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Switzerland has a fertility rate of about 1.4 and decreasing, unless they do something, there won't be much of a country left in a few generations. Solutions ca
by GuB-42 6mo ago
Switzerland has a fertility rate of about 1.4 and decreasing, unless they do something, there won't be much of a country left in a few generations. Solutions can involve immigration or natalism, but something has to change.
Japan is worse.
- rayiner 6mo agoI don’t know anything about Switzerland, but immigration isn’t a solution to the prospect of Japan “not having a country left in a few generations.” There might be more or fewer people living on the islands, but “Japan” will be gone either way.
- platinumrad 6mo agoHow do you define "Japan"?
- rayiner 6mo agoThe standard way. The same way you define “Thailand” or “Bangladesh” or “Vietnam?”
- platinumrad 6mo agoIt seems like "Japan" will very much still exist in either of your scenarios then.
- red-iron-pine 6mo agothey're islands mon ami, it's not hard to define them -- the borders are fairly straightforward you can piddle around about a few tiny islands elsewhere, e.g. okinawa, but the main islands are undisputedly "japan"
- platinumrad 6mo agoSounds like it will still exist then, barring climate catastrophe.
- throwawaypath 6mo agoThe nation state located on the islands of Japan populated with almost exclusively Japanese people.
- platinumrad 6mo agoGood news then: it's still going to be there in a hundred years!
- throwawaypath 6mo ago[flagged]
- throwawaypath 6mo agoIt won't be "Japan" if they start importing immigrants by the tens of millions.
- felipeerias 6mo agoNowadays Japan’s fertility rate is higher than most of its neighbours. We are just used to pick it as an example because it started aging earlier than most other countries. Japanese population is still over 120 million. Forecasts put it falling below 100 million at some point in the second half of this century. Things will have to change in order to keep population stable in the long term, but the Japanese approach seems IMHO more sensible than that of other countries. Cohesive democratic societies are fragile.
- Starman_Jones 6mo agoI can’t parse this statement. I’m not sure if this about culture changes or about climate threat.
- platinumrad 6mo ago[flagged]
- rayiner 6mo agoYour idea of “racism” arose in a western historical context and simply has no application to Japan. Japan didn’t bring a bunch of people to their country by force and then enslave them and deny them political rights for hundreds of years. Nation-states not only exist, the UN recognizes their existence as a human right in the The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN recognizes a right of “peoples”—groups of people bound together by culture, ancestry, language, etc.—to self determination. I was born in a country named after one ethnocultural group (Thailand) and my family is from another country named after our ethnocultural group (Bangladesh). Japan is the homeland of Japanese people, just as Thailand is the homeland of Tai people, and Bangladesh is the homeland of Bengali people.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- platinumrad 6mo agoNon-Japanese people don't be weird about Japan challenge (difficulty: impossible)
- weregiraffe 6mo ago[flagged]
- rayiner 6mo ago“Don’t think the whole world is America challenge” (difficulty: impossible)
- slaw 6mo agoAfrica has fertility rate 4.02 in 2025. Do you want Switzerland look like Africa?
- nslsm 6mo agoThe solution to a low fertility rate is to… destroy the country? What’s the difference?
- mothballed 6mo ago[flagged]
- brendoelfrendo 6mo agoThis is the most divorced-man comment I've ever read.
- XajniN 6mo agoAnd the most correct.
- brendoelfrendo 6mo agoIdk why people who hate women can't resist telling on themselves like this. What makes you think this line of thinking is acceptable, or even rational?
- dh2022 6mo agoThe first paragraph in the GP comment makes a lot of sense. Just today I was listening to a program on NPR about birth control in Uganda - women were complaining about their husbands want more and more children. These women in Uganda were getting their contraceptives discreetly without their husbands knowledge. When women are empowered they choose to have less kids. (Another example of this is closer to home. Project 2025 wants to curtail contraceptives distribution and usage with the same goal: more kids. It is the same logic - diminish women’s power have re: pregnancy in order to increase birth rate)
- dublinstats 6mo agoOr significantly increasing life-expectancy. Or new fertility technologies. A few generations is a long time. The birth rates of the immigrant waves would presumably just plummet quickly anyway as they join the culture. Since that seems to have happened with all our other health problems.
- LAC-Tech 6mo agoA lot of people would rather live in their own aged society than a slightly younger foreign one. Emphasis on slightly younger. Fertility is declining basically everywhere. Much of the developing world is now below replacement including India and China.
- fzeroracer 6mo ago'A lot of people' usually means the predominately older strata of society. Japan has been having issues with the younger generation being locked out of employment and advancement because of older generations needing to hold onto their career with a death grip and retirement ages going up. The aged society scam can only persist as long as they can exploit the younger generation. When that collapses, the end result is either going to be leaving the elderly to die or things start collapsing in new and interesting ways The only reason why people 'prefer' this is for the same reason 'prefer' to believe climate change doesn't exist. Eventually reality catches up.
- LAC-Tech 6mo agoYou've completely missed my point. Immigration is not a long term solution to an aged society. The societies of target countries are aging as well and not far behind. What you advocate is to bolster the work force of a country with a fertility rate of ~1 and falling, with people from a place with a fertility rate of ~2 and falling.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]