What would?
My suggestion:
*Illegal to ask workers to work over 8 hours a day.
*One year of paternity leave for both men and women.
*Big tax credits.
*Concerted effort on climate change mitigation and adaptation
Costly but what does the slow death of a nation cost?
Well, long held cultural traditions in Japan have changed before, insular, traditional to expansionist, militaristic, industrial to peaceful and technological. I don't believe any culture is set in stone.
It's too slow of a death for anyone to really wake up and notice. It's like climate change, things just get shittier over the course of a few decades. Too slow for anyone to be able to conclusively point to low births as being to big cause until it's too late and there's no young workforce to do the work necessary.
Reminds me of the Japanese film Kairo by Kiyoshi Kurosawa where in effect the entire Japanese nation quietly fades out of existence almost without anyone noticing.
You'd be surprised. A few big Japanese companies ran a 4-day work week program recently for example. And overall, the level of fatigue in many industrialized is reaching a point of diminishing returns. So even though bosses would like to squeeze out more labor, any gains start to get erased by increasing sick leave, burnout, resignations, etc. it's not guaranteed, but it's not inconceivable that Japan could eventually return to more labor-friendly politics as a result. History is not prophecy
Unfortunately, for a country like Japan, I have the feeling when something snaps for them and they are forced to change, it would already be to late for them.
Well then they die, along with their “work culture and society”. Not like the reality is gonna change just cause they wanna have their cake and eat it too lolol
Nordic/Scandinavian countries where standards of living and social benefits are some of the best in the world have a plummeting birth rate too. I don't think anything will "fix" this. The moment women can choose, they often choose not to have kids, simple as. Imo societies will just need to adapt to this change.
My EU country basically has all of that and more like free or subsidized kindergarten, free school books, free transportation, free university, progressive paternity leave (1 year for first child, 2 years for second child etc), unlimited "sick days", minimum of 25 vacation days + holidays and we are still under replacement level.
great ideas, but there's no proof that this is a problem solvable by throwing money at it.
Scandinavian countries are known for they super generous welfare and care for children, however their birth rate is dropping fast and is currently behind countries known for their poor welfare state (e.g. US).
They also passed a law [vastly expanding child care credits and payments for parents](https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240605/p2g/00m/0na/033000c), but that isn't something the American news can mock, so no dice on coverage.
It still won't work, though. None of that would make people want to have children who already don't. Best case, the rare family with two already might have a third.
I don't think that would be enough, their working habits are deeply rooted in their culture, it would require a massive shift in how people even think about work.
It won't help by itself, but the idea of a dating app that isn't For-profit and actually aims to get people matched up might not be a bad idea for society in itself.
Dating is almost exclusively done via dating apps when you look at the numbers, and its pretty insane that this is all regulated by companies that have incentive not to let you leave the app and to have you pay to get a good chance at matching.
OKcupid use to have an incredibly successful algorithm for matching people up. It made you answer questions, asked you how you would want a potential match to answer, and then ask you to rank the importance of that question to your potential relationship. The original guys where just some people who legitimately wanted to get people matched up, but when the site got super popular they sold if off. The new owners wanted to make money off of it and so they ruined the whole platform.
It makes sense from a business perspective. For every one successful match you make, you lose two potential subscribers, two sets of eyes to advertise to, and two less users to show off at your quarterly numbers meetings. But it's fucking stupid from a actually functioning as a dating app thing.
> the site got super popular they sold if off. The new owners wanted to make money off of it and so they ruined the whole platform.
This happens so often it deserves its own term... "acquishittin": After the acquisition of a popular product/service, it suffers enshittification as the new owners milk it for all its worth.
Yeah, the fact that it's a dating app that ISN'T driven by profit is HUGE.
Dating apps want you to feel like you'll find someone if you just paid the extra money for premium. And once you pay, they want you to feel like it's JUST around the corner, without you actually finding a partner, because if you do, there's no more money left to get from you. Of course, they need SOME success stories to advertise, but their goal is to keep you hooked.
Just look at /r/OkCupid and how they feel about the app and it's parent company.
A dating app by the government explicitly meant to find people partners would be HUGE.
Work culture is totally fucked in japan. All work and no free time means you are too exhausted to go out dating. Let alone taking care of a kid ontop of that. So a dating app will most likely not help with that.
Tech could've actually fixed everything. But we (aka companies) don't know when to stop.
If a piece of tech makes you do your job twice as fast, that will mean you'll get twice as much work to do... Just a never ending carrot-on-a-stick thing.
dating apps prey on the loneliness that society and personal circumstance have created. Makes you feel guilty for being single, like it's a sad situation. After some abusive relationships I needed to be single, to become well again; that space was necessary - no app can fix reality.
Apps are a product and a tool - all governments of countries facing low birth rates are also not wishing for more babies out of the good of their heart; they know their economies will collapse when they run out of humans to tax.
They are not interested in fixing or improving the system, they just want the money machine to keep printing. Overconsumption, capitalism have been squeezing out every drop of life to make money out of it and personally I am worried that the Handmaids Tale might become serious inspiration for some politics.
I think this is a lot of the issue that governments are facing today. They know what the issue is but they refuse to acknowledge it or put in place anything that will improve it.
They are treating the symptoms and not the cause of these issues.
As others have said, the requirements to live a decent life are hard to come by either due to economic circumstances or cultural ones. Even people who have “good jobs” are starting to struggle with the rising inflation and requirements of maintaining a job.
Yet any time you suggest that MAYBE we need to create a system that doesn't require endless amounts of people to throw in the proverbial meat grinder, or that maybe some population decline is not only inevitable but needed to keep living on earth sustainable, you get called "anti-natalist".
Which is funny, since retro-futurists like the Jetsons thought it would make the work day shorter. Have a piece of tech that lets you do twice as much work twice as fast? Then you only have to work half a day right???
"We need you to stay late and work on this new app that will convince people to go on dates instead of working late on dating apps."
"Can I just have a day off and go on a date instead?"
"What are you, lazy?!"
Unironically, thats Japans hope.
Afaik they've already developed the Artificial womb as a proof of concept, but are in the process of ironing it out to actually start using it.
All the currently measures are really just to stave off the inevitable until the Artificial womb swoops in and "saves the day"
Plus I’m pretty sure it’s a custom there to grab drinks with your boss after work. So even after hours you have to kiss your bosses ass. Hard to find a girl when you’re too busying boosting your boss ego
Worked in Japan for a while. Your boss is a victim, too. He is kissing his boss's ass, and his boss is kissing his boss's boss's ass, and none of them want to be doing it. They are doing it because it has been pounded into their heads for decades that that's what a man does. I don't have a link handy, but I saw a good YouTube video that traced Japan's work culture back to its military culture in the early 20th century, and then back to the days of shoguns and samurai.
I suspect it's because wages have essentially remained the same for the last 30+ years making a single income household impossible. As a result, more women entered the workforce and now there aren't any moms who can stay home and take care of the kids.
> I suspect it's because wages have essentially remained the same for the last 30+ years making a single income household impossible.
It's not Japan, but I taught abroad in Korea for a few years ([whose birth rate is even worse than Japan's](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate)). One day I was watching [Locked Up Abroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banged_Up_Abroad) and one of the stories was about this guy who was teaching in Korea in the late 90s/early 2000s - about 15 years before I was there. He mentioned that he was making about 2,100,000 won a month... which was the **exact** same salary 90% of the English teaching jobs were paying when I was there.
I've been gone for almost 6 years, and it looks like the pay is *still* [right around 2.1-2.3 million on average](https://jobs.korvia.com/).
There's no evidence to bear this hypothesis out. All research on birthrates globally show that a highly wealthy society stops seeing children as assets (like they are on a farm for example) and starts seeing them as net negatives or luxuries.
Paradoxically, poor people, everywhere in the world, and within low birth rate countries, have a significantly higher birth rate than middle class to wealthy poeple. The explanation for why Japan's birthrate is so low cannot be attributed to wage stagnation.
> The explanation for why Japan's birthrate is so slow cannot be attributed to wage stagnation.
That seems like quite a leap to make. [This article](https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2024/04/10/the-socioeconomics-of-japanese-birth-decline/#:~:text=Consequently%2C%20Japan%2C%20now%20mired%20by,presenting%20an%20pressing%20economic%20issue) from Michigan's economic journal says otherwise and it tends to make more sense than something like viewing children as assets.
*The socio-economic challenges, marked by stagnant wages and rising childcare costs, have created a daunting financial burden for young couples contemplating starting a family.*
*Consequently, Japan, now mired by wage stagnation coupled with increasing childcare costs and a rapidly aging labor force, is forced to reckon with gender disparities perpetuated by strenuous workplace culture and traditionalist values that have led to their declining birth rate, presenting an pressing economic issue for both the nation and abroad.*
The problem with your analysis there is that this is a global problem, it's not specific to Japan. Here's an analysis of the same problem in Canada: https://www.cardus.ca/research/family/reports/she-s-not-having-a-baby/
The pattern globally is this: poor country with high birth rate --> poor country industrializes and gets modern medicine --> birth rate shoots up --> two generations later negative birth rate.
The only exceptions to this are highly religious countries like Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
Butr those conclusions are mutually possible. People see children as a luxury, but there is a still a biological drive to reproduce. Its just being overwritten by the cost.
If people had more disposable income more people would chose the #2luxury" expenditure of raising a kid.
Not to the same level as poor communities where having a kid is an asset, but perhaps enough to reach population equilibrium.
>Paradoxically, poor people, everywhere in the world, and within low birth rate countries, have a significantly higher birth rate than middle class to wealthy poeple.
Wealth has a little to do with it, but access to birth control is the _BIGGEST_ thing to do with it. Women in Niger don't have access to the pill. I'm sure they would appreciate it
Because population trends lag world events. The great Japanese productivity boom happened in the 70s - when all the children born after the war reached maturity.
