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Japan PM’s solution to dire birthrate has already been rejected by young
- ggm 4y agoThe small number of Japanese women I know in Australia universally say it's not a kind place to give birth in, or raise a young child. They prefer Australia for that "warts and all" Japan as I understand it has strong conformity drives which runs counter to both immigration-assimilation in non Asian cultures and to young women seeking independence in their life.
- stonekyx 4y ago> non Asian cultures It’s actually worse for Asian non-Japanese cultures. You’re basically expected to stay in the circle of your culture, whether you like it or not. For non-Asians, it’s easier for them to be distinguished visually, of course, but at least Japanese people are not likely to have hostile emotions on them..
- mytailorisrich 4y agoIf we are serious about sustainability, the environment, and the 'climate crisis' we need to embrace population decrease at least for a few decades. To blast us continually about the environment crisis and a 'population crisis' at the same time is contradictory (or bad faith).
- askvictor 4y agoThe people blasting us about a population crisis are not the same as those decrying the environmental crisis; quite the opposite. Dropping population is bad for the economy, as is giving a crap about the environment.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoThere is a big overlap if only because governments complain about both in their official communication to the public. Regarding the economy, I think we need to shift paradigm from measuring the size of the economy overall, which indeed obviously benefits from ever more people, to focusing on figures per capita. Ultimately the whole point of economic growth is to make people better off individually and we can do that with a decreasing population, in fact perhaps a decreasing population helps achieving that by forcing companies to increase productivity as much as possible instead of relying on abundant and cheap labour.
- georgeecollins 4y agoAlso, its like saying the economy will shrink, which may be true, but not necessarily that the per capita economy will shrink. Obviously Japan -- for example -- can function as a nation with a fraction of its current population. Less labor is good for people who sell their labor, but bad for people who buy labor (capital).
- ztrww 4y agoGDP per capital will shrink if the proportion of the working population declines.That’s pretty obvious > people who buy labor so basically everyone unless you grow your own food etc.?
- georgeecollins 4y ago>> GDP per capital will shrink if the proportion of the working population declines.That’s pretty obvious Only if productivity / price of labor is constant. Which it isn't over time historically.
- michpoch 4y agoIt is not about the population getting smaller. It is about the population getting smaller at an alarming rate.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoWell, if there is a global environmental crisis and the world "is running out of time", surely that's a good thing? Population growth has been happening at an alarming rate...
- ztrww 4y agothe problem is not the decline in population itself but rather the aging. If/when the working population will be outnumbered by those who are retired we’ll have serious problems.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoAging is unavoidable sooner or later as population cannot keep growing forever and we don't want to live in Logan's Run, either. So IMHO this is a red herring: we need to face the inevitable and adapt to it in any case.
- phyphy 4y agoWhat if instead of immigration the government decides to raise the orphan children from other countries? That wouldn't harm the culture I hope.
- Ligma123 4y agoOrphan children already have enough problems, and don't need to be raised in a culture totally foreign to them
- ciphol 4y agoThere aren't many such children, and it's complicated to get them in an ethical way.
- phyphy 4y agoTrue. I didn't consider the scale. I was talking in a totally hypothetical sense.
- kzrdude 4y agoChildren need families, not institutions to raise them, so the same incentives would really be needed for this kind of program as any other.
- Ligma123 4y agoIt would be really cool if you took this discourse to Africa, China or India, Mr Malthus.
- Hamuko 4y ago"The UN forecasts that China’s population will decline from 1.426 billion this year to 1.313 billion by 2050 and below 800 million by 2100"
- inawarminister 4y agoYes but not India or Africa. Nigeria is still projected to hit 500mil by mid-century, don't they? Actually, compared to South Korea, Taiwan, and China, Japanese birthrate is the highest in the region. It's just Japan went earlier than the three of them in subreplacement, so they hit the major pain points earlier in time. But maybe China will hit the subreplacement pains faster than what Japan experienced....
- mrkeen 4y agoIndia -> it's already in motion. > From 1965 to 2009, contraceptive usage has more than tripled (from 13% of married women in 1970 to 48% in 2009) and the fertility rate has more than halved (from 5.7 in 1966 to 2.4 in 2012) > India's fertility rate has greatly decreased in recent years and is now distinctly below the global rate.
- fxj 4y agoProductivity went through the roof in the last 100 years. We need less workers to achive the same results, but still it seems to be a catastrophy when the workforce is shrinking. Imagine a planet earth with only 1 Billion people but with the same productivity as now with almost 10 Billion. No poverty, no famine, much less pollution. just my 2 cents. Maybe that is one of the Great Filters of the Fermi paradox.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago> Imagine a planet earth with only 1 Billion people but with the same productivity as now with almost 10 Billion. No poverty, no famine, much less pollution. just my 2 cents. That's what I imagine is possible and would indeed make for a better world overall.
