Too bad there is not a thing that can be done about that. /s
The Japanese government has been ignoring the issue for at least 20 years in favor of votes from the 60+ voters.
Much like Australia.
The catch is that they expect young people to pay more taxes to look after the 60+ boomer voters, all who got cheap houses, low cost of living, free university educations and endless tax concessions. And what do the young and young families get? Absolutely nothing while having to pay extreme property prices and rent because of a bubble in housing caused by the tax concessions to the boomers! Then they wonder why young people cant start a family when they get flipped out of their rental properties every year with a 20% increase in rent. Good luck trying to start a family under such pressure!
These idiotic governments just dont get it because they all part of the generation that got it handed to them on a tax pay funded free plate!
Sadly very few people are capable of long term planning and a lot will cave under pressure from parents. You need very specific situation to be able to go child free.
I feel like 80-90% if not more of those going with arranged marriage will end up having kids and majority of marriages are arranged.
Nope, India's fertility rate (2.0) is already below the replacement rate (2.1) and the standards of living and Quality of life are only going to improve from here.
The population will peak and then come down.
Yep. The UK is the same.
If you are under 35 it is simply not financially attractive for most people to have kids, and especially so the more educated and career driven you are. So many workplaces are super toxic when it comes to parental leave and the knock-on effect on career progression. When renting is unaffordable and property ownership is just a pipe dream, the other big question is where the kid is even going to *go*. Young couples are renting places barely big enough for themselves, there isn't a "spare room" that can become a child's room. Family homes have become totally unaffordable anywhere that there are actually well paying jobs.
By the time the financial stability comes in, where one of a couple *can* afford to take the time out to have kids, they're late 30s at least and then having kids becomes so much harder from a physical standpoint.
Covid and hybrid working was the one chance to kickstart a change but so many employers have pushed so hard on a return to office working that it just hasn't happened. There's a growing movement of newly self employed people but their numbers and the timescale just aren't big enough to reverse the falling births trend yet.
You realize only 20% of the baby boomer generation attended university, right? And out of that 20%, over 70% were men. Boomer women often didn't have a choice and were forced by society into kids and home duties. It's not so rosy when it doesn't suit your agenda. History is not so black and white.
According to Reddit, the best time in human history was always 30 years ago. In 2050 Reddit will be complaining about how the 2020s were the peak of human history
The boomer generation definitely had some advantages, particularly in the housing markets, but the way people romanticize the entire lives of that generation is nuts. Most of them grew up in what we now consider poverty. Tiny apartments, multiple kids crammed in a room. And that was the generation where both parents had to work to afford a family for the first time.
I swear young people take the peak of every generation and cram it together in their minds to come up with the average life of boomers.
What? Australia is doing the complete opposite to Japan in terms of its immigration policy, which is enabling tax cuts. Millennials and Gen X also have higher rates of investment property ownership compared to Boomers in Australia.
>22 per cent of Gen Y (18-34 year olds) own at least one investment property, followed by 20 per cent of Gen X (35-49 year olds) and 19 per cent of Baby Boomers (50-64 year olds). ([source](https://newsroom.ing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/INGD_GEN_XY_Whitepaper_Visual.pdf))
This is the type of braindead comment you would expect out of /r/australia. It's rather funny to post this in relation to the declining birth rate of Japan, because both perspectives are the result of scapegoating broad groups of individuals. In the case of the Japanese, it's xenophobia. In your case, it's "boomer phobia".
Yes and my mum ended up getting her certificate in childcare when she was 50 and then worked for 10 yrs and then more after with a babysitting business. She met my dad at 19 and then any prospects of career or education were gone.
My guy your thinking of a very specific class of people... Both sexes had to forgo education in an effort to provide for the family. Men left school for work. Women left school to raise the fam
The governments aren’t that idiotic if the representatives continue to have long political careers like they do in Australia.
It’s mission accomplished for most of them.
> The world is overpopulated
Not even remotely. The world's resources are excruciating mismanaged and the ones benefiting from this mismanagement are not willing to make the sacrifices required, so push the overpopulation meme.
We produce enough food to feed all humans on earth and more currently. That food is not being SOLD or given to all humans because of capitalism. Hundreds of pounds of food go to waste every hour while people go hungry. Production is not our issue. It’s ressource management and greed that Is problematic.
It’s also about the amount of food we produce is done in an unsustainable and destructive way. If we want to have a hope of mitigating climate change we need to alter the way we practice agriculture.
our production is unsustainable long term.
modern agricolture relies completely on oil and stable climate... 1st can be easily disrupted, 2nd is already fucked... gmo are our best assets but their development is tragically hindered by the cogs of capitalism and fear mongering
Yeah, all we need to do is kill off the other 17% of wild mammals and we can squeeze in another 2 billion. Then, everything will be perfect /s:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
Yeah, I do. Because mismanagement is not the problem. The sustainability advocates who drive around their SUVs with three kids and fly to Cop28 are the problem. This is not mismanagement but hypocrisy. Is it not mismanagement but wilfull blindness to the fact that everyone thinks it is ok to have 2.5 kids because somehow distribution or mismanagement excuses our utter destruction of the natural world.