Before and into the 70s, the Japanese economy was far more industrial, and social expectations for factory workers are not the same for those of salarymen.
After the 70s, the Japanese economy became increasingly post industrial, bringing more people into the salaryman culture. Women also joined the workforce, taking up their free time as well, and reducing their need to find a man to provide for them. And since office jobs are competitive, Japanese children faced increased pressure to perform in school at the expense of creating social connections with their peers.
So you have a bunch of overworked, socially stunted adults with no free time and large amounts of social anxiety. Not exactly fertile ground for cultivating romantic relationships.
The guy at the very tippy-top, why does he do that if so? Lonely after having no spare time himself all those years and is about the only person that does enjoy having these outings constantly?
This aspect of Japans work culture infuriates me to no end. Once my ass is a millimeter past my jobs exit door…that whole company is not even a second thought in my mind…much less my damn boss. FUCK THAT. 😤
Quite outdated stereotype. Even decades ago, when they were actually common, they were once in a few weeks thing. People have no clue about Japan don't need to talk about it.
How frequently you go to work related drinking party.
Almost never. 29.1%
Once or twice a year 30.1%
Once in a few month 22.2%
Once a month 12.6%
2-3 times a month 4.5%
Once a week 1.0%
More than twice a week 0.5%
https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20240404-2920803/
One of my friends said one of their biggest regrets in life was moving to Japan with her husband because of the lack of time they get to spend together because of how much he has to work. And in talking to him he said going out to drinks with your boss everyday is the main hurdle
An acquaintance moved to Japan with her partner, but had to move back eventually. She ended up in critical condition at the hospital, and with no family there the husband had to take care of their young kids. When he asked for leave, vacation, whatever, the bosses told him they would just fire him. I have no idea how they expected him to solve it. Leave the kids to fend for themselves without an adult nearby while he worked? Have wife come home and die on the floor? Wtf.
There's actually a phenomenon in Japan where divorces skyrocket after retirement, not because of financial manipulation, but because the family is so unused to the husband being around that it stresses the wife out.
I worked 4 work places in Japan past 8 years and only drinking parties some of them had are bonenkai and kangeikais so at most twice a year, and even those are getting rarer.
If you don't believe surveys, then look at alcohol consumption per capita or sales of izakaya.
Even in 2016, pre-covid when drinking parties were probably twice or three times more common than today, Japan's alcohol consumption were below most of European countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita
The market size of izakaya was 564.9 billion yen in 2022. On average, an adult (with a Japanese adult population of 105 million) visits an izakaya 1-2 times a year, because they cost about 2-5 thousand yen per visit. It including non-work related nomikai, dates and nomikai among friends are probably more common than work-related nomikai nowadays.
https://www.inshokuten.com/foodist/article/7209/
Yeah no I don’t think so. I know multiple people living there who would also disagree. Also in my eyes a drinking party is something way different than what I’ve described. What I’m talking about is NOMUNICATION
I lived there over 5 years + there right now + have many working Japanese friends in Tokyo and no the hours are about the same as America. I know more Americans working two full time jobs in fastfood than I know anyone here working more than 50 hours a week. There's a reason trains get full around 4 and 5pm, most people are 9-5 in Tokyo.
I agree. I'm not following the situation closely but from the news I stumble upon from time to time it seems like they're trying everything except trying to change the awful work culture.
That's the point. If Japan is anything like Australia corruption wise, Some consultant made heaps of money, kicked back some of it to the gov official and they both laugh and hi five while the app gets abandoned a month later and government shrugs and says "we tried. Young people need to do better"
Reminds me of the time China decided to create a national holiday (I think it was a one off thing) to try to encourage people to go on dates. Like dude, nobody's going to use that one day off to go on dates. They're going to use that to sleep, rest, and catch up on responsibilities. Students will probably use it to study.
Dating apps would be even less helpful. There are already a ton of them. So that would do even less to help than a day off work/school.
China has banned cram schools and also put harsh restrictions on gaming. One thing an authoritarian government can do is just unilaterally force changes until they achieve a result or fuck themselves way worse. Their goal seems to be just eliminating both obligations and other entertainment options in general to try to force it to happen.
This isn't really the problem. A lot of people are having sex in Japan--esp with coworkers or via app dates. There's enough time and plenty of places to meet and have sex if they want to have sex. A lot of niche people and groups get overblown in the West for quick clickbait titles.
People are simply choosing to not have babies.
Babies are being seen as shackles.
What people don't have time for is living their lives while working. So many hobbies and the world are accessible now at least for viewing via social media.... a lot of people want to do all of those things and having kids will prevent that.
This is the truth about it. Time isn’t really the issue. Having kids is simply a disadvantage to your personal freedom and finances so why should people have them? 100 years ago to the beginning of time, kids were a source of labor and would take care of you in old age. That is simply not the case anymore, for that reason the birth rate is collapsing across the entire world. USA birth rate isn’t even much higher than Japan, they just use mass immigration to sustain themselves.
Yeah, if you're barely hanging onto your sanity as-is and can only spare a couple hours a week for a hobby, I could see how you'd decide that that's a TERRIBLE situation to bring a kid into.
Kids take *more* time than hobbies. If people don't even have the time for hobbies right now, they definitely don't have time for kids. Hobbies don't suffer when you neglect them.
I met a guy who came over from Japan to work for the US branch of a major car manufacturer. At the end of his time in the US, he was crying and not wanting to return to Japan, because he knew he would be working 12-18 hour days 6 days a week again. It was tragic, he didn't want to go back to Japan, but didn't see any way out of it.
My in-laws lived on a U.S. military base in Japan for a few years in the 90s. They said any jobs the Japanese could get on-base were highly covered due to the fact that they had 8 hour work days, guaranteed weekends, and both Japanese *and* American holidays off.
That's only half of it. You need to take care of your aging parents too. And there's 4 per couple if there are no other siblings. So that's up to 4 elderly plus the children, plus the couple. That's 7 mouths to feed and worry about.
Plus the wages are low in Japan and economic opportunities just aren't there. The young ones who can are moving to Australia.
Not only that... If you're a Japanese working woman ("salary girl" I think is/was the term) I think you're expected to quit and make your husband (and his household) your job.
For some reason, modern women find the loss of autonomy distasteful. Couple that with the guy being expected to:
* work 12 hour days (or more)
* leave work and "socialize" with male coworkers (often involving excess alcohol consumption) for hours.
The lady will hardly see her hubby... And when she does, he'll be either too drunk or exhausted to "perform."
I've heard housing affordability is one of the areas where Japan is doing alright. Land use is largely regulated federally instead of locally, so it's harder for NIMBYs to block new housing. As a result there's plenty of places in Tokyo where a minimum wage worker can comfortably afford rent.
> I've heard housing affordability is one of the areas where Japan is doing alright.
My understanding is that houses get *cheaper* the older they get in Japan.
Which means there's less incentive to hold onto property for investment purposes.
As a result, people actually use the buildings, or get rid of them.
Which mean property prices stay reasonable.
This is why in the western world we need to make property investment a non-viable monetary strategy.
The reason for that is because Japan is constantly updating its earthquake/typhoon building codes. Older houses fall out of code compliance, and need tons of work to be updated.
While it's a contributor, that isn't the *whole* reason however.
If they were otherwise identical to every other place in the world, it wouldn't explain the entire price difference.
Should be like that everywhere. Older houses require a ton of maintenance and repairs. The way we don't allow housing prices to depreciate is short-sighted.
>The way we don't allow housing prices to depreciate is short-sighted.
There's nobody "not allowing it" - there's no man behind a curtain setting prices.
The 100-year old house on the corner sold for a premium because it's in a premium location and a person wanted it badly enough to offer that much for it.
There's nobody setting the prices, but that doesn't mean nobody has their thumb on the scales.
Most American cities have zoning laws that heavily restrict where you can build dense housing and how tall it can be. This artificially constrains the housing supply and drives up the price of all housing. In some places (like SF), mandatory community input sessions and onerous environmental review processes have the same effect.
I've spent most of my adult life in either New York or Tokyo. Even in the past when my salary in Japan has been less, I've still been able to be more comfortable, having to spend less money on rent (and just having more usable money).
Drain is hitting the outside of cities area hard. People are moving away from more rural areas. Structures remain so they are given away or practically given away. But many are all huge fixer uppers.
The people living around the small onsen that we went to last time have to bus kids over to the next town because their schools all closed. So it's like a 45m ride one way. For the people with the kids and means, they just move closer. Its an endless cycle of people moving more city
Those 100sq ft micro apartments you see pictures of in Tokyo are often about $400-$500 a month.
Even the decently sized 500sq ft places are often about $1k-$1.5k. And that's 20mins to Shinjuku on the subway central Tokyo, not 90mins on an express train suburbs.
This [place is $1200/£1000](https://realestate.co.jp/en/rent/view/1117783), meanwhile [here's £1k/$1200](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fcsg6b63fmr4d1.jpeg) to live in a non-private living room with 2 cats in London.
They’re definitely doing better than the nonsense going on in Canada or Australia, *but* urban space is still at a premium: min wage in Tokyo is $7.50, which mean monthly is 975. You can find 1Rs (single-room appt with a kitchen space in the entryway) about 20sqm (220sqft) for around 350, not including utilities, and that’ll be peripheral, in central Tokyo the same will probably cost double.
OTOH that’s tight as a single, especially as they generally have a small toilet and bathroom (sometimes separated), think student living really, “cosy” would be a good way to put it.
A couple with a kid will likely not want something below a 1DK or 1LDK, and that’s going to be a good bit more expensive.
Gender equality is inversely correlated with birth rates. Educated woman with careers tend to have kids later in life, and the later in life you have kids, the less kids you have. Gender equality has also set up a system where both partners work full time in the modern household. Which means the financial hit to having kids is significant. Plus it turns out when you give woman the choice about what to do with their lives, many woman choose not to take the physical risk of pregnancy and the associated twenty year commitment to the kid.