- knewter 4y agoI agree you guys let's kill 7 billion people
- Gibbon1 4y agoIdea I've been rolling over in my head is the west (other places too) are straight jacked by the way that passive capitalists/financiers see the world. When they see demographic shifts which reduce the number of workers, family formation and gasp shrinking population all they are capable of doing is react in horror about what that's going to do to the value of their paper asset hoards. Population decline -> decline in demand for paper products -> Dunder Mifflin sales down -> DMI market cap go down? ...no No NOOOOOO.
- mrkeen 4y ago> As long as successive conservative governments continue to shun immigration as part of a potential solution to chronic labour shortages and the increasing strain on funding for health and social security, the consensus is that the answers must come from within. Ever since I saw the news that adult diapers outsell baby diapers in Japan (2011!), it's been fun to check in on their attitudes to immigration. I wish this article delved into it a little bit more.
- nivenkos 4y agoBut mass immigration has huge problems - look at Sweden, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, etc.
- sergers 4y agoThey should offer more incentives to have children, make it easier. Provide tax breaks, additional compensation benefits, mandatory time off work etc. Edit: After doing some searching, learned more about what they get. https://www.ipmu.jp/en/page/dbbb4775-1008-4deb-8d7d-8766e5d8c9f8#:~:text=Duration%20of%20maternity%20leave,approval%20by%20a%20medical%20doctor https://www.ipmu.jp/en/page/dbbb4775-1008-4deb-8d7d-8766e5d8.... Overall I think the benefits are decent, however I don't think they fully support fathers. Fathers can take 7 days while mom is on mat leave at same time. Then later you can have nursing time, 30 min breaks from work? Can show up 30 mins late?? How about some actual time off so you can help out at early stages of life and not too be financially worried. Canada we get 12-18 months shared between spouses, other countries get better
- pythonguython 4y agoAccording to the article, that is the plan
- RestlessMind 4y agoAnd yet, Canada's TFR is only 1.4 in spite of generous parental leave, free healthcare and free education. What gives?
- red-iron-pine 4y agoNone of those statements are 100% true, and in some provinces basically false. Leave isn't generous, and requires that you have paid into EI for at least 1 year, otherwise you get nothing. Education definitely isn't true, though in-province rates, esp. in QC, aren't crazy. But most of my friends had student loans. Healthcare in a hospital is free. You need dental, optical, or 3rd party specialist stuff? Good luck. The quality also varies greatly -- if you're in the nicest part of Toronto I'm sure it's great, but rural SK healthcare is basically bandaids and a bus ticket to the provincial capital. Ontario has their own mini-Trump who just push through healthcare privatization, and Alberta has been hammering it for years. AB, despite being the richest province due to all that oil, has consistently slashed education and healthcare, most notably booting out a ton of hospital staff right before COVID hit, which lead to big protests from the AHS ("nurses strike", etc). QC has subsidized daycare, but seats are often hard to get. In exchange taxes are the highest in Canada, and salaries are unimpressive.
- usrbinbash 4y agoWell what did the world expect when an entire generation is forced to live in an ongoing economic crisis for most of their life. Here is a thought: If people have their basic needs met, and I don't mean "barely survive", I mean "having the same fair chance at building wealth as prior generations", then maybe people in such a society may be willing to have more children. If, on the other hand, it becomes ever harder to build wealth, becomes ever harder to cover the cost of living, education is demanded but also becomes ever more expensive to get, and any time not spent working becomes an economic malus on the individual, well ... I don't see how people will flock to the joys of parenthood then.
- qball 4y agoIt was never going to work. You want to encourage family formation, you need to make it a viable life path, and without radical tax (as in, family can't lead to a drop in standard of living compared to DINKs) and education reform (not being economically established until your late 20s means you realistically only have 6 years to start a family rather than the historical 12) this won't happen. Why bother getting married when you'll functionally never see your wife, and why bother having kids when you'll basically never see them? The Japanese aren't unique in not seeing the point, as this pattern is a constant all over the world.
- dhruval 4y agoHaven’t seen any top down government interventions work at increasing TFR. The only thing that seems to work is high religiosity.
- jojobas 4y agoUSSR bred reasonably well up until its breakup without religion. You don't necessarily need religion in order to wish to continue yourself beyond your lifetime.
- cm2187 4y agoI believe the USSR had a fairly conservative stance on those issues, favouring families. It's not religion but it is still social pressure.
