Women in Japan say biggest cause of low birth rate is high cost of child care: survey

19 comments

1. It’s not that much. The high costs come in the form of companies owning you entirely. There’s no sympathy for exhaustion, no outlet for stress, just staple expectations.

   Every friend I have here says basically the same thing, and as far as I know the subsidies for childcare are pretty solid; measures to tackle a declining population.

   Am I tripping?

2. The study seems quite weak :
   – only 550 women answered
   – in these women, it seems that the biggest part of them is not in a position to give birth anymore

   So it may reveal why the birth rate declined 20 years ago, not now.

3. Except the Japan Fertility survey clearly shows that the issue of the low birthrate isn’t with married people not able to afford childcare. Married people in Japan have their average 2 kids.

   The issue is that the number of unmarried people who then have no kids has skyrocketed despite a big chunk of these being both willing to get married and have kids, except the do neither.

   And affordable childcare will not make people suddenly marry…

4. Another big factor may be the fact that a high percentage of Japanese women are bat shit crazy-control freaks that most men don’t want to live with.

5. As someone who is living here and trying to get the hours to keep my kid in daycare without working somewhere that is super far, with low wages and Mata-hara happening all the time….this isnt really out of touch.

6. I only pay 5,000 yen per month for my daughter’s full time daycare through our local ward. Previously she attended a private one that was 70,000 yen a month but that still seemed reasonable to me considering that if I was in the US still I’d be paying around $3000 per month.

7. …..today in, “Water is wet!,” news.

8. I just had one, and the costs is what kept/factored in our decision to not have another one.

   So sure, the data may seem off to a lot of us or to western sensibilities (lots of surveys here seem suspect but whatever), but it isn’t far off from the mark.

   Pour what we can into our single kid, or handcuff everybody because we’ll fall off a financial cliff? We picked the latter. And I think there’s quite a few people out there like us.

9. My wife and I are both working full time, so we had to find babysitters for child care, which costs almost one person’s salary. The family support provided by the city hall is entirely useless as you have to jump through a lot of hoops just to *maybe* use it occasionally. Japan wants women back to work and higher birth rates at the same time but not willing to change anything to accommodate family needs.

10. It’s almost like trying to raise a family on a single income less than 40k USD per year is really difficult.

11. I’m guessing a lot of both men and women don’t feel they have enough money to raise children.

12. Everything I read from the government is so unserious about this “issue” I really think they are secretly glad the population is dropping.

    I will tell you though that money is NOT the actual problem. I would tell you what ARE the actual problems but I will only get grief for them.

    However, I will say that child-birth was incredibly dangerous 200 years ago even in a place as technologically advanced as Europe, but that did not stop women from wanting or trying. Neither did being dirt poor.

    But you know, there were certain human and familial norms that were true for thousands of years, but in the last 50 or so westernized nations decided to turn things on their head and insisted everything would continue to run smoothly, and now that we see it hasn’t people’s response is like “We just didn’t turn everything upside-down HARD enough.”

    And as I say, I could explain, but I always get grief, so pass.

13. It’s not only just about financial burden. It’s also that the expectation of taking care of the household and the children is placed on the mother no matter how progressive and engaged the father may be. It’s placed on her by a very patriarchal society: doctors, schools, bosses, grandparents, nosy older neighbors, judgmental public health office workers, etc. No amount of spare change tossed at our feet will influence what those people think.

14. Not at all. We used to be poorer, but the birth rate was three times what it is now. So why did the birth rate go down when we got richer?
    Simple. It is because wealthier, educated women have entered the workforce.

15. Childcare is astonishingly cheap here; I suspect there’s more problem with the cost of housing and educating children, and the limited availability of childcare places, than the actual cost of childcare.

16. I recon a big part of it is that they understand birth control. I work in health in NZ and the plan to withdraw but suddenly go deep method is popular.

17. The reason why there are less kids is now that gay people are allowed to exist they stopped pretending to be straight.

    Jesus we all know this.

18. By Japan do they mean:

    Women in the urban cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc.)?

    Women in the countryside?

    Young women? (20s/30s)

    Seems the article focuses on the 40/50 age range which is odd, but I guess that’s what they “could only get”

19. I’m shocked. Aren’t you shocked? This is shocking news. /s