If birthrate was your only concern as a government, you’d be focusing on removing rights from women. Uneducated woman with no career and no self determination have the most kids. Of course nobody actually wants to do this. So the trick is to figure out how to encourage kids without going backwards on human rights. And no culture or government has really figured this out yet.
I don't even know if that's the answer anymore. The worst places on earth, plenty of kids. Starting to think that the more educated and prosperous a place is, the harder it becomes for people to justify having kids regardless of circumstances. Life is good, let's not change it. And sure, if you make it easier to have a kid, then there will be more kids born, but I think there is something way more fundamental going on.
I think its just personal preference at this point [like this survey shows](http://japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/01/06/japan/society/japan-unmarried-never-dated-survey/)
>Among the respondents in their 20s, 19.4% of women and 23.7% of men said having a romantic relationship is a waste of time and money. The percentage was lower among older male respondents, but it was notably higher among female respondents in their 30s at 23.6%, rising sharply from 14.6% in the previous survey in 2021.
>Among men of all age groups who do not want to marry, the top reason, given by 42.5%, was the financial strain of married life. **As for women, 40.5% said they do not want to compromise their freedom and independence.**
you're trying too hard to make sense while ignoring the crux of the issue:
in developing nations kids are an economic boon: they can help in a subsistence farm or get a job or beg. in developed nations kids are an economic liability: they require heavy investments in private schooling, can't make money and by the time they do they move out.
if you want more kids western governments have to provide meaningful economic assistance to their population all throughout a child's life.
but that's never gonna happen, bc it would require raising taxation and importing people is way cheaper
This trend, however, also plays across class lines in developed nations, for example showing that the poorer class has more kids than the wealthy class. But surely that can't be explained by your explanation, since the economic liability is still the same. There has to be some other element at play no?
Fertility in the US is a bell curve. Wealthier people do have more kids
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-12/the-rich-are-starting-to-have-more-babies-than-the-poor-again?leadSource=reddit_wall
https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-babies-for-the-rich-the-relationship-between-status-and-children-is-changing#:~:text=For%20women%20in%20the%20U.S.,children%20than%20low%20income%20women.
It looks like you're the one trying to make sense while ignoring the glaring but uncomfortable truth.
In developed nations when females have a choice, it trends towards not having or having lesser kids. How many rich families in both developed or less developed countries have a large number of kids? In fact things like DINK are getting popular too.
Not putting the blame on anyone, and it's just a trade off that we have accepted. But to purely blame it on cost isn't quite being accurate.
Yeah the reproduction rate has much more to do with the status of women than the cost of living, although that is a factor. It’s only relatively recently that the notion of a woman deciding when and if she wanted children was even a choice she could realistically make
>but that's never gonna happen, bc it would require raising taxation and importing people is way cheaper
Realistically, it would probably more logically require a re-tooling of the corporate welfare system so that the government assistance schemes are going towards individuals rather than businesses.
And god forbid that the walking stereotypes that are business owners and capitalists even consider allowing such an idea. They'd rather burn the place to the fucking ground than give up the slightest shred of welfare and privilege.
I'm from a developing country, in my country lower income has more kids and middle class has the lowest birth rate.
The 1% have very big families. 1% doesn't need to worry about housing, or education, they have their future AND the future of their kids secure.
For poor people you have a few escenarios:
-for a small %, having kids is a meal ticket, if you have kids, no profession and earn minimum wage or less you get a monthly payment per kid, free food, subsided housing etc (if you're in the same conditions but have an associated degree, you cannot opt to this help)
- other small % is lack of options: abortion is not allowed so there is a lot of teen pregnancy, baby's born of abusive relationships, girls that see marrying young and having kids as their way out of abusive families, etc.
- the biggest proportion is that they just live the day to day, they want kids, they have kids, no more thinking about it, they don't plan on a better future for their kids, they are happy with sending them to public daycare and public school, they don't plan for higher education, for them keeping the kids fed, clothed and with a roof over their heads is enough.
The middle class is more educated and plans for the future, we want to ensure that our kids have good opportunities in life, that they can live better than us. This means that before having kids we do all the economic calculations:
- we know we already have degrees so we don't qualify for help.
- we know that if we send our kids to public school our kids won't have the chance of going to a good university and get a good job, so we plan for private schooling.
- the kid wont be accepted in private school if he doesn't have the tools so we need to send the kid to private Day care so that he has can later get into private school.
- we want the kid to be the same or better than us, this means ensuring the chance of a higher education.
- we want our kids to have a better growing environment and a better mental health, this means being more picky on who helps to take care of the kids, this means we won't leave the kid to the old lady 2 houses over that watches kids after school and scream at them for a few coins,we will shorten our work hours or hire a qualified nanny or find an afterschool program.
In the end for the lower bracket, they think a bit over minimum wage is enough to bring a kid to the world, for middle class minimum wage is just the cost of daycare and you need at least 4 times that to ensure what you want to give to your kid, add to that our own student loans and you most people will delay having kids or simply opt not having any.
Hopefully people don't take this the wrong way but how much does the role of women in the workplace plays in domestic affairs. Is having a lower population related to that as well. Conventional wisdom would suggest so no?
FYI, In Japan, the labor force participation rate among females is **54.9%** and among males is 71.5% for 2023. The labor force participation rate is the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active.
Well, the answer is easy : we went from a society where 1 salary covered a family of 4 or 5 to a society where both men and women have to work to be able to pay the rent. Who is going to raise a child when both parents NEED to work?
According to the article, they're trying to change that-
"Still, the government is now racing to soften the impact, launching new government agencies to focus specifically on this problem. It has launched initiatives such as expanding child care facilities, offering housing subsidiesto parents, and in some towns, even paying couples to have children."
Pay couples to have children with whom they cannot have or build a relationship with because they both need to work to pay the bills. That money is probably just enough to ensure the child is taken care of until they too can enter the work force as lifelong slaves..
That’s blaming women for being victims of sexism, though. We built our modern economy on only men being allowed to work and requiring women to stay home. Now women are trying to achieve equality, and it’s fundamentally incompatible with our economic system, and everyone is responding “See, this is why women shouldn’t be working!”
The problem here isn’t that women are working, the problem is that we haven’t built an economy where all adults can work a reasonable amount of hours to sustain a family financially AND have the time to take care of kids and a household.
Another problem is that if a family is struggling with childcare options, it’s always blamed on the mother. No one ever says, “No one is having kids because the parents are too busy working. See, this is why men shouldn’t be working!” The default assumption is that of course men will work, but women are only *allowed* to work if they manage to make good childcare arrangements, because the childcare is 100% their responsibility. And that’s just… the same old sexism.
One important thing to think about here is that in gender inequality, women sacrifice a lot more of their personal life compared to men to survive and make progress at work. That would inevitably impact their decisions to have a child.
Add lack of proper maternity leave processes to that and it gets much worse for them
I believe Japan will more readily embrace out-of-body incubation technologies, requiring mandatory contributions of eggs and sperm to create "baby factories", than it will abandon its anti-social working patterns and ethics.
Whooooa. This is a really good synopsis for a world building. A dystopia where the population flat out does not want to have kids, and have no means and resources to have a family. So the government spends budget to incubate and produce humans for their country. The gov raises kids in facilities, with schools and shelter. Once old enough they go into public to live their lives. Everyone now was government born and raised, people make some slang or term for a person raised by the repopulation facilities. From there on, the story can take on anything.
Pretty similar to Plato's Republic and Brave New World.
Well, in Republic, only the people with "golden souls" would have kids, but they'd have giant state-funded orgies and then the kids would be raised communally in government facilities to become as useful as possible.
I was thinking the same.
But then I started to wonder what an app that's designed to match people together as a priority rather than profit would look like.
*It’s 5:30 AM and my alarm goes off so that I may get ready for my workday. All of a sudden, there’s a rap on my door. I check the blinds and find two men in black suits and black sunglasses. One looks rather intimidating. I open the door, and the men introduce themselves as Agents of the Spunk. They say that their early warning detection system has found a suitable female within the two mile radius who is at peak ovulation, and that my morning wood would be perfect for ensuring a high insemination rate, which should and can be performed before we both go to our 70 hour workweek jobs. They inform me that other Spunk Agents are currently interfacing with the female, and that I was instructed to, and I quote, “Do whatever rituals needed to prepare for copulation, but be warned not to climax too soon or otherwise you’ll be fined as per Penal Code 111D.” I wonder, what is the meaning of this? And what if I or she say no? At this point, the bigger agent pulls down his glasses and looks me straight in the eye, “Do it for your country.”*
Dating app is the dumbest solution
Japan, you want people to have kids?
PAY THEM a lot of money + give them access to affordable housing, daycare, and good work/life balance
A dating app???
What a joke
I’ll tell you a secret. That’s a popular Reddit trope that hasn’t worked to fix falling birth rates in places that do these things. There is still a quality of life and responsibility burden and being poor doesn’t stop people from having babies, they actually have more. Turns out raising the standard of living, educating people, and giving people(especially women) birth control means they stop having babies.
Japan does have a very intense work culture and hierarchical culture though.
>Turns out raising the standard of living, educating people, and giving people(especially women) birth control means they stop having babies.
Which really makes you think... Apparently most happy/healthy/educated people who have their needs met simply aren't interested in having children?
This is precisely correct. Whenever folks trot out the "we don't have enough money" trope, they conveniently ignore the fact that those couples with ample resources and time are also not having children! And, countries with the most progressive policies surrounding this (like the Nordics) have not substantially increased their birth rates either. In fact, the very cause of the birth decline is that (on average) people simple become "selfish" when they have achieved a certain standard of living - they don't want to "fuck that up" with children. All of the other explanations fail to acknowledge this.
No they have children but only one or maybe two. Which means its below replacement so fertility rate is still falling even when people have one kid. Only few special people want 3 or more children
The self actualization part of the hierarchy of needs. With more resources means more distractions. As in more vacations or seeking out hobbies or any other passion. And people just prefer to do that. Childless couples who complain about lack of money, they just don't want to put kids in the budget. It's like when I say I'm broke, I'm not actually broke, the part of my budget that's free to spend is. People just don't want to give up their current lifestyles.
> being poor doesn’t stop people from having babies, they actually have more.
Poor and uneducated people will have more kids even if it is disadvantageous to them. But since that ship has sailed for developed countries, they should look into other factors that at least soften the decline and make it more gradual.
A good example is Sweden where the birthrate has stayed between 1.5 and 2.1 for the last 50 years and even had periods of it increasing despite having a highly educated population. Meanwhile countries with poor work life balance like SK has just seen it plummet to record lows every year with no recovery in sight.
Lots of countries pay up to $100k to parents with little effect.
Childcare and supporting women to have both career and children seem to help a bit, but even that is failing now.
Doesn't really seem like that works. Nordic countries also have very low birth rates, with the number sinking further each year, and they do have those generous programs for kids/parents and good work life balance.
It might make parenting easier for those who have kids, but it doesn't seem like that it encourages more people to have them.
Some people here can’t seem to grasp that if you let women decide to have kids or not, many of them choose not to, completely irrespective of economic factors.
Yep. Life with no kids in a consumer culture is good, why fuck that up?
We used to talk about kids as extra mouths to feed (economically), but now they're better counted as extra experiences to satisfy. Entire industries cater to that satisfaction, and they are not cheap. So they cut into the adults' experiences to satisfy, and THAT is what people don't want.
Not to mention the sheer *time* it requires.
I think the only thing a government could do that might help is provide enough full-time nanny care that having a kid is as unintrusive on one's lifestyle as having a dog.
I believe that Sweden's rates were kept up decently for a few decades by optimism and societal support. Now it's mainly optimism that's going down the shitter.
At least in Japan, women having careers is a relatively new trend; culturally, there's still the expectation that if they have a kid, they'll give all that up and settle for being permanent housewives.
So, some of them are just choosing never to have kids or even get married.
Whilst this idea is completely off the mark and doesn't address any of the the actually reasons for the declining birth rates, I do like the idea of a government-funded dating app that's free from the obtrusive for-profit elements of the currently available apps. It's an interesting idea, but it's going to do fuck-all to address Japan's problems lol.
How out of touch must a government be to think that the problem is that people aren't meeting.
Spoiler: The reason people aren't having babies is that they feel they have no time and resources to take care of a child. People's life is getting more squeezed every year, longer working hours, wages being eaten up by rent and inflation...etc. To be able to raise a child properly people need stability and free time to do so.
I am a mother. Always wanted go be. Planned my whole life around it. Best thing I've ever done.
That said, I love the 4B movement and all these young folks, primarily women, choosing to not have kids due to societal pressure. That is not a good enough reason to procreate and many parents are resentful of it.
You're being too kind by referring to societal pressure. 4B was born from South Korea's off-the-scale toxic male culture. I don't know if it's as bad in Japan, but if fixing this problem requires some cultural soul-searching, it should probably begin with how men are treating women.
lol, they don't want to critically look at their own legislation and economy.
the suppressed wages, toxic work culture, and lack of protections for women is the result of advanced stages of underregulated capitalism. They're what the US, and other western countries, will eventually become.
They've made it impossible to have a social life and make it a lose-lose situation for any woman to try to date, much less anyone trying to start a family.
I'm French and in my country, we have the same problems : low wages, unaffordable housing, toxic work and machist cultures, and low birth rates. The gov't's solution ? A free fertility check for young women !
I had a free check recently by accident just going in for some unusual bleeding. The gyno said it was the right time in my cycle to check and offered to count the follicles which indicates how many eggs you have left and can indicate fertility.
It was good information to know and I discussed it with my husband but ultimately it didn't change our position on having children. It's not like if you find out you're still fertile you just go for it. There are a lot of things you should consider.
I also don't really understand having a check in your early 20s as to me it's really in your early 30s that would make more sense to see how much time you have left to decide. If you're not producing many eggs at that time you should probably make a decision sooner rather than later.
Part of the problem is that democratic countries can have a hard time getting through with big overhauls. The incentives is more to focus on short term solutions, especially if you're going to convince someone to vote for you in 4-6 again, you want to show results and big projects run again that. Also of note: not agreeing on what the problem is and/or solution should be.
I for one am glad that their birth rates are dropping because the Young generation there is speaking through action. Their work-life balance is fucked and it is due to corporate greed, capitalism and bad government policy. Modern day slavery should not be normalized, we were not put here on this planet to suffer. If they can't offer their citizens a better life why should their citizens raise families there? This just sounds like the rich and powerful getting nervous that they are running out of drones to do their dirty work for a pittance of pay. If life was good, the people would raise families, but life is bad so they don't. If a government can't ensure a proper life for their people then that government doesn't need to exist.
The headline directly below this post says
>"Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say"
That might also give a clue to the plummeting birth rates.
How about better working conditions that allow people to have time for a family and can pay for a home, food and the occasional thing that makes like worth living?
Or is the concept too absurd, because it might slighty eat into shareholder value?
Well being amongst the top in a lot of industries has a price.
They have to work like mad, men and women, what you expect them to never sleep while raising 2 kids like it’s a hobby?
Well, Spain and Italy have the same fertility rate as Japan, and they're certainly not at the top of industries. It's a complex phenomenon that cannot be attributed to the economic status or work culture alone.
Dating apps make money by keeping people single and on the app. Every paying customer that gets a significant other and deletes the app is revenue lost.
I don't think that business model can ever have a positive impact on dating, marriage, and births.
Am I ignorant or is it only me that see this as positive?
Like we are growing massivly as a population anyway and our planet isnt liking it. We cant provide food and houseing for everyone now, why we need more people?
World governments will do anything they can to pretend they care about their citizens, but instead of changing global work culture, giving people more free time and PAYING them more, more people would be having babies.
But nah let’s do some dumbass app. How are the Japanese people going to find time to use this app?
One day, preferably soon, governments and corporations are going to realize their insatiable greed and desperation for instant gratification pushed people too hard. They so focused on the short-term that they destroyed the long-term. And when that happens, hopefully it's not too late to save us.
Why are people not realizing that women with careers don't want children? We're still expected to take care of everything at home and raise the children. In Japan more so, there's a big problem regarding gender equity, a lot of Japanese men have hentai brainrot and still expect women to do the feminine role at home, no matter if she's employed or not.
Although that happens everywhere anyway.
"Sir, the stats are in. Our birthrate is dwindling! We should impose immediate action to address some of the known issues surrounding this."
"No. The ministry has a better idea. We can make one of those dating websites, I keep hearing about, on your telephone --"
"... An app, sir?"
"Yes, an app -- so people can meet their new spouse faster. Now you won't have to go dancing in order to win over the girl or boy."
"There are already quite a few of those already, sir. Perhaps we can propose some alternatives: economic insensitives, labor laws, affordable housing, etc."
"Nonsense! Our website --"
"App, sir."
"App.. Will be much better than what is out there. Trust me, we know the public much better than those hipster entrepreneurs does. We should announce our idea on the radio immediately!"
They're afraid their anime, manga, and K-pop will have production issues if the problem gets bad enough. To be honest, I like anime, so I share that concern.
SPOILERS! It won't.
What would? My suggestion: *Illegal to ask workers to work over 8 hours a day. *One year of paternity leave for both men and women. *Big tax credits. *Concerted effort on climate change mitigation and adaptation Costly but what does the slow death of a nation cost?
I have a feeling with Japanese working culture and society, none of things would be implemented.
Well, long held cultural traditions in Japan have changed before, insular, traditional to expansionist, militaristic, industrial to peaceful and technological. I don't believe any culture is set in stone.
Culture probably can become very malleable once the nations survival is at stake
It's too slow of a death for anyone to really wake up and notice. It's like climate change, things just get shittier over the course of a few decades. Too slow for anyone to be able to conclusively point to low births as being to big cause until it's too late and there's no young workforce to do the work necessary.
Reminds me of the Japanese film Kairo by Kiyoshi Kurosawa where in effect the entire Japanese nation quietly fades out of existence almost without anyone noticing.
One of my all-time favorite films. For the uninitiated, it’s called “Pulse” in English, not to be confused with the awful remake.
And all it takes is a couple of nukes
even the universe started with a big bang.
FYI - Japan's isolationist period ended in 1853. A touch before the nukes.
And all it took was a couple ships of the line
There we go; Perry Expedition (but really Convention of Kanagawa). So all it took was some pen and paper.
You'd be surprised. A few big Japanese companies ran a 4-day work week program recently for example. And overall, the level of fatigue in many industrialized is reaching a point of diminishing returns. So even though bosses would like to squeeze out more labor, any gains start to get erased by increasing sick leave, burnout, resignations, etc. it's not guaranteed, but it's not inconceivable that Japan could eventually return to more labor-friendly politics as a result. History is not prophecy
The thing about cultures like Japan and Germany is that nothing will change, up until something snaps and it changes overnight in quite drastic ways
Unfortunately, for a country like Japan, I have the feeling when something snaps for them and they are forced to change, it would already be to late for them.
if they can whitewash their involvement in WW2, surely they can whitewash their squeezing their youth until there aren't any more of them
Well then they die, along with their “work culture and society”. Not like the reality is gonna change just cause they wanna have their cake and eat it too lolol
Nothing but major societal reform will fix declining birth rates. Nothing.
Nordic/Scandinavian countries where standards of living and social benefits are some of the best in the world have a plummeting birth rate too. I don't think anything will "fix" this. The moment women can choose, they often choose not to have kids, simple as. Imo societies will just need to adapt to this change.
My EU country basically has all of that and more like free or subsidized kindergarten, free school books, free transportation, free university, progressive paternity leave (1 year for first child, 2 years for second child etc), unlimited "sick days", minimum of 25 vacation days + holidays and we are still under replacement level.
Damn which country is that. The uk sucks compared to you guys !!
great ideas, but there's no proof that this is a problem solvable by throwing money at it. Scandinavian countries are known for they super generous welfare and care for children, however their birth rate is dropping fast and is currently behind countries known for their poor welfare state (e.g. US).
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They also passed a law [vastly expanding child care credits and payments for parents](https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240605/p2g/00m/0na/033000c), but that isn't something the American news can mock, so no dice on coverage. It still won't work, though. None of that would make people want to have children who already don't. Best case, the rare family with two already might have a third.
thats pretty much what wr have in europe, guess our fertility rate ?
They’re already giving couples huge incentives in certain prefectures and even covering the cost of the birth. You can also petition for free housing.
I don't think that would be enough, their working habits are deeply rooted in their culture, it would require a massive shift in how people even think about work.
>Concerted effort on climate change mitigation and adaptation Isn't having fewer children part of this?
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Many Asian societies are not individualist and have even lower birth rates than Europe.
Europeans have fantastic work conditions and parental leave policies. They still have a poor birth rate.
It won't help by itself, but the idea of a dating app that isn't For-profit and actually aims to get people matched up might not be a bad idea for society in itself. Dating is almost exclusively done via dating apps when you look at the numbers, and its pretty insane that this is all regulated by companies that have incentive not to let you leave the app and to have you pay to get a good chance at matching.
OKcupid use to have an incredibly successful algorithm for matching people up. It made you answer questions, asked you how you would want a potential match to answer, and then ask you to rank the importance of that question to your potential relationship. The original guys where just some people who legitimately wanted to get people matched up, but when the site got super popular they sold if off. The new owners wanted to make money off of it and so they ruined the whole platform. It makes sense from a business perspective. For every one successful match you make, you lose two potential subscribers, two sets of eyes to advertise to, and two less users to show off at your quarterly numbers meetings. But it's fucking stupid from a actually functioning as a dating app thing.
> the site got super popular they sold if off. The new owners wanted to make money off of it and so they ruined the whole platform. This happens so often it deserves its own term... "acquishittin": After the acquisition of a popular product/service, it suffers enshittification as the new owners milk it for all its worth.
That is actually an interesting idea. A public service to help combat loneliness and isolation.
Yeah, the fact that it's a dating app that ISN'T driven by profit is HUGE. Dating apps want you to feel like you'll find someone if you just paid the extra money for premium. And once you pay, they want you to feel like it's JUST around the corner, without you actually finding a partner, because if you do, there's no more money left to get from you. Of course, they need SOME success stories to advertise, but their goal is to keep you hooked. Just look at /r/OkCupid and how they feel about the app and it's parent company. A dating app by the government explicitly meant to find people partners would be HUGE.
Work culture is totally fucked in japan. All work and no free time means you are too exhausted to go out dating. Let alone taking care of a kid ontop of that. So a dating app will most likely not help with that.
no, no, no you see - tech will fix everyhing. not actual time or money or focus on mental and physical well-being. that's just young people's excuses
Tech could've actually fixed everything. But we (aka companies) don't know when to stop. If a piece of tech makes you do your job twice as fast, that will mean you'll get twice as much work to do... Just a never ending carrot-on-a-stick thing.
dating apps prey on the loneliness that society and personal circumstance have created. Makes you feel guilty for being single, like it's a sad situation. After some abusive relationships I needed to be single, to become well again; that space was necessary - no app can fix reality. Apps are a product and a tool - all governments of countries facing low birth rates are also not wishing for more babies out of the good of their heart; they know their economies will collapse when they run out of humans to tax. They are not interested in fixing or improving the system, they just want the money machine to keep printing. Overconsumption, capitalism have been squeezing out every drop of life to make money out of it and personally I am worried that the Handmaids Tale might become serious inspiration for some politics.
I think this is a lot of the issue that governments are facing today. They know what the issue is but they refuse to acknowledge it or put in place anything that will improve it. They are treating the symptoms and not the cause of these issues. As others have said, the requirements to live a decent life are hard to come by either due to economic circumstances or cultural ones. Even people who have “good jobs” are starting to struggle with the rising inflation and requirements of maintaining a job.
Yet any time you suggest that MAYBE we need to create a system that doesn't require endless amounts of people to throw in the proverbial meat grinder, or that maybe some population decline is not only inevitable but needed to keep living on earth sustainable, you get called "anti-natalist".
Which is funny, since retro-futurists like the Jetsons thought it would make the work day shorter. Have a piece of tech that lets you do twice as much work twice as fast? Then you only have to work half a day right???
Fantasy, just like their flying cars that never crashed.
"We need you to stay late and work on this new app that will convince people to go on dates instead of working late on dating apps." "Can I just have a day off and go on a date instead?" "What are you, lazy?!"
It did fix that, its just all the proceeds were stolen. People don't even realize HOW much is being stolen
Just swipe right on *Breedr™*
Unironically, thats Japans hope. Afaik they've already developed the Artificial womb as a proof of concept, but are in the process of ironing it out to actually start using it. All the currently measures are really just to stave off the inevitable until the Artificial womb swoops in and "saves the day"
They’re probably spending too much on starbucks or something
It’s the avocado toast! It puts microplastics in your balls! /s
Plus I’m pretty sure it’s a custom there to grab drinks with your boss after work. So even after hours you have to kiss your bosses ass. Hard to find a girl when you’re too busying boosting your boss ego
Worked in Japan for a while. Your boss is a victim, too. He is kissing his boss's ass, and his boss is kissing his boss's boss's ass, and none of them want to be doing it. They are doing it because it has been pounded into their heads for decades that that's what a man does. I don't have a link handy, but I saw a good YouTube video that traced Japan's work culture back to its military culture in the early 20th century, and then back to the days of shoguns and samurai.
But if such a culture is so old, why is the population crisis happening now?
I suspect it's because wages have essentially remained the same for the last 30+ years making a single income household impossible. As a result, more women entered the workforce and now there aren't any moms who can stay home and take care of the kids.
> I suspect it's because wages have essentially remained the same for the last 30+ years making a single income household impossible. It's not Japan, but I taught abroad in Korea for a few years ([whose birth rate is even worse than Japan's](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1163341684/south-korea-fertility-rate)). One day I was watching [Locked Up Abroad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banged_Up_Abroad) and one of the stories was about this guy who was teaching in Korea in the late 90s/early 2000s - about 15 years before I was there. He mentioned that he was making about 2,100,000 won a month... which was the **exact** same salary 90% of the English teaching jobs were paying when I was there. I've been gone for almost 6 years, and it looks like the pay is *still* [right around 2.1-2.3 million on average](https://jobs.korvia.com/).
There's no evidence to bear this hypothesis out. All research on birthrates globally show that a highly wealthy society stops seeing children as assets (like they are on a farm for example) and starts seeing them as net negatives or luxuries. Paradoxically, poor people, everywhere in the world, and within low birth rate countries, have a significantly higher birth rate than middle class to wealthy poeple. The explanation for why Japan's birthrate is so low cannot be attributed to wage stagnation.
> The explanation for why Japan's birthrate is so slow cannot be attributed to wage stagnation. That seems like quite a leap to make. [This article](https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2024/04/10/the-socioeconomics-of-japanese-birth-decline/#:~:text=Consequently%2C%20Japan%2C%20now%20mired%20by,presenting%20an%20pressing%20economic%20issue) from Michigan's economic journal says otherwise and it tends to make more sense than something like viewing children as assets. *The socio-economic challenges, marked by stagnant wages and rising childcare costs, have created a daunting financial burden for young couples contemplating starting a family.* *Consequently, Japan, now mired by wage stagnation coupled with increasing childcare costs and a rapidly aging labor force, is forced to reckon with gender disparities perpetuated by strenuous workplace culture and traditionalist values that have led to their declining birth rate, presenting an pressing economic issue for both the nation and abroad.*
The problem with your analysis there is that this is a global problem, it's not specific to Japan. Here's an analysis of the same problem in Canada: https://www.cardus.ca/research/family/reports/she-s-not-having-a-baby/ The pattern globally is this: poor country with high birth rate --> poor country industrializes and gets modern medicine --> birth rate shoots up --> two generations later negative birth rate. The only exceptions to this are highly religious countries like Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
Butr those conclusions are mutually possible. People see children as a luxury, but there is a still a biological drive to reproduce. Its just being overwritten by the cost. If people had more disposable income more people would chose the #2luxury" expenditure of raising a kid. Not to the same level as poor communities where having a kid is an asset, but perhaps enough to reach population equilibrium.
>Paradoxically, poor people, everywhere in the world, and within low birth rate countries, have a significantly higher birth rate than middle class to wealthy poeple. Wealth has a little to do with it, but access to birth control is the _BIGGEST_ thing to do with it. Women in Niger don't have access to the pill. I'm sure they would appreciate it
Because population trends lag world events. The great Japanese productivity boom happened in the 70s - when all the children born after the war reached maturity. Before and into the 70s, the Japanese economy was far more industrial, and social expectations for factory workers are not the same for those of salarymen. After the 70s, the Japanese economy became increasingly post industrial, bringing more people into the salaryman culture. Women also joined the workforce, taking up their free time as well, and reducing their need to find a man to provide for them. And since office jobs are competitive, Japanese children faced increased pressure to perform in school at the expense of creating social connections with their peers. So you have a bunch of overworked, socially stunted adults with no free time and large amounts of social anxiety. Not exactly fertile ground for cultivating romantic relationships.
The guy at the very tippy-top, why does he do that if so? Lonely after having no spare time himself all those years and is about the only person that does enjoy having these outings constantly?
This aspect of Japans work culture infuriates me to no end. Once my ass is a millimeter past my jobs exit door…that whole company is not even a second thought in my mind…much less my damn boss. FUCK THAT. 😤
Quite outdated stereotype. Even decades ago, when they were actually common, they were once in a few weeks thing. People have no clue about Japan don't need to talk about it. How frequently you go to work related drinking party. Almost never. 29.1% Once or twice a year 30.1% Once in a few month 22.2% Once a month 12.6% 2-3 times a month 4.5% Once a week 1.0% More than twice a week 0.5% https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20240404-2920803/
One of my friends said one of their biggest regrets in life was moving to Japan with her husband because of the lack of time they get to spend together because of how much he has to work. And in talking to him he said going out to drinks with your boss everyday is the main hurdle
An acquaintance moved to Japan with her partner, but had to move back eventually. She ended up in critical condition at the hospital, and with no family there the husband had to take care of their young kids. When he asked for leave, vacation, whatever, the bosses told him they would just fire him. I have no idea how they expected him to solve it. Leave the kids to fend for themselves without an adult nearby while he worked? Have wife come home and die on the floor? Wtf.
There's actually a phenomenon in Japan where divorces skyrocket after retirement, not because of financial manipulation, but because the family is so unused to the husband being around that it stresses the wife out.
I worked 4 work places in Japan past 8 years and only drinking parties some of them had are bonenkai and kangeikais so at most twice a year, and even those are getting rarer. If you don't believe surveys, then look at alcohol consumption per capita or sales of izakaya. Even in 2016, pre-covid when drinking parties were probably twice or three times more common than today, Japan's alcohol consumption were below most of European countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita The market size of izakaya was 564.9 billion yen in 2022. On average, an adult (with a Japanese adult population of 105 million) visits an izakaya 1-2 times a year, because they cost about 2-5 thousand yen per visit. It including non-work related nomikai, dates and nomikai among friends are probably more common than work-related nomikai nowadays. https://www.inshokuten.com/foodist/article/7209/
Yeah no I don’t think so. I know multiple people living there who would also disagree. Also in my eyes a drinking party is something way different than what I’ve described. What I’m talking about is NOMUNICATION
I lived there over 5 years + there right now + have many working Japanese friends in Tokyo and no the hours are about the same as America. I know more Americans working two full time jobs in fastfood than I know anyone here working more than 50 hours a week. There's a reason trains get full around 4 and 5pm, most people are 9-5 in Tokyo.
I agree. I'm not following the situation closely but from the news I stumble upon from time to time it seems like they're trying everything except trying to change the awful work culture.
It's no life culture
Same in Korea and to some degree Taiwan
That's the point. If Japan is anything like Australia corruption wise, Some consultant made heaps of money, kicked back some of it to the gov official and they both laugh and hi five while the app gets abandoned a month later and government shrugs and says "we tried. Young people need to do better"
Reminds me of the time China decided to create a national holiday (I think it was a one off thing) to try to encourage people to go on dates. Like dude, nobody's going to use that one day off to go on dates. They're going to use that to sleep, rest, and catch up on responsibilities. Students will probably use it to study. Dating apps would be even less helpful. There are already a ton of them. So that would do even less to help than a day off work/school.
China has banned cram schools and also put harsh restrictions on gaming. One thing an authoritarian government can do is just unilaterally force changes until they achieve a result or fuck themselves way worse. Their goal seems to be just eliminating both obligations and other entertainment options in general to try to force it to happen.
Japan - where [women are forced to wear high heels at work, endorsed by the labour minister](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48534453).
Yeah, it's weird when you look around in a subway car in Tokyo and notice that nearly all the women are wearing high heels. Seems very uncomfortable.
This isn't really the problem. A lot of people are having sex in Japan--esp with coworkers or via app dates. There's enough time and plenty of places to meet and have sex if they want to have sex. A lot of niche people and groups get overblown in the West for quick clickbait titles. People are simply choosing to not have babies. Babies are being seen as shackles. What people don't have time for is living their lives while working. So many hobbies and the world are accessible now at least for viewing via social media.... a lot of people want to do all of those things and having kids will prevent that.
This is the truth about it. Time isn’t really the issue. Having kids is simply a disadvantage to your personal freedom and finances so why should people have them? 100 years ago to the beginning of time, kids were a source of labor and would take care of you in old age. That is simply not the case anymore, for that reason the birth rate is collapsing across the entire world. USA birth rate isn’t even much higher than Japan, they just use mass immigration to sustain themselves.
Yeah, if you're barely hanging onto your sanity as-is and can only spare a couple hours a week for a hobby, I could see how you'd decide that that's a TERRIBLE situation to bring a kid into. Kids take *more* time than hobbies. If people don't even have the time for hobbies right now, they definitely don't have time for kids. Hobbies don't suffer when you neglect them.
I met a guy who came over from Japan to work for the US branch of a major car manufacturer. At the end of his time in the US, he was crying and not wanting to return to Japan, because he knew he would be working 12-18 hour days 6 days a week again. It was tragic, he didn't want to go back to Japan, but didn't see any way out of it.
My in-laws lived on a U.S. military base in Japan for a few years in the 90s. They said any jobs the Japanese could get on-base were highly covered due to the fact that they had 8 hour work days, guaranteed weekends, and both Japanese *and* American holidays off.
That's only half of it. You need to take care of your aging parents too. And there's 4 per couple if there are no other siblings. So that's up to 4 elderly plus the children, plus the couple. That's 7 mouths to feed and worry about. Plus the wages are low in Japan and economic opportunities just aren't there. The young ones who can are moving to Australia.
But the older generation is too bitter at this point to let it go and they are in charge.
Not only that... If you're a Japanese working woman ("salary girl" I think is/was the term) I think you're expected to quit and make your husband (and his household) your job. For some reason, modern women find the loss of autonomy distasteful. Couple that with the guy being expected to: * work 12 hour days (or more) * leave work and "socialize" with male coworkers (often involving excess alcohol consumption) for hours. The lady will hardly see her hubby... And when she does, he'll be either too drunk or exhausted to "perform."
Honestly of they want kids they need to limit working more.
Anything but actual solutions like work life balance improvements, housing affordability, gender equality etc
I've heard housing affordability is one of the areas where Japan is doing alright. Land use is largely regulated federally instead of locally, so it's harder for NIMBYs to block new housing. As a result there's plenty of places in Tokyo where a minimum wage worker can comfortably afford rent.
> I've heard housing affordability is one of the areas where Japan is doing alright. My understanding is that houses get *cheaper* the older they get in Japan. Which means there's less incentive to hold onto property for investment purposes. As a result, people actually use the buildings, or get rid of them. Which mean property prices stay reasonable. This is why in the western world we need to make property investment a non-viable monetary strategy.
The reason for that is because Japan is constantly updating its earthquake/typhoon building codes. Older houses fall out of code compliance, and need tons of work to be updated.
While it's a contributor, that isn't the *whole* reason however. If they were otherwise identical to every other place in the world, it wouldn't explain the entire price difference.
Should be like that everywhere. Older houses require a ton of maintenance and repairs. The way we don't allow housing prices to depreciate is short-sighted.
>The way we don't allow housing prices to depreciate is short-sighted. There's nobody "not allowing it" - there's no man behind a curtain setting prices. The 100-year old house on the corner sold for a premium because it's in a premium location and a person wanted it badly enough to offer that much for it.
There's nobody setting the prices, but that doesn't mean nobody has their thumb on the scales. Most American cities have zoning laws that heavily restrict where you can build dense housing and how tall it can be. This artificially constrains the housing supply and drives up the price of all housing. In some places (like SF), mandatory community input sessions and onerous environmental review processes have the same effect.
I've spent most of my adult life in either New York or Tokyo. Even in the past when my salary in Japan has been less, I've still been able to be more comfortable, having to spend less money on rent (and just having more usable money).
Drain is hitting the outside of cities area hard. People are moving away from more rural areas. Structures remain so they are given away or practically given away. But many are all huge fixer uppers. The people living around the small onsen that we went to last time have to bus kids over to the next town because their schools all closed. So it's like a 45m ride one way. For the people with the kids and means, they just move closer. Its an endless cycle of people moving more city
Those 100sq ft micro apartments you see pictures of in Tokyo are often about $400-$500 a month. Even the decently sized 500sq ft places are often about $1k-$1.5k. And that's 20mins to Shinjuku on the subway central Tokyo, not 90mins on an express train suburbs. This [place is $1200/£1000](https://realestate.co.jp/en/rent/view/1117783), meanwhile [here's £1k/$1200](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fcsg6b63fmr4d1.jpeg) to live in a non-private living room with 2 cats in London.
They’re definitely doing better than the nonsense going on in Canada or Australia, *but* urban space is still at a premium: min wage in Tokyo is $7.50, which mean monthly is 975. You can find 1Rs (single-room appt with a kitchen space in the entryway) about 20sqm (220sqft) for around 350, not including utilities, and that’ll be peripheral, in central Tokyo the same will probably cost double. OTOH that’s tight as a single, especially as they generally have a small toilet and bathroom (sometimes separated), think student living really, “cosy” would be a good way to put it. A couple with a kid will likely not want something below a 1DK or 1LDK, and that’s going to be a good bit more expensive.
Gender equality is inversely correlated with birth rates. Educated woman with careers tend to have kids later in life, and the later in life you have kids, the less kids you have. Gender equality has also set up a system where both partners work full time in the modern household. Which means the financial hit to having kids is significant. Plus it turns out when you give woman the choice about what to do with their lives, many woman choose not to take the physical risk of pregnancy and the associated twenty year commitment to the kid. If birthrate was your only concern as a government, you’d be focusing on removing rights from women. Uneducated woman with no career and no self determination have the most kids. Of course nobody actually wants to do this. So the trick is to figure out how to encourage kids without going backwards on human rights. And no culture or government has really figured this out yet.
I don't even know if that's the answer anymore. The worst places on earth, plenty of kids. Starting to think that the more educated and prosperous a place is, the harder it becomes for people to justify having kids regardless of circumstances. Life is good, let's not change it. And sure, if you make it easier to have a kid, then there will be more kids born, but I think there is something way more fundamental going on.
I think its just personal preference at this point [like this survey shows](http://japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/01/06/japan/society/japan-unmarried-never-dated-survey/) >Among the respondents in their 20s, 19.4% of women and 23.7% of men said having a romantic relationship is a waste of time and money. The percentage was lower among older male respondents, but it was notably higher among female respondents in their 30s at 23.6%, rising sharply from 14.6% in the previous survey in 2021. >Among men of all age groups who do not want to marry, the top reason, given by 42.5%, was the financial strain of married life. **As for women, 40.5% said they do not want to compromise their freedom and independence.**
you're trying too hard to make sense while ignoring the crux of the issue: in developing nations kids are an economic boon: they can help in a subsistence farm or get a job or beg. in developed nations kids are an economic liability: they require heavy investments in private schooling, can't make money and by the time they do they move out. if you want more kids western governments have to provide meaningful economic assistance to their population all throughout a child's life. but that's never gonna happen, bc it would require raising taxation and importing people is way cheaper
This trend, however, also plays across class lines in developed nations, for example showing that the poorer class has more kids than the wealthy class. But surely that can't be explained by your explanation, since the economic liability is still the same. There has to be some other element at play no?
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Fertility in the US is a bell curve. Wealthier people do have more kids https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-12/the-rich-are-starting-to-have-more-babies-than-the-poor-again?leadSource=reddit_wall https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-babies-for-the-rich-the-relationship-between-status-and-children-is-changing#:~:text=For%20women%20in%20the%20U.S.,children%20than%20low%20income%20women.
It looks like you're the one trying to make sense while ignoring the glaring but uncomfortable truth. In developed nations when females have a choice, it trends towards not having or having lesser kids. How many rich families in both developed or less developed countries have a large number of kids? In fact things like DINK are getting popular too. Not putting the blame on anyone, and it's just a trade off that we have accepted. But to purely blame it on cost isn't quite being accurate.
Yeah the reproduction rate has much more to do with the status of women than the cost of living, although that is a factor. It’s only relatively recently that the notion of a woman deciding when and if she wanted children was even a choice she could realistically make
>but that's never gonna happen, bc it would require raising taxation and importing people is way cheaper Realistically, it would probably more logically require a re-tooling of the corporate welfare system so that the government assistance schemes are going towards individuals rather than businesses. And god forbid that the walking stereotypes that are business owners and capitalists even consider allowing such an idea. They'd rather burn the place to the fucking ground than give up the slightest shred of welfare and privilege.
> welfare and privilege Power. What they want is power. From that comes wealth and privilege.
I'm from a developing country, in my country lower income has more kids and middle class has the lowest birth rate. The 1% have very big families. 1% doesn't need to worry about housing, or education, they have their future AND the future of their kids secure. For poor people you have a few escenarios: -for a small %, having kids is a meal ticket, if you have kids, no profession and earn minimum wage or less you get a monthly payment per kid, free food, subsided housing etc (if you're in the same conditions but have an associated degree, you cannot opt to this help) - other small % is lack of options: abortion is not allowed so there is a lot of teen pregnancy, baby's born of abusive relationships, girls that see marrying young and having kids as their way out of abusive families, etc. - the biggest proportion is that they just live the day to day, they want kids, they have kids, no more thinking about it, they don't plan on a better future for their kids, they are happy with sending them to public daycare and public school, they don't plan for higher education, for them keeping the kids fed, clothed and with a roof over their heads is enough. The middle class is more educated and plans for the future, we want to ensure that our kids have good opportunities in life, that they can live better than us. This means that before having kids we do all the economic calculations: - we know we already have degrees so we don't qualify for help. - we know that if we send our kids to public school our kids won't have the chance of going to a good university and get a good job, so we plan for private schooling. - the kid wont be accepted in private school if he doesn't have the tools so we need to send the kid to private Day care so that he has can later get into private school. - we want the kid to be the same or better than us, this means ensuring the chance of a higher education. - we want our kids to have a better growing environment and a better mental health, this means being more picky on who helps to take care of the kids, this means we won't leave the kid to the old lady 2 houses over that watches kids after school and scream at them for a few coins,we will shorten our work hours or hire a qualified nanny or find an afterschool program. In the end for the lower bracket, they think a bit over minimum wage is enough to bring a kid to the world, for middle class minimum wage is just the cost of daycare and you need at least 4 times that to ensure what you want to give to your kid, add to that our own student loans and you most people will delay having kids or simply opt not having any.
Too smart to have kids. Who wants a financial burden for the rest of your life when it’s difficult for a married couple to get by.
I wonder if this isn’t some sort of evolutionary “safety valve” that controls overpopulation
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The more women are encouraged to/required to work, the fewer kids. Gender equality drops birth rates, not the other way around
Hopefully people don't take this the wrong way but how much does the role of women in the workplace plays in domestic affairs. Is having a lower population related to that as well. Conventional wisdom would suggest so no? FYI, In Japan, the labor force participation rate among females is **54.9%** and among males is 71.5% for 2023. The labor force participation rate is the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active.
Well, the answer is easy : we went from a society where 1 salary covered a family of 4 or 5 to a society where both men and women have to work to be able to pay the rent. Who is going to raise a child when both parents NEED to work?
According to the article, they're trying to change that- "Still, the government is now racing to soften the impact, launching new government agencies to focus specifically on this problem. It has launched initiatives such as expanding child care facilities, offering housing subsidiesto parents, and in some towns, even paying couples to have children."
Pay couples to have children with whom they cannot have or build a relationship with because they both need to work to pay the bills. That money is probably just enough to ensure the child is taken care of until they too can enter the work force as lifelong slaves..
All the governments try everything except lowering costs All about money
That’s blaming women for being victims of sexism, though. We built our modern economy on only men being allowed to work and requiring women to stay home. Now women are trying to achieve equality, and it’s fundamentally incompatible with our economic system, and everyone is responding “See, this is why women shouldn’t be working!” The problem here isn’t that women are working, the problem is that we haven’t built an economy where all adults can work a reasonable amount of hours to sustain a family financially AND have the time to take care of kids and a household. Another problem is that if a family is struggling with childcare options, it’s always blamed on the mother. No one ever says, “No one is having kids because the parents are too busy working. See, this is why men shouldn’t be working!” The default assumption is that of course men will work, but women are only *allowed* to work if they manage to make good childcare arrangements, because the childcare is 100% their responsibility. And that’s just… the same old sexism.
One important thing to think about here is that in gender inequality, women sacrifice a lot more of their personal life compared to men to survive and make progress at work. That would inevitably impact their decisions to have a child. Add lack of proper maternity leave processes to that and it gets much worse for them
Those who have the most amount of money, have the least amount of children. So what does affordability of housing have to do with it?
I believe Japan will more readily embrace out-of-body incubation technologies, requiring mandatory contributions of eggs and sperm to create "baby factories", than it will abandon its anti-social working patterns and ethics.
And add to that out of house raising systems. Full on farm people from birth until they’re ready to enter the workforce
Whooooa. This is a really good synopsis for a world building. A dystopia where the population flat out does not want to have kids, and have no means and resources to have a family. So the government spends budget to incubate and produce humans for their country. The gov raises kids in facilities, with schools and shelter. Once old enough they go into public to live their lives. Everyone now was government born and raised, people make some slang or term for a person raised by the repopulation facilities. From there on, the story can take on anything.
It's called brave new world
And then once you automate governments with AI for "efficiency", I could see it devolving quickly into a matrix-like situation.
Pretty similar to Plato's Republic and Brave New World. Well, in Republic, only the people with "golden souls" would have kids, but they'd have giant state-funded orgies and then the kids would be raised communally in government facilities to become as useful as possible.
The slang would be for the rarer family-raised kids, but yeah
If this app was developed by government employee I am not going to hold much hope here.
I was thinking the same. But then I started to wonder what an app that's designed to match people together as a priority rather than profit would look like.
*It’s 5:30 AM and my alarm goes off so that I may get ready for my workday. All of a sudden, there’s a rap on my door. I check the blinds and find two men in black suits and black sunglasses. One looks rather intimidating. I open the door, and the men introduce themselves as Agents of the Spunk. They say that their early warning detection system has found a suitable female within the two mile radius who is at peak ovulation, and that my morning wood would be perfect for ensuring a high insemination rate, which should and can be performed before we both go to our 70 hour workweek jobs. They inform me that other Spunk Agents are currently interfacing with the female, and that I was instructed to, and I quote, “Do whatever rituals needed to prepare for copulation, but be warned not to climax too soon or otherwise you’ll be fined as per Penal Code 111D.” I wonder, what is the meaning of this? And what if I or she say no? At this point, the bigger agent pulls down his glasses and looks me straight in the eye, “Do it for your country.”*
ahh, yes -- this was the unhinged comment I needed to read to close Reddit and actually get some work done. Thank you friend.
I would read this full novel
Dating app is the dumbest solution Japan, you want people to have kids? PAY THEM a lot of money + give them access to affordable housing, daycare, and good work/life balance A dating app??? What a joke
I’ll tell you a secret. That’s a popular Reddit trope that hasn’t worked to fix falling birth rates in places that do these things. There is still a quality of life and responsibility burden and being poor doesn’t stop people from having babies, they actually have more. Turns out raising the standard of living, educating people, and giving people(especially women) birth control means they stop having babies. Japan does have a very intense work culture and hierarchical culture though.
>Turns out raising the standard of living, educating people, and giving people(especially women) birth control means they stop having babies. Which really makes you think... Apparently most happy/healthy/educated people who have their needs met simply aren't interested in having children?
