think you can eliminate poverty by raising minimum wage. The US hasn’t. Almost all of our social programs are aimed at the elderly; they’re the ones who vote!
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    What do you think happened to people in nomadic tribes that could no longer move with the tribe?

fifticon 4y ago

I wonder if we understand our low birth rates. What if a significant factor is, that after WW2, we all insist both parents work outside fulltime jobs? I feel humanity is like the guy teaching his horse not to eat.

mjfl 4y ago
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  It's like we forget the pre-WII poverty and long work hours plaguing pre-world war industrial society.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Most concerns about poverty on the internet have little to do with history or concern themselves with becoming well informed about economics beforehand.
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack.
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
I feel like it's rather: if given fulfilling alternatives to reproduction, people will choose them over reproducing. Poor people are ironically some of the hardest-working in Western societies, and they also reproduce the most (for lack of alternatives provided by higher education). They also abort pregnancies a lot, though.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  If you have nothing else to do, your TV and Netflix are cut off, at least you still have a bed and each other. Makes sense to me.

csa 4y ago

The article compares data from 1990 and 2020, yet doesn’t mention covid as a confounding variable (while talking a lot about housing). I think the more telling numbers will be over the next few years. Will there be a post-covid bump and then normalize back to pre-covid levels? Will things just stay the same with incredibly low covid-level birth rates? Only time will tell, but this article is sloppy. The economist can do better.

mvnuweucxqokii 4y ago
In some places (i.e. the U.S. iirc), COVID actually caused a mild baby boom rather than suppressing childbirths.
- csa 4y ago
  > In some places (i.e. the U.S. iirc), COVID actually caused a mild baby boom rather than suppressing childbirths. Sure. But the response to covid in the US and the response to covid in the Asian countries mentioned was quite different both in an administrative way as well as a cultural way. Covid was at least worth a mention if not more.
glandium 4y ago
Covid really started in March. Most births that happened in 2020 were conceived before that.
cjblomqvist 4y ago
"Nor is this a temporary blip caused by the pandemic: Japan’s figure was higher than all those countries in 2019, too."
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lefstathiou 4y ago

My unsolicited and uninformed opinion: Marriage is becoming a status symbol and I personally believe low birth rates are being driven by men more so than women. If you’re a medium to high earning male in NYC, there are so many women to choose from that are pining for commitment (I believe biology plays a factor here). Most of my well to do friends are uninterested in marriage and are just churning through girls. I am happily married - largely driven by personal values religiously influenced moral principle. For most my friends, the question they pose is what is the benefit of marriage? You tie yourself down to monogamy, give up your personal life and risk losing half of it plus a life of child support and alimony in a divorce. I don’t have an answer but I think the root cause may be different than increasing access to child care (which certainly helps) on the margin. Edit for another random anecdote: almost all my Jewish friends in their mid 30s who are well to do are married. Can’t think of one that isn’t. I believe there are cultural correlations that can be drawn.

symlinkk 4y ago
I make 6 figures and I get rejected by girls that work at Chick Fil A
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- s5300 4y ago
  - symlinkk 4y ago
    Because I’m not attractive. None of the stuff you listed matters if you’re not attractive.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Everything they listed is what being attractive is. Every part of being attractive is under your control. Often other people are not good at telling you what you need to do to get there though.

georgeecollins 4y ago

What if we tend to have less children as we get crowded together, and this is a compensation for over population. Japan has like 10x the population it probably averaged for the last two millennium. Maybe its population could half at that would be OK. I know, I know. Less growth, less innovations and all the things the economists say. But the innovation per capita would be the same. And probably purchasing power parity would be better.

rich_sasha 4y ago
I think the thing hammering Japan is also just the ratio of old people to young. Right now we still need warm young bodies to stack shelves, care for old people, reap crops and so on. With ageing populations you have no less old people but far less young uns to do the work. Also less surplus to do novel stuff too. Oh and Japan is not keen on immigration either.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Except in Japan nearly everyone who grows the food (or knows how), is old. Young people mostly just play Nintendo and drink high-balls in Tokyo.
  - andrewjl 4y ago
    There are exceptions[1], at least in urban areas. [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2020/04/04/food/urban-agriculture-tokyo/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2020/04/04/food/urban-agri...
hjgjhyuhy 4y ago
More population sure raises the value of land, making housing more expensive which sucks for raising a family. IMO urbanisation and modern tech are a big factor here. If you lived off land in a manner requiring heavy manual labour, then children could really help and provided continuity. Lack of old people’s care was a big encouragement too, and really different generations living together helped with childcare.

akmittal 4y ago

India which has second largest population after China has reduced fertility of 2.1(lower than replacement rate of 2.2)

Mistletoe 4y ago

Does anyone have an intelligent strategy for investing in a world with low birth rates and an aging population? It's happening everywhere including the USA. I don't think stocks etc. will work in a world without constantly growing GDP. https://www.afrugaldoctor.com/home/japans-lost-decades-30-years-of-negative-returns-from-the-nikkei-225 https://www.afrugaldoctor.com/home/japans-lost-decades-30-ye... If we look to Japan as the model and forerunner for what is happening to the rest of the world, what investments worked there the past few decades if any?

nikolayasdf123 4y ago
hunch: real estate in prime areas
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  I thought this too but this graph doesn't look promising for residential. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QJPN628BIS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QJPN628BIS
samus 4y ago
Aren't stocks supposed to yield dividends or are people only buying it to speculate on the resale value? If it is the latter, then stocks seem to merely be a volatile gold equivalent: valuable, but not because of having much inherent value.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  Unfortunately almost always the latter these days.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    The P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is somewhat reasonable at the moment. https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-ea...

swang720 4y ago

This is a good thing for the environment and may help us avoid malthusian catastrophe.

samus 4y ago
The Malthusian catastrophe was averted when birth control became commonplace and socially acceptable.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > birth control became commonplace and socially acceptable Birth control is not a standard practice everywhere. (And its history is ancient, with "social acceptability" involving some cultures and times - as opposed to being some "general state of things".) The fertility rate in Niger is over 6.5 children per women; that of South Korea is near 1; the rounded quintiles are 1.5 .. 4.0 .

purecoolnesss 4y ago

This might be a long shot argument but I think a big issue with what is now making societies bad for having large families is individualism. People are so different and have a hard time agreeing on things they find it hard to get married. Then those who do find it hard to stay married. Those who marry and have kids have a hard time finding families to be friends with. The world is changing at such a rapid pace, If you have no shared values you will just have too large a range to find points of commonality. Also in large cities the the density is a problem. Abundance of choice creates paralysis. Choice of partners and lifestyle. Creates more ways to cheat on your spouse without being caught. Life in general is more complex. I believe that there is a lag between rural people moving to cities and low birthrates. They may have more kids due to their families being large but their kids will most likely have less kids. Also large cities seem lonely because you become a replaceable part of it. Sure I making child care more accessible is great and should be done but I don't think that's the one thing holding people back.

astrange 4y ago
Almost all problems in American cities are caused by lack of density, which causes overcrowding. If you have to drive everywhere or you have roommates dating isn’t as fun.
- abyssin 4y ago
  Low reproduction rates are found in dense cities too.
enkid 4y ago
If anything, the correlation between low birth rates and Individalism (at least the way academics use it) goes the other way. Asian countries have some of the lowest birth rates of the developed world and are culturally the least individualistic. The United States is the most individualistic country in the world, and maintains one of the highest birthrate in the developing world.
0dayz 4y ago
Asian culture overall is very much in the opposite of individualistic and not only that but they do share "values", just that those values just like their societies expectations, traditions and norms very outdated and not design with necessarily good intentions in mind. It's not that people in Asia don't want to get family and all that, it just simply coming down to: 1. The economy has not been adjusted with families in mind (we in the west have barely started). 2. Said traditional 'values' and norms were encouraged at a time when democracy nor universal human rights was a thing, which in the past did cost the country some social cohesion but it endured state stability, today however it just puts obstacles for people to try something new and different. 3. Because of 2 people find easier alternatives to family: Want a patrner with no consequences? Simply order a partner as a service. Want to be sexually fulfilled? Online porn or sex worker. Etc.

akokanka 4y ago

Raising children in advanced economies for what we call well off life is really hard. Advanced economy capitalism is enforcing 1 child or none per family much better than China ever did.

oxff 4y ago

First developed country to enact anti anti-natalist policies (restricting birth control, strengthening marriage etc) to win; or you could just drive off the fertility cliff like lemmings with females all working or in edu until 45+.

Thorrez 4y ago
Vatican City?
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  While the parent commenter is obviously bigoted and being absurd, Vatican City is not a good example, as all citizens must be members of the church, and the majority of those have to take vows of celibacy.
int_19h 4y ago
It'd likely have to combine all that with exit visas.

hjgjhyuhy 4y ago

Competitive working life, expensive housing, poor quality childcare, long distance from my and spouse’s parents and the climate change are the main reasons why I seriously consider whether to have another child. Out of these housing, childcare and distance from parents could be solved simply by companies offering full remote work as an option. Even better if also educational institutions followed. Forcing people to move into cities for work sucks.

