Japan allocates US$25 billion to reverse birthrate decline

38 comments

1. The DJP throwing money at people with kids a decade ago didn’t make any difference.

2. Will that financial support also apply to families of foreign residents?

3. So…4 day work week then? No, oh ok
   Because more time with family/to go out and meet a partner is a big factor

4. i am learning the japanese language and respect the culture totally

   so im reading a manga and the 2 middle schoolers, who are dating (15 years old) don’t call each other by their first names yet. the less formal being the most casual like being a family member

   very interesting culture compared to the usa and also other asian cultures i am familiar with too

   the world is fascinating

5. I volunteer as tribute!

6. All that going into day care, huh

7. Pay people an actual salary to take care of the home/children, and reduce the work week to four days a week. The subsidies they provide now are nowhere near enough.

8. Allow office workers to work from home if they have a kid.

9. Reduce average work hours. Increase options for child care. Right now it’s quit your career or give up on kids. Lots of young men and women pick the career.

10. 25 billion is really a trivia number when you consider what is ACTUALLY necessary to get people to have children. I’m the 25 billion will go toward, like, marketing to get people to have babies or something (as opposed to day care, paid parental leave, etc)

11. It’ll just get embezzled

12. Most of your westernized ideas wouldn’t work for Japan.

13. M O R EEEEEEEEE

14. Women do not want to be left to raise a child alone. This is the big fear. Strong family services may be the only way to relax this anxiety. France did this with some
    Success

15. I really do think they should pay the child benefit monthly instead of every four months.

16. They’ve been throwing money at the issue for years but until Japan reforms its work culture very little will change.

    You need more than money to raise a kid.

17. This is great policy to help parents financially and good social policy, but it isn’t going to do squat to increase fertility.

    The only way to increase fertility is to get women to marry younger. 35 is too old to get married.

18. Just a waste of money. It’s unpopular opinion, but evidently cash will not solve the problem

19. The work culture is horrendous. Old men ruining young lives with intolerant, extremely demanding, narcissistic behaviour. It results in long hours, mandatory attendance to after work shindigs, from drinks as a company to any manner of others, depending on what the boss wants.

    If your company dictates your life, you have very little time to be yourself, particularly as a woman, I think. So what are you supposed to do?

    You can pump billions upon billions of ¥ into making parenthood more attractive, but you’re not tackling a major issue unless you’re putting mandates on company behaviour being more lax with employees that are at the right age to have little ones.

    One example of companies dictating how people live that was on TV here several years ago:

    A preschool boss had determined a ‘graph’ (to paraphrase) as to who of the staff could get pregnant, and when they could, according to a pregnancy roster. These are vast majority female staff. One of the staff members got pregnant out of turn, and she and her HUSBAND were brought into the preschool and reprimanded for their … selfishness.

    You can’t pay that shit away.

20. I live in Akashi City. For what i know is famous as the best city for children assistance.

    The monthly aid we receive is not much but better than in others cities i think. The hospital and medicines for my son are Completely Free.
    Kindergarten is free for your second son/daughter.

    Honestly, is not enough to desire other babies, but enough to have a “baby boom” in this city compared to the rest of Japan.

21. Maybe let more people immigrate if people ain’t having kids?

22. Am I the only one who’s been hearing a whole lot about these “reverse birth rate by doubling spending etc etc.” stories a lot, but **once you read them they say absolutely NOTHING** about **HOW** or **WHAT** they are **ACTUALLY** going to do, except some vague help families/ kids this or reduce that.
    Only to end with the obligatory: “uhhh **probably** like this …. maybe? We aren’t sure…”

    Oh and the funding source for all this spending? **No idea – We’ll think about it later, maybe.**

    Wth is this government??? **HOW IS IT STILL RUNNING** with these people running it??

23. Is there any actual stats that work-life balance is the main cause? These things are great to advocate for but the root is a lack of young people.

    More immigration is the answer. The biggest answer. No one here wants to really talk about it.

24. Many people are pointing out the toxic work environment, which is definitely a factor.

    But declining birthrates are an issue in pretty much all developed countries. Life is too expensive, in Europe too. If European countries didn’t have immigration, they’d have the same problems, I mean they do, it’s just that immigration is keeping those nations younger.

    They have made some recent efforts to make it easier for south and south east Asians to get working visa’s, but it is still a massive hurdle.

    I guess what I’m saying is, japanese work culture is so incredibly hard to change. Easing immigration is easier.

25. Nothing will work, short of literally giving people something like $15-25k for each child born.
    The declining birth rate is almost the same in every single first world country. Japan simply lacks the immigration to mask the population decline.

    This is literally a byproduct of modern society and increased living standards, and perhaps modern working culture mixed in. They cannot stop it short of handing out a decent amount of cash for each child you have up to maybe 4.

26. I’m all in favour of Japan fixing it’s birthrate issues without resorting to immigration but throwing money at it doesn’t sound wise.