- xyzzy123 4y agoOne somewhat divergent opinion I read once (wish I could find the article again) expressed the idea that in the modern world, governments are free-riding on parents. The costs (time, money) of raising children are significantly privatised but the economic benefits once they reach adulthood tend to flow to government and society at large. In the past, many parents expected to receive direct economic benefits from the labour of their children. Children were expected to e.g. contribute on the farm. In countries without social safety nets, younger generations are expected to directly support older famility members. Having kids used to be something with pretty direct economic benefits, it's now expected to be a somewhat more altruistic enterprise.
- tomcam 4y ago> In countries without social safety nets, younger generations are expected to directly support older famility members. And in countries with social safety nets, workers pay to support other, retiring workers. With increasing lifespans, sharply decreasing numbers of workers, and relatively early retirement ages… the wheels are going to fall right off the train, unless robots save us.
- chopin 4y agoThe wealth created by robots will go to a few.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoI’m optimistic about robots increasing productivity, but I worry they won’t be used to uplift everyone equally. They seem well-poised to increase wealth disparity rather than reduce it. I would love to be wrong, though.
- jedrek 4y agoFunny how the assumption is that robots have to save us. Worker productivity is at a never before seen, all-time high. The benefits of that productivity are going straight into the pockets of the largest holders of capital. We don't need robots, we need guillotines.
- radu_floricica 4y agoI don't know, the solution seems pretty obvious to me. Put a hard cap of something like 50 worked hours per week, or, alternatively, mandate double pay for hours after 40. This plus financial incentives and free daycare actually has a chance to work. They're only addressing one leg of the problem.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago50 with children is already too much. 40 is already too much for what is worth, and I work from home!
- mjevans 4y agoThe rational, logical, _intelligent_ population they should want to breed the most will respond when the environment encourages them to live like humans and have children. The article touches on this, but the entire demand structure and set of expectations in society In Japan (and also at least in the US where my observational experience is) is counter to being human. The barriers to being part of a community, of interacting with others in third places / spaces, of having time to focus on family instead of the job. Society as a whole has gone crazy in a relentless quest to extract all the value it can, forgetting the very reason it sought to do that in a blind quest for numbers.
- hd4 4y agoI'll get downvoted to shit for this but the data for Japan's birth rate over time shows the decline setting in precisely when women were given freedom there. The cause/effect couldn't be more obvious, I feel like we're just avoiding the elephant in the room in these threads because it's politically unpalatable to state these truths nowadays. (The same is the case elsewhere, this isn't a strictly Japanese trend)
- wikfwikf 4y agoFirstly, so that I can understand the strength of the correlation, can you pinpoint when "women were given freedom there" and what that consisted of? Secondly, regardless of the cause of the lowered birth rate, do you agree that freedom for women is a fundamental and inalienable right, and that the problem is how society should advance so that birth rates and family formation go back up without rolling back freedon?
- mschuster91 4y agoSurprise: As soon as women get the freedom to not be broodmares but their own persons (i.e. they are allowed to work, live alone, have bank accounts, use contraception and divorce abusive husbands), they don't have kids because having kids is a physically and mentally exhausting effort, not to mention medically risky even in a developed country (for example, Italy has 2/100k births fatality rate, while the US has 19/100k). Now look where the US (and parts of Europe) are heading towards, with bans on contraception being openly discussed (e.g. with the recent Supreme Court decision that hinted at a reversal of the Griswold case), or access to abortion being made difficult more and more (e.g. Germany, where you have a limited-ish right to abortion, but good luck finding a practice in rural areas such as Lower Bavaria)... it's straight back to female slavery. If societies want children, they could and should encourage people to have them. Not leave them with no choice. And for what it's worth my s/o and I would like to have children, but rents and general expenses have been insane before covid hit, and now with the Russian war it's gone even worse.
- georgyo 4y agoAre you suggesting that women should be forced to be house wifes and baby makers? Or maybe Japan should go full Handmaids Tale? It isn't pointed out because removing freedom is not an option. We have evolved beyond such primitive ways.
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- Exendroinient00 4y agoFalling birthrates are inevitable consequences of development of the world. Children in the past were more of an economic choice when majority of families have farms as their local businesses.Children have been a free labor until adulthood when they would be expected to take over the farm from old parents.Simply put,employees were just children in many families. It's a dangerous trend to our entire economic system,which is based on the ever growing pool of people to consume and keep paying pensions.Political solutions probably won't work as the consumption number needs to grow to keep the economic system running.So we need to figure out robotics and automation as a whole.
- dsq 4y agoProbably the best way forwards is not scolding women or young persons but rather extending healthy productive lifespan and raising retirement ages accordingly. This would require great investment in innovative anti aging and longevity research, as well as true public health improvements in Western diwts and lifestyle.