kikokikokiko 4y ago

People like to criticize it every time someone says it, but anyway here it goes: Idiocracy is a documentary. When the pill was invented, people all of a sudden discovered an easy, "100% effective", way of avoiding having an "unexpected" baby. Guess what: for most of human history, most of the babies were "unexpected". People can try to deny it, but having a kid is a HARD JOB, expensive and, for many people, just not worth it. From a thermodynamic point of view, we are beings that exist in a universe where you are rewarded for expending the least ammount of energy you can. So, we're basically LAZY, on average. Nature "knows" this, so it put sexual pleasure encoded in our genes in order to make us reproduce, even if in every other area of our life, we are rewarded for choosing the easiest alternative. So, "unexpected" babies it was for 99.999999999999999% of human history. Now, everyone who has an IQ of 100 or more is able to avoid those unexpected pregnancies, and so they are doing it. And it leads to the UNAVOIDABLE conclusion that as time passes, the average IQ of the people that keep having babies will be lowered. Natural selection is a law of physics in this universe. Over time, birth rates will start to go up again, be it in 100 years or more, but it will. Since the people of the future will be the descendants of the people that, even today, with easy and effective contraception, choose to still have kids (or simply had no idea how to no to). But I'm pretty sure we're not headed to the Star Trek future, it's Idiocracy from now on. I really don't care. I'm lazy and probably will end my lineage at this point in time anyway.

mdp2021 4y ago
Lazy and a pricker disturbing our rightful laziness, given the amount of cleanup your position elicits. You have no idea of "drives", or you would know how some will make having children paramount; you seem to have no idea of the economic choices involved, which made people marry, have children etc.; you also seem oblivious of the positional (ethical) stances, the convinctions inserted in a world view, that have people take such decisions. > 100% effective Not even the procedure of sterilization nullifies the chance of pregnancy. This instance of imprecision looks like a recurrent pattern. You said it that you are lazy, but here you are relating.
imtringued 4y ago
The countries with less unexpected babies have higher average IQ scores. This is because of less malnutrition.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

Great, this is how it should be. The real problem is trying to artificially induce population growth in highly developed and consuming countries, rather than allowing them to naturally peak and reach a sustainable level.

bamboozled 4y ago

It's fitting that this article is from "economist.com" because mostly, the only people who care so much about this are "economists". Find me an environmentalist who is worried about there being less people because frankly, I doubt they exist. Yes, having less people in a relatively short amount of time won't be without issue, but I do feel like the people who seemed most worried about low birth rates are politicians and economists. We need to keep the consumers coming right? I'm optimistic because while there is obviously going to be issues with there being less people on earth, it feels like the planet could do with a rest.

adrianN 4y ago
There are a lot of people who don't particularly worry about economic growth, but do worry that the ponzi schemes that are called social security and pensions in most countries will collapse.
- tetris11 4y ago
  How though? What is required for elderly care to work? In my mind its a problem of free housing, and having a cyclic workforce of part-time volunteers (e.g. like military service). That or robots.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Money and people are needed. Not too long ago four people paid for one pensioneer. Soon it will be 1:1.
    - tetris11 4y ago
      Paid for what though - likely, housing and care. These can both be provided for free with the right government.
      - adrianN 4y ago
        People don't work for free, regardless of government. Somebody has to pay for the people constructing and maintaining the housing and providing the care.

dools 4y ago

https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI

karmasimida 4y ago

Because East Asia is all about competition The competition starts from kindergarten, parents are competing with each other for things like: 1. How many English words your kid know already? 2. How many classic poetries they can recite? 3. Mathematics above requirement etc. It is a rat race and it is suffocating. And in East Asian system, one failed academic assessment is pretty much a failure and deemed useless, you will be discriminated in so many aspects of your life. And it is curve based system, so no matter how hard you try, 50% will never go to college anyway. And ofc, this system will accompany you all they way through your career as well. People are always looking for something they can compare against, pick the winner and loser, and judge you upon it. As a result, having kids and raising them up to societal standard costs big money, people choose to have none or one and invest everything they can to that one kid.

reustle 4y ago
I've lived in Japan for nearly a decade on and off now, and have never heard of parents comparing their children's TOEIC scores, nor talking about classic poetry. School level competition exists, but I don't think these are the points they focus on. Those seem more like China specific things.
- karmasimida 4y ago
  Might not apply to Japan that much. But this is 100% to other Asia's advanced economies, those with Chinese ethnicity majority or heavily influenced by Confucianism historically. China/HK/Taiwan/Singapore/Korea No one can escape this. Japan is actually an oddball here, I think Japan had never imported the 科举 system from China, that might be the key
  - fomine3 4y ago
    科挙 was somewhat imported but it seems that now there are just less competition compared to China/Korea (except richer parents in metropolis). Perhaps that's part of a reason why their birth rate is lower.
4y ago

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

Kids are expensive. If you can barely pay rent (forget about getting buying something with a mortgage) and living expenses, then how possibly could you raise children? Add to that many people working very long and sometimes uncertain hours. It's a perfectly rational outcome for people to realize they don't have the resources for kids and so they remain childless.