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The biggest issue that no one ever wants to talk about is ....

... it's isn't about the QUANTITY of life

.... it's about the QUALITY of life.

If people are able to have a comfortable, stable and prosperous life, with plenty of their own free time to enjoy without worrying about losing everything then they'll make time and an effort to have a family and children.

If all our wealthy overlords ever want to do is squeeze every penny out of us all the time, then people will be less likely to want to have children.

"It's so expensive to have children in Japan that birthrate is further declining."

I swear to God these people couldn't connect the dots with a GPS.

You can tell capitalism is super efficient and sustainable by how it totally collapses without fresh babies to sacrifice.

But I bet they will continue to work people to the bone as a point of pride...like I wonder what could be contributing to this problem.

This problem is not isolated to Japan. Countries all across the world are facing the same issue and have been for a number of years.

Create a shitty, miserable, society with no rights or support, and people do not want to bring children into it.... who'd guess?

The flannel has been wrung dry to the detriment of the working class; there is no where to go, no more water to squeeze from them. This is global society / capitalism falling apart.

Japan will literally collapse into fire before they allow immigration

No one has time for family in Japan

When I watch yt videos about people leaving the workplace at 10pm, I wonder how suicide rate isn't way higher

Huge amount of japanese descent people in Brazil (including me), but I have the feeling the japanese would rather have their country implode than give us nationality

I live and work in Japan, and it definitely is not a very condusive environment for younger Japanese people to have children. My wife and I are both foreigners, and we are in out late 30's and just had our first. The country has some really great benefits and support services for having children, but we definitely would not be able to do this if we worked for Japanese companies, and with the Japanese work mentality.

While it IS getting better, work being the central pillar of life and the expectations from the older generations are still very much a thing. The long hours of paper pushing, the culture of promotion based on age and time served rather than innovation and hard work takes a toll on people. If you are not living in the office in your 20s to show your dedication, you are looked down upon, at least accoridng to my Japanese friends.

Immigration could help fix some of this. Japan is a desireable, largely affordable country, that is safe when it comes to raising children. Living here as a foreigner though has specific challenges, and your job prospects are pretty poor unless you are lucky, and access to housing and just general living can be challenging, even if you can speak Japanese.

I just got a new job in Kyoto, and I currently live in Tokyo. I would say around 40% of the houses we applied to look at would not even let us see the properties because we are foreigners. That's 100% legal and totally ok to say here, and I take that in stride. In Australia (where I am from), they would either just tell you to piss off, or show you the property knowing you don't have a chance, so at least they are upfront about it here I guess. Getting a credit card is a massive ordeal, which you kinda need here because debit cards are increasingly hard to find, and they don't even work for all bills and systems, and getting a bank account ... it all just snowballs.

Also anything outside of the major cities is kinda dead. I love it, but living and thriving there in places that have more space that would probably promote having big families, is nearly impossible, or at least impossibly boring. This is not unique to Japan, Australia is largely the same outside of the main cities.

Not sure what the fix is. But annecdotally I see these articles all the time, and yet there are kids and younger families always around, so not sure if it is as serious as they are saying, or more media hype?

In the context of Capitalism, sure, Japan is in trouble.

But then again, any system that demands infinite growth within a finite system has a biological parallel… in cancer. Yes, capitalism is economic cancer.

Japan has a bright future in front of it, if it can successfully pioneer an effective degrowth system that prioritizes the lives of people over Paraiste-Class profits.

I still don't understand the obsession. Not everything has to be a ponzi scheme where line go up. Things can shrink, it's ok. Not everything lasts forever. At some point you can abandon areas and let them decay.

If the Japanese want people to work 80 hour weeks (and go drinking with their boss every night) maybe they should make polyamorous marriage a thing. Kids are a lot easier to deal with if you have help.

this story comes out every so often about japan, rarely if ever mentions (slightly) lower births per woman in italy, china, spain, or the same 1.3 as e.g. poland, finland, canada

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_recent_value_desc=false

those are 2022 figures but i doubt there's been significant change

there's basically no first world country above the 2.1 replacement rate

A lot of countries are headed there. America isn't keeping their population growth in the replacement category either. Why do you think abortion and immigration are such an issue in America? They want the white people reproducing, not the immigrants. Wherever there is a super strict, racist or almost racist, immigration policy, look at their population growth.

nothing about the idea of having children appeals to me in the slightest

Cultural norms around marriage and work-life balance are strangling Japan’s future. Good article, minus one for not exploring innovative or radical solutions to the crisis.

🐱🐱🐱🐱

Taiwanese family living in Taiwan and frequent Japan prior to having kids and after having kids.

Most people are quick to point out the gruesome work culture, but honestly, that is just a small part of the total issue.

1- Japanese people culturally hate outsiders. So their immigration system is setup to almost never give a foreigner citizenship.

2- Japanese people culturally have a mindset that if you pop one out, it's you and only you that share that burden. That means that if you're on a train and struggling with a crying toddler that is tired of standing, nobody and I mean nobody will let you have their seat. Half the patrons will turn up their volume on their headset and the other half with mean mug/glare at you for annoying them. You wanna know the worst part. This mindset transcends to the kid's grandparents. That's right. The grandparents will not lift a finger to help you.

Edit: I also want to add that the burden is not even on the father, outside of the finances. The father does not need to help with any baby duties. I have met many Japanese men that has kids that has never even changed a diaper. Why the fuck would a Japanese woman want to have kids?

3- The government is not making it easy to help the families. Do you have a sleeping kid in a stroller? Well, you better hold the kid if you're using mass transit. Elevators are an afterthought. So once you get off a train, you either have to walk an extreme distance to get to an elevator or in some instances there isn't even an elevator at all. In some rare occasion there is a designated elevator for strollers and wheel chair access, it's jammed packed with people who is able-bodied and can take the escalator, all of which won't exit the elevator to let people with wheel chairs or strollers in.

I went to Osaka Universal studios and ask to rent a stroller. The guy didn't speak English at all. We eventually used my phone to translate and he asked me my kids age. I said 5. He said, is today his birthday? I said no. He turned 5 a few weeks ago. He then poceeds to deny me from renting a stroller. I reasoned with him telling him my kid is having major jet lag and needs a place to sleep right now. He told me to just go back to the hotel to sleep because he wasn't going to rent a stroller to me.

I love Japan and the Japanese people, but honestly they all hate kids.

Oh no, not our out of control population growth fueled by resources running out as I type this comment and causing unspeakable damage to the biosphere of the planet.

Whatever will we do if our numbers fall below 7 billion.

If you want people to actually be able to have a family, you need to enable that. My understanding of Japanese society is that you have medium to no personal freedom over how you spend your time, and meeting people is difficult. It feels like they are so intent on shooting themselves in the foot, and then complaining about their foot hurting.

I love Japan, but I will say it has its issues that often get overlooked. Workplace culture is horrific in Japan and it contributes to their high suicide rates. There's even a word in Japanese that specifically refers to a person dying from being overworked. I know friends who immigrated to Japan, only to regret it because they saw for themselves just how harsh the workplace culture was. Japanese people have no time for their family. Something must change or this problem is going to get worse but given it's a highly conservative culture I'm not sure it's going to see changes anytime soon.

Turns out isolationist culture doesn't stand the test of time. Who knew?

Experts blamed fewer marriages in recent years due to the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic…

It’s 2025. Can we please stop using Covid as a catch-all excuse?

I'm sure artificially lowering female med student's grades to increase drop-outs amoung women will help with the financial stability and job security needed to raise a child!

fear of decline

I hear that welcoming migrants is a great way to address this problem...