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I belive an equally good headline would have been: "Japan wants women to have 2.1 kids but they're too scared to make them" Japan has a Hikkomori problem, whic

I belive an equally good headline would have been: "Japan wants women to have 2.1 kids but they're too scared to make them" Japan has a Hikkomori problem, which means a 30% reduction in birth rate because those people stay single forever. Japan also has the issue that large parts of the country will be heavily affected by global warming and you can already see the increase in typhoons right now. Parents are scared if their children will still have a safe home. And lastly, the economy has stopped growing and turned into a zero sum game. It's a cutthroat competition for who gets promoted because new leadership positions typically only open up if someone dies or retires. That means young families are broke. The paternity leave is catnip for western newspapers, but in my opinion almost irrelevant.

Barrin92 4y ago
>Japan has a Hikkomori problem, which means a 30% reduction in birth rate about 0.5% of the Japanese population are estimated to live like hermits, how are they responsible for 30% in birth rate reductions? If anything this is the Western media catnip, because it's the most overhyped, Japanese stereotype I've ever seen.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  I was referring to the wider movement where young people give up on normal participation in daily life. So I'd also count grass eaters, for example. The 30% came from my memory of these statistics: "About one-third of women (37.4%) and men (36.6%) aged 18 to 24 described themselves as single and not interested in a relationship." https://phys.org/news/2020-11-japanese-increasingly-disinterested-dating.html https://phys.org/news/2020-11-japanese-increasingly-disinter...
  - chownie 4y ago
    Hikikomori are severely isolated people who basically represent Japan's analogue to homelessness. These people leave their rooms seldom and their houses never. Herbivore men and hikikomori are very much not the same. To say they are is tantamount to saying that incels are part of a wider "hoarder" movement, these groups might be affected by similar societal dynamics but they're not related at all
    - fxtentacle 4y ago
      Since we're discussion birth rates here, I believe it does make sense to group together 2 groups of severely isolated men who are very unlikely to procreate, even if they strongly differ in other aspects.
      - fomine3 4y ago
        It worth to discuss but group it as Hikkomori is wrong. Note that Herbivore men doesn't mean that they doesn't have friends. Normal daily life, but without loving partner. Maybe you think that living without partner isn't normal, but young Japanese don't think so.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      There are quite a few different reasons why people become reclusive. For instance the person with panic disorder stays at home because they are afraid they’ll have a panic attack if they go out. A person with social phobia looks superficially the same but they have a very different inner experience. Schizotypal people are constitutionally inclined to think everybody is out to get them and then they get bullied in school and the bullying is supported by the teachers and school administration and learn that everybody really is out to get them. There are a number of syndromes that look superficially like the Hikikomori syndrome, of about 10 people I know in the US who are chronically depressed and fit the “NEET” (No Employment, Education or Training) criteria there is one who I think really is a Hikikomori (can’t seem to tell the difference between Hololive and reality), the rest all differ in some major way.
    - pdimitar 4y ago
      You can split hairs all you like, the fact remains that even the Japanese government recognizes the country has a problem with plummeting birth rates. Also a lot of the, let's call it "citizen resistance" against the prevalent extremely toxic Japanese work culture, is not captured by statistics. Japanese are different people and they will not just admit "yeah I would only see my wife and kid for 1 hour before I dine and collapse, preparing for yet another 16 hour workday" if asked on the street. Written workplace surveys? Forget about it, to them it's a disgrace to badmouth their employer; never happening. It's obvious the Japanese have a problem. You arguing doesn't change that.
- deleted 4y ago
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Barrin92 4y ago

>Japan has a Hikkomori problem, which means a 30% reduction in birth rate about 0.5% of the Japanese population are estimated to live like hermits, how are they responsible for 30% in birth rate reductions? If anything this is the Western media catnip, because it's the most overhyped, Japanese stereotype I've ever seen.

fxtentacle 4y ago
I was referring to the wider movement where young people give up on normal participation in daily life. So I'd also count grass eaters, for example. The 30% came from my memory of these statistics: "About one-third of women (37.4%) and men (36.6%) aged 18 to 24 described themselves as single and not interested in a relationship." https://phys.org/news/2020-11-japanese-increasingly-disinterested-dating.html https://phys.org/news/2020-11-japanese-increasingly-disinter...
- chownie 4y ago
  Hikikomori are severely isolated people who basically represent Japan's analogue to homelessness. These people leave their rooms seldom and their houses never. Herbivore men and hikikomori are very much not the same. To say they are is tantamount to saying that incels are part of a wider "hoarder" movement, these groups might be affected by similar societal dynamics but they're not related at all
  - fxtentacle 4y ago
    Since we're discussion birth rates here, I believe it does make sense to group together 2 groups of severely isolated men who are very unlikely to procreate, even if they strongly differ in other aspects.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      It worth to discuss but group it as Hikkomori is wrong. Note that Herbivore men doesn't mean that they doesn't have friends. Normal daily life, but without loving partner. Maybe you think that living without partner isn't normal, but young Japanese don't think so.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    There are quite a few different reasons why people become reclusive. For instance the person with panic disorder stays at home because they are afraid they’ll have a panic attack if they go out. A person with social phobia looks superficially the same but they have a very different inner experience. Schizotypal people are constitutionally inclined to think everybody is out to get them and then they get bullied in school and the bullying is supported by the teachers and school administration and learn that everybody really is out to get them. There are a number of syndromes that look superficially like the Hikikomori syndrome, of about 10 people I know in the US who are chronically depressed and fit the “NEET” (No Employment, Education or Training) criteria there is one who I think really is a Hikikomori (can’t seem to tell the difference between Hololive and reality), the rest all differ in some major way.
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    You can split hairs all you like, the fact remains that even the Japanese government recognizes the country has a problem with plummeting birth rates. Also a lot of the, let's call it "citizen resistance" against the prevalent extremely toxic Japanese work culture, is not captured by statistics. Japanese are different people and they will not just admit "yeah I would only see my wife and kid for 1 hour before I dine and collapse, preparing for yet another 16 hour workday" if asked on the street. Written workplace surveys? Forget about it, to them it's a disgrace to badmouth their employer; never happening. It's obvious the Japanese have a problem. You arguing doesn't change that.
deleted 4y ago
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