Japan’s births drop 5% in one year, “drastic action” being called for

41 comments

1. It’s the same news every year

2. ..so how about they start fking……just saying!

3. Maybe….pay people more to live. Kinda of a radical idea but history has proven it works.

4. Start by throwing the endless neoliberal junta out of power and enabling people to live a life outside the corporate fiefdom with decent wages and opportunities? Nah.

5. All they have to do is approve dual citizenship so more people come

6. Come to my city. Babies everywhere. I can’t stand it, but there must be something in the water that they can use in other areas.

7. “drastic action” being called for (so long as it doesn’t change a single thing about Japanese social or corporate culture)

8. The government could give me an extra 5000a month for child rearing and then tax it and then make the price of the whole world around me go up and make sure I’m not paid anymore than I have been getting for the last who knows how many years and then make me pay for NHK… Oops I can no longer pay for electricity because it’s so f-ING expensive buti need to pay for NHK. Pretty ironic that without electricity I couldn’t even watch NHK of I wanted to…

   Let’s get kid making people!

9. “Drastic action” so that’s what people call it nowadays

10. “We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we’re all out of ideas.” – The Japanese government (probably)

11. Put me in coach

12. The easy irony is getting stale. Japanese politicians are surely out of touch with reality, but what example should they follow?

    It is the same problem everywhere: people in developed Countries just don’t find having children fulfilling anymore. Happiness now is linked to freedom and self-realization, and children are seen just as an obstacle to that. They are not even economically advantageous like in centuries past, at least not for the single family.

    With this frame of mind, even if you give away more time and more money, you are not necessarily going to have more children: people will just find another hobby or use time and money to take a vacation that they could not afford before.

13. Instead of sending foreign aid why not use the money to lower the cost of being a parent of 2-3 kids?

    This does not apply to JP alone but to all rich nations.

14. Amazing considering that nobody uses a condom

15. Nothing will change. Nothing. They’ve known about the population trend for a while. Stagnant wages and inflation are also not new.

16. Since Japan is overpopulated, it might not be a bad thing. You just have to ban retirement :))

17. Just an idea, if you raise one kid you only pay 75% Income Tax, for a lifetime.
    2nd Child just 50%, 3nd 25%, 4nd 0%
    It would give people a good reason would cost no money and works in other countries

18. Enforce a 32 hour maximum work week nationwide. And make it illegal for companies to expect their employees to show up to afterwork meetups.

19. “Drastic action ” except pay rise and work life balance.

20. Them: What do we do?!

    Everyone: Make life not suck for people so babies and housing are affordable.

    Them: …

    Everyone: …

    Them: What do we do?!

21. “If only there were a whole bunch of couples just waiting to get married and raise kids together!” “All we have are those LGTBQ people but they don’t represent traditional values! Shouganai…” /s

22. What is this. A stock market?

23. Japanese women are expected to give up their careers after having kids. Plus having kids is incredibly expensive in Japan. So yes, of course many Japanese women and Japanese couples are choosing financial freedom and independence.

24. Making people work 70 hrs on average a week. That is the outcome. Everyone regrets to be living in that country and why would they want to create another miserable life…, right?

25. They should actually try to do something about lifestyle improvement instead of just making all these call to actions. Realistically it would probably help but there’s similar trends in countries with the best work conditions and social safety nets 🤷🏽‍♀️ a lot of women are simply realizing they have the choice to not have kids

26. It’s game over actually for domestic, organic population growth. The policy makers missed that boat a generation ago.

    Japan would really need to embrace both domestic policy AND immigration policy just to maintain the population.

    Yes to allowing dual, to a better daycare system, but that’s bandaids.

27. Here my solution: Sex

28. Let’s be honest, most young people here are emotionally stunted and have the personality of a box of hammers, simply doing away with their feudalistic work culture isn’t going to do much towards the birth rate.

29. Solution:

    Fucking pay people enough. No raise since pre-2000 while things get more expensive and landlords are allowed to get all kinds of guarantees that no other service provider is entitled to.

30. My wife and I are finally having a baby next week. We definitely found out that babies are for the rich.

    Her hospital had classes but only on weekdays so only women who can afford to be housewives can go. Or women who have a flexible job with tons of time off available.

    A genetic test was over ¥150,000.

    Pre-pregnancy assistance services for those who are having trouble getting pregnant are super expensive. If you need artificial insemination, you need to be able to go to the clinic at any time, so again, many working women need not apply.

31. What do you think of the role of porn in this? I am sure it has influence and Japan has the pretty damn “developed” industry right?

    I think porn is outright evil in terms of emasculating men and maybe connected to low birth rate. It’ll be an interesting research topic. Correlation between consumption of pornography and depression or more precisely motivation to have romantic long term relationships.

    But again, I admit that low birth rate is primary resulting from financial reasons.

32. I run a small school in Tokyo and I can confirm that many of my adult students are basically zombies by the time they come in for a lesson in the evening after work..

    They look overworked, stressed and thin as rails. This worsens as they are promoted up the ranks. They have very little time or inclination to look after children on top of their other work and 1 year of maternity leave isn’t going to cut it.

33. I’m on it!!

34. Id have children with my wife, if we had time for that.

35. Unpopular opinion may say japan is leading the world in the right direction to a sustainable future. Before we eat every fish and chop down every tree.

36. My family hasn’t spent a weekend together with mom for a month now. They have her working from one deadline to another and another. This is the Japan that’s family friendly!

37. LPD doesn’t care.
    If they did, they would be resolving that issue right here and now

38. Isn’t… Isn’t that good?

    World population is WAY too much. Births should be going down worldwide

39. The government of Japan moans a lot but isn’t willing to make any big moves. It will catch up soon enough. The youth are getting restless. There’s a reason for all these assassinations/attempts. I hate to say it but I think we’re heading into rough times until the LDP let’s go or gets wise.

40. Yet the government doesn’t understand that the only way people are going to have children is if both parents can have a stable, well-paying job with a good work-life balance and equalnaccess to child care.

    The system of working excessive overtime means that nobody has time to get married and have kids, and the increase of irregular workers means people can’t afford to have kids. Like they said in the article, many people do not have access to childcare at all.

    The outdated laws around family planning are also off-putting.

41. really easy, either make people rich or make people dumb.

    smart people with barely enough money to go by will never want to have a kid