- incomingpain 4y agohttps://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2020/ Projections have Japan losing 50 million population over the next 80 years. They needed to fix this population decline about 20 years ago. Incidentally their tremendous debt and basically 100% tax makes solving their problem impossible. You can calculate the window in which Japan may pull themselves out of their crisis. Certainly not happening in the next 30 years unless they do something dramatic. It appears 45 years or so and they'll maybe manage to solve their problem? The reality, they are going to become crippled and stop functioning properly.
- masterof0 4y agoMake housing accessible to regular folks. So they have a place to live, and raise their kids. Why is so hard?
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoSounds like universal childcare could be a big part of the solution.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y agoThis overlooks the fact that parents want to spend time with their children, I'm not sure childcare is just the solution. I work from home and I miss my daughter 30 minutes after she's in school... And I have another little toddler at home
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoChildcare is good for child development and avoids parental burn out. Missing your kid is better than wishing they were somewhere else. Parents still have plenty of time to be with their kids, and they can put more effort into that time.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y agoSorry I guess I misinterpreted that as "childcare all day long". Still, especially until the 3 years mark I wouldn't consider childcare. Before that time they are really attached to the parents. Then around 3 they make friends, so it's easy at that point
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoWe started at the end of my kid’s second year, so that’s about right. It was great for his social development at that point, since he wasn’t in an infant room or anything.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y agoIt's still pretty challenging for a parent to say "you have a child for 3 years at home", from the career perspective. If both parents are working, they will definitely need a caretaker in some form, and the best would still be that they worked less time and actually spent more with them (incredibly helpful to know the child well)
- hairytrog 4y agoone solution to maintain stable population despite low birth rates is to selectively birth women. japans 1.3 babies per women would more than sufficient. read about it here: https://lvenneri.com/blog/sexratioed https://lvenneri.com/blog/sexratioed
- Balgair 4y agoSpeaking to the comments here: What would it take for you to have two more children starting today? Not just one more child, but two. Not the Japanese, but you. Not sometime, but today. I think that just limiting the horizon on this issue of childrearing is not as helpful. Thinking of the concerns of the 'other place' makes it less impactful. Thinking of just one child more is less impactful. Thinking of a future date where everything is perfect is less impactful. Making the problem bigger, immediate, and personal may give better insights. My personal answer is health, time, and then money. My family's health for two more children is not the best. Another pregnancy, starting today, would endanger us. Then it comes down to time. With the family we already have, we're already time strapped. A live-in-nurse would be hugely beneficial to us to have more kids. Basically, we'd need a 'wife' to get all the housework done. Then it would be money. College in the US in ~18 years is going to be very expensive. Kids are expensive. Daycare is another mortgage as is.
- summertime42 4y agoThis is really the question to ask. I'm due in less than two weeks, and I'm doing the "one and done" route. Costs, house space, time, and frankly, pregnancy wrecked me emotionally and physically. It's incredibly difficult to have a high-paced career (which I love and thrive on, to be clear!) ...when you are throwing up in the toliet constantly. Yup, only one. One is enough.
- Balgair 4y agoTruth! It was 8 months of retching for our first. It's strange though, after they come, the feelings change. It was important for us to give ourselves the space and permission (?) to want others. Not saying in any way that they will for you. Please don't take this that way. Also, best of luck in delivery! It's very very tough, but it's amazing how nature takes over and makes you tougher. For us, it felt like the deepest of magics came in and just took over.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoIgnoring the fact that I'm single, I really don't even know what it would take. I don't have any internal motivation to have 1 child let alone two.
- entropicgravity 4y agoYoung women in Japan have a hard life with young children, especially male children. If the country wants more children they will have to make life better for fertile women. But this would be such a wrenching change for their culture that it's very unlikely to happen. C'est la vie baby.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y agoWhy male children?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoJapan has the highest birthrate in Asia.
- jelliclesfarm 4y ago[..]The population of the world’s third-biggest economy has been in decline for several years, and suffered a record fall of 644,000 in 2020-21, according to government data. It is expected to plummet from its current 125 million to an estimated 88 million in 2065 – a 30% decline in 45 years.[..] Population of Japan in 1800 was 30 million. Japan in 1950 was 90 million. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066956/population-japan-historical/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066956/population-japan... Meanwhile: [..]As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021.[..] The declining TFR is in countries with the highest population density. I am surprised that the brightest minds in the world are hand wringing over what is essentially an obvious mathematical certainty. It’s exponential growth. Across the world, population will peak and then plummet. As it should for the survival of the human species and the rest of the eco system.