Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low
Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low
Japan saw record 1.6 million deaths last year as births marked a 5% fall
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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 still don't understand how a falling population leads to a society crumbling.
The only thing a reduction in population does is make domestic labor more expensive. If that increase in expense outpaces the product of your society, that's not on the population, that's on the sustainability of the society.
And that's only the capitalist way of looking at it.
I believe Japan has less inequality than the US. Not sure on that, but I think it's true. I think in this case we see work culture playing a role. The only country in the world with a worse work culture than the US is Japan. No one has time to even think about having kids when you are a company man there. It's similar in the US.
Management issues... I know what can help... Introduce Agile.
What if the population is stabilizing? Unlimited growth is death. Anyone who thinks differently hasn't looked at how life works. That a population that undergoes a huge increase crashes due to starvation and disease. This is observable from bacteria to humans. It could be Japan is entering a stable period where needs and resources are predictable and known. Sounds like a higher standard of living to me. The downside is the huge geriatric population will need more and more resources until that situation becomes part of the new stable norm.
Stagnant is how a capitalist mindset sees it. They can't stand that since their scam depends on unlimited growth. So of course any take on this from the stand point of greed would think its a terrible thing for a population to shrink to fit its resources not keep growing to allow ever increasing profits.
People now realise that kids are a lot of hard work and fucking expensive.....and that yearly skiing holidays are fun.
Inflation, daycare, and work-life balance are the complaints I hear most. A ton of the jobs and good education are in Tokyo so people want to be there. This overloads all the daycare and other systems. Since corona, the floodgates have opened on price increases and inflation. Since 3/11 energy costs have been rising and things with Russia also hit (after nuclear, tons of fuel is needed and is imported, often from Russia).
Having more things in other parts of the country that still paid well would help. Where I live (in Tohoku) daycare slots are plentiful and there are all kinds of subsidies for kids. The only jobs here, though, are fishery, forestry, agriculture, etc. My town is less bad because a lot was rebuilt after the tsunami, but the lack of people also means a lack of tax which also means infrastructure suffers. Rust and crumbling things everywhere.
Try "to function as a society" when the biosphere becomes unlivable. The biggest and root cause of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is human overpopulation:
- https://phys.org/news/2023-04-population-growth-main-driver-carbon.html
- https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2017/07/co2_saved/giv-3902H9Q7lx2HE5M7/
The fact that the biggest and root cause of a mass extinction event is being reduced, is a good thing.
I'm here to spread my seed.
Get to work juice boys!