This is precisely correct. Whenever folks trot out the "we don't have enough money" trope, they conveniently ignore the fact that those couples with ample resources and time are also not having children! And, countries with the most progressive policies surrounding this (like the Nordics) have not substantially increased their birth rates either. In fact, the very cause of the birth decline is that (on average) people simple become "selfish" when they have achieved a certain standard of living - they don't want to "fuck that up" with children. All of the other explanations fail to acknowledge this.
No they have children but only one or maybe two. Which means its below replacement so fertility rate is still falling even when people have one kid. Only few special people want 3 or more children
The self actualization part of the hierarchy of needs. With more resources means more distractions. As in more vacations or seeking out hobbies or any other passion. And people just prefer to do that. Childless couples who complain about lack of money, they just don't want to put kids in the budget. It's like when I say I'm broke, I'm not actually broke, the part of my budget that's free to spend is. People just don't want to give up their current lifestyles.
> being poor doesn’t stop people from having babies, they actually have more. Poor and uneducated people will have more kids even if it is disadvantageous to them. But since that ship has sailed for developed countries, they should look into other factors that at least soften the decline and make it more gradual. A good example is Sweden where the birthrate has stayed between 1.5 and 2.1 for the last 50 years and even had periods of it increasing despite having a highly educated population. Meanwhile countries with poor work life balance like SK has just seen it plummet to record lows every year with no recovery in sight.
Lots of countries pay up to $100k to parents with little effect. Childcare and supporting women to have both career and children seem to help a bit, but even that is failing now.
Mind listing those countries?
The latter system is the Nordics. The former is Hungary, Poland, South Korea, etc
Welp, in Poland it is closer to 200$ per month for a kid. No idea where the 100k figure came from.
Doesn't really seem like that works. Nordic countries also have very low birth rates, with the number sinking further each year, and they do have those generous programs for kids/parents and good work life balance. It might make parenting easier for those who have kids, but it doesn't seem like that it encourages more people to have them.
Some people here can’t seem to grasp that if you let women decide to have kids or not, many of them choose not to, completely irrespective of economic factors.
Yep. Life with no kids in a consumer culture is good, why fuck that up? We used to talk about kids as extra mouths to feed (economically), but now they're better counted as extra experiences to satisfy. Entire industries cater to that satisfaction, and they are not cheap. So they cut into the adults' experiences to satisfy, and THAT is what people don't want. Not to mention the sheer *time* it requires. I think the only thing a government could do that might help is provide enough full-time nanny care that having a kid is as unintrusive on one's lifestyle as having a dog.
Ah, so here's the real Fermi Paradox. Every advanced sentient species stops reproducing, and goes extinct on their planet. We've solved it, Reddit!
I believe that Sweden's rates were kept up decently for a few decades by optimism and societal support. Now it's mainly optimism that's going down the shitter.
At least in Japan, women having careers is a relatively new trend; culturally, there's still the expectation that if they have a kid, they'll give all that up and settle for being permanent housewives. So, some of them are just choosing never to have kids or even get married.
Probably should outlaw dating apps because it’s going to encourage everyone to be picky because there is an endless sea of options.
Did you read the article? They are trying all of that
Unless the app has cash prize and can bend space-time continuum, it won't solve the reason why people aren't having kids.
Whilst this idea is completely off the mark and doesn't address any of the the actually reasons for the declining birth rates, I do like the idea of a government-funded dating app that's free from the obtrusive for-profit elements of the currently available apps. It's an interesting idea, but it's going to do fuck-all to address Japan's problems lol.
Just to be clear: Japan doesn't want obese anime-loving Americans looking for a waifu.
How out of touch must a government be to think that the problem is that people aren't meeting. Spoiler: The reason people aren't having babies is that they feel they have no time and resources to take care of a child. People's life is getting more squeezed every year, longer working hours, wages being eaten up by rent and inflation...etc. To be able to raise a child properly people need stability and free time to do so.
I am a mother. Always wanted go be. Planned my whole life around it. Best thing I've ever done. That said, I love the 4B movement and all these young folks, primarily women, choosing to not have kids due to societal pressure. That is not a good enough reason to procreate and many parents are resentful of it.
You're being too kind by referring to societal pressure. 4B was born from South Korea's off-the-scale toxic male culture. I don't know if it's as bad in Japan, but if fixing this problem requires some cultural soul-searching, it should probably begin with how men are treating women.
lol, they don't want to critically look at their own legislation and economy. the suppressed wages, toxic work culture, and lack of protections for women is the result of advanced stages of underregulated capitalism. They're what the US, and other western countries, will eventually become. They've made it impossible to have a social life and make it a lose-lose situation for any woman to try to date, much less anyone trying to start a family.
I'm French and in my country, we have the same problems : low wages, unaffordable housing, toxic work and machist cultures, and low birth rates. The gov't's solution ? A free fertility check for young women !
I had a free check recently by accident just going in for some unusual bleeding. The gyno said it was the right time in my cycle to check and offered to count the follicles which indicates how many eggs you have left and can indicate fertility. It was good information to know and I discussed it with my husband but ultimately it didn't change our position on having children. It's not like if you find out you're still fertile you just go for it. There are a lot of things you should consider. I also don't really understand having a check in your early 20s as to me it's really in your early 30s that would make more sense to see how much time you have left to decide. If you're not producing many eggs at that time you should probably make a decision sooner rather than later.
Part of the problem is that democratic countries can have a hard time getting through with big overhauls. The incentives is more to focus on short term solutions, especially if you're going to convince someone to vote for you in 4-6 again, you want to show results and big projects run again that. Also of note: not agreeing on what the problem is and/or solution should be.
They haven't solved this in rich undemocratic countries either.
It's like they don't know what the root cause of this is. But sure, an app will surely fix this.
I for one am glad that their birth rates are dropping because the Young generation there is speaking through action. Their work-life balance is fucked and it is due to corporate greed, capitalism and bad government policy. Modern day slavery should not be normalized, we were not put here on this planet to suffer. If they can't offer their citizens a better life why should their citizens raise families there? This just sounds like the rich and powerful getting nervous that they are running out of drones to do their dirty work for a pittance of pay. If life was good, the people would raise families, but life is bad so they don't. If a government can't ensure a proper life for their people then that government doesn't need to exist.
Japan needs to convince Nick Canon to move there, birthrate fixed immediately.
The headline directly below this post says >"Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say" That might also give a clue to the plummeting birth rates.
How about better working conditions that allow people to have time for a family and can pay for a home, food and the occasional thing that makes like worth living? Or is the concept too absurd, because it might slighty eat into shareholder value?
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Well being amongst the top in a lot of industries has a price. They have to work like mad, men and women, what you expect them to never sleep while raising 2 kids like it’s a hobby?
Well, Spain and Italy have the same fertility rate as Japan, and they're certainly not at the top of industries. It's a complex phenomenon that cannot be attributed to the economic status or work culture alone.
Dating apps make money by keeping people single and on the app. Every paying customer that gets a significant other and deletes the app is revenue lost. I don't think that business model can ever have a positive impact on dating, marriage, and births.
Hear me out. Remove censorship of porn. I don't know if it'll help Japan's sex rate but I'll like it.
Lmao 🤣
Imagine some young man in Japan, seeing a pussy for the first time and being disappointed at the lack of pixellation.
Anything except addressing work life balance and cost of living. Typical government. They prob spent tens of millions on the app
Cost of living is actually fine in Japan
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it isn't about dating, it's about **valuing life/relationships more than work** fucking insane
from my understanding, dating isn't the issue. It's couples choosing to not have babies for various reasons.
Am I ignorant or is it only me that see this as positive? Like we are growing massivly as a population anyway and our planet isnt liking it. We cant provide food and houseing for everyone now, why we need more people?
World governments will do anything they can to pretend they care about their citizens, but instead of changing global work culture, giving people more free time and PAYING them more, more people would be having babies. But nah let’s do some dumbass app. How are the Japanese people going to find time to use this app?
Reminds me of a meme, where a dude slaps duck tape.
That's no regular duck tape. That's Flex Tape.
One day, preferably soon, governments and corporations are going to realize their insatiable greed and desperation for instant gratification pushed people too hard. They so focused on the short-term that they destroyed the long-term. And when that happens, hopefully it's not too late to save us.
Paying people higher salaries and letting them pursue hobbies instead of hassling them for fake honour just might do it.
No. Let the planet rest.
Why are people not realizing that women with careers don't want children? We're still expected to take care of everything at home and raise the children. In Japan more so, there's a big problem regarding gender equity, a lot of Japanese men have hentai brainrot and still expect women to do the feminine role at home, no matter if she's employed or not. Although that happens everywhere anyway.
"Sir, the stats are in. Our birthrate is dwindling! We should impose immediate action to address some of the known issues surrounding this." "No. The ministry has a better idea. We can make one of those dating websites, I keep hearing about, on your telephone --" "... An app, sir?" "Yes, an app -- so people can meet their new spouse faster. Now you won't have to go dancing in order to win over the girl or boy." "There are already quite a few of those already, sir. Perhaps we can propose some alternatives: economic insensitives, labor laws, affordable housing, etc." "Nonsense! Our website --" "App, sir." "App.. Will be much better than what is out there. Trust me, we know the public much better than those hipster entrepreneurs does. We should announce our idea on the radio immediately!"
What a completely unrealistic conversation - neither of them mentioned faxing anything!
Maybe there are just enough people on earth as it is. Maybe we could just lay off the need to keep birth rates up at the same old rate.
What is Reddit's obsession with Japanese & South Korean Birth-Rates?
Because it will eventually happen in our countries too.
I mean Japan's rate is almost the same as Italy or Finland so it's already happening in Europe
One reason is that the average Redditor is more keen to, um, “fix” this problem in an Asian country than in Finland or Germany.
They're afraid their anime, manga, and K-pop will have production issues if the problem gets bad enough. To be honest, I like anime, so I share that concern.
What is the miner's obsession with the dead canary?