27. Why do they keep throwing cash at people? I don’t get it.

    The company I work for is soft in comparison to some hardcore traditional companies and people here still stay hours after work for literally no reason. Also salaries aren’t going up. Until these things are fixed people won’t have children.

28. As a massage chair amateur macroeconomics expert who got a C- in GCSE mathematics, surely the answer to this thorny problem is obvious?

    1. Make it illegal to work more than 9 hours per day (including lunchtime and fag breaks).
    1. Make it illegal for people to not report their company breaking the working hours law.
    1. Companies caught breaking the working hours law must give all employees affected free money for life, including accounting for inflation and shrinkflation, with said employees no longer having to actually work. The managers responsible for law breakage will be publicly shamed in public too.
    1. Every company must equally divide 88% of their annual profit between all employees equally. This will be paid as a tax free bonus, inside a nice envelope with a little bow on top.
    1. 5% of the profit may be used for R&D or whatever.
    1. 5% of the profit will be used to book love hotel long stays for married employees attempting to reproduce.
    1. 1% will be spent on food and drink, to keep employees’ energy up.
    1. 1% will be available for shareholder dividends.
    1. Salaries will increase mandatorily each year in lockstep with revenue growth.
    1. It will be illegal for shachou to claim credit for the newkid’s revolutionary ideas.
    1. New baby leave will be a mandatory 8 months for dad’s, as long as they want for women and gay dads, along with a super generous bonus of one million yen (50% split between government and employer), and a gift hamper of baby equipment (including a microwave bottle steriliser, because those things are damned useful).
    1. Every PowerPoint presentation will have a first slide of all of the company’s new babies from the last 12 months.
    1. Only companies that produce at least 8 babies per quarter are eligible to bid for government projects.
    1. Babies born to parents on a SOR automatically acquire PR status, and so do the parents.

    These measures are to ensure that childless couples aren’t too knackered to fuck after work.

    It will also destroy the senpai/kohai bollocks where people feel obligated to kill themselves at their desk because that’s what their late predecessors did too. Mature couples like to fuck too sometimes.

    This will also boost a sense of value and engagement among employees, as by directly sharing in the profits, they will be motivated to have a raging hardon with regards to the success of the company. Including the women.

    Quite frankly, I’m astonished that the minister for sexual intercourse has not implemented these blatantly obvious measures already.

29. You know what would be more efficient than 25 billion dollars? Free education and free under-18s/20 medical. Creating a culture where Japanese people take/use ALL their national holidays, benefits and paid holidays year in, year out. And completely reducing overtime work to 4 hours a week MAX (ideally it’d be 4 hours a month/year but Japan never gunna reach that). Not to mention, making it illegal to not raise salaries by 0.5% or something EVERY year.

30. Give me a million and a wife and I’ll help out

31. Are they giving that money to people instead of spending it on useless “incentives” again? Asking for a friend.

    Are they going to reduce working hours?
    Increase holidays?
    Increase salaries?
    Create more daycare options?
    Support mothers in the workplace?
    Support fathers?
    Better childcare benefits?

    No?

    So useless expenditure

32. Good luck with that! LOL

33. This is probably going to be a “ never go full retard” situation

34. I’m sorry but this is dumb. First of all, if you’re going to give people money to have kids just stop stealing it from their paycheck. It’s really easy to be denied these benefits based on misfiled forms which is what they count on. Salaries are too low, taxes are too high, and cost of living continues to rise regardless. So no amount of “kid benefits” is going to make family planning easier. I would assume I’m not getting these benefits while while planning cause it’s safer to assume I’ll be denied them for some reason. No one assumes these services are reducing the costs before they get pregnant.

35. There’s quite a bit of data to show that economic incentives do almost nothing to increase birth rates. It’s a cultural problem, not an economic one. The documentary “Birthgap” does a pretty good job exploring this issue.

36. I hope some of this goes toward reproductive therapy for couples who actually want kids. IVF is now on insurance but the available meds/options are extremely limited, it’s basically a one-sized-fits-all approach that is the exact opposite of what’s required for people who are struggling to conceive. It’s also pretty limited in terms of how many attempts you can have, which is also really hard for more difficult cases (as often the docs need time to figure out what works) and the more exploratory tests that actually help figure out what might work aren’t covered by insurance!

    tldr: i feel really strongly that people who want to have kids should receive more support to do so, *especially* those who need assistive technology methods.

37. Not sure that will fix much. Shortages in the job market, low pays, lack of time and (lack of support) to take care of the kids are some of the causes people don’t make children.

    Society needs a change as a whole. Not just Japanese society though.

38. No amount of money in the world will change the situation.

    I hate to say it but it looks like allowing women to participate in the workforce has effects so negative it could literally ruin a country.

    Occam’s razer suggest the easiest way for Japan to recover is to prevent women from becoming educated and pursuing careers and instead focusing on child production. This way Japan will recover in only a few decades and avoids collapse.