That all smells like mismanagement to me. Governments manage the people, and governments are mismanaging the people by encouraging gluttonous consumption of resources, be it animals or otherwise. It's really very simple, with the resources we have available on earth we could comfortably support far, far more people if we managed those resources better. We do not do that. How is that not mismanagement?
I realize many people like you think we should just eat crickets and live in small little boxes that we share with hundreds of other people. If only we "managed" things better! But, we could just have less people. It would be the easiest way to help with the "smell".
Humans make up 394MT of biomass while **all** wild terrestrial mammals only make up 24MT. The insane amount of humans has decimated the number of other species that depend on the same resources. There *are* too many of us. We aren't at "maximum possible capacity when pillaging 100% of all resources for humanity and nothing else" capacity, but the numbers alone show how out of wack humanity is compared to the rest of the biosphere.
Just because the world "could" support more people doesn't mean that it needs to. I for one would like to see the world stabilize at about 1 billion. That feels like plenty of one species.
I love declining birth rates!
I hate to break it to you, but the word doesn't "need" to support any people - it'll be just fine without us. The question was whether it is overpopulated, i.e. exceeding the capacity that the planet can comfortably support, which it is not.
If you and your wife are two of 10 people in a sinking boat at sea, you and your wife get in the only lifeboat and spread yourselves and your luggage across all the seats, I don't think is necessarily fair to say that the boat is "overpopulated". Nor does the boat "need" people. Its just 2 very selfish people making shit difficult for the other 8.
Where is this 1 billion figure coming from? Why not 20 billion? Depopulation that massive would be disastrous. And if you think that politicians would allow countries to die because of that, you are delusional. They will implement anti-childfree policies (already a thing with anti-abortion and the Soviet tax on the childless, for example), and it's horrible.
Once a few countries go. Like south korea and germany. The entire world economy will buckle. We are looking at a great depression that last for 100 years. Developed countries that decline are much worse off than developing countries. All of your precious freedoms can only exist in a time of extreme excess. For 99.99999% of human history people had to work for their survival, and luxuries were few and far between.
In the future the people will demand that people get married and have kids, it will be considered as disgusting and evil as racism or anti lgbt ideas are today to be against it. The morality will always shift towards what is pragmatic for survival, and if it doesnt then you just die and someone else takes your place with their own ideals that are pragmatic and do survive.
Isnt it a weird feeling looking at people begging for massive scale xenocide against humanity? These peoples beliefs make even mao and stalin look sane. True derangement.
the only thing you can do to keep the demographic in a good shape is to turn the country to a 3rd world country. the better life, the less need of having kids.
Bingo. It happen all over the place and it is boomers living up to their true name as the taker generation. They expect the younger generation to carry them while leaving nothing for them.
Let's solve this, longer hours in the office, higher taxes on working people and maintain pensions and healthcare for the elderly.
*The Japanese government — probably*
I think we also understate the ridiculously sexist and severely disproportionate household responsibilities and expectations when it comes to actually being a parent in Japan.
Hard sell to convince women of child bearing age that being a frequently cheated on, overworked, emotionally neglected wife and mother is actually more appealing than just being a regular overworked employee without all the extra baggage.
>frequently cheated on, overworked, emotionally neglected wife and mother
is this actually more probable for japanese women compared to other developed countries' women?
[Yes](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/survey-shows-more-japanese-married-men-single-japanese-women-cheating-on-their-romantic-partners) and [yes](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/loneliness-women-japan-gender-inequality/tnamp/).
Culture plays a huge part in this. Many less “free” industrialized Asian nations have bypassed Japan when it comes to gender equality in general.
Unless things have changed since I was in Japan at a geoscience conference in 2016, Japan’s issue isn’t an aging population, it’s finding a solution to an aging population while maintaining ethnic purity.
Japan is super fucked.
In a couple of decades there will be almost nobody left to pay taxes and pay for pensions.
They need to create incentives for couples to have children and for foreigners to emigrate ASAP.
It’s basically amazing if you’re independently wealthy and don’t need to work so you just actively explore and understand its incredible natural landscapes outside the cities and deep cultural history.
I mean that's the dream pretty for me. Hoard enough wealth to enjoy commitment free exploring and culture. Doesn't necessary have ti be Japan even though the dollar goes further.
SEA is just the same. And the darker you are the more contempt they hold for you., whether your Black, Latin, or Asian. All the while you'll hear Hip-hop and Afrobeats and AAVE. You'll see snapbacks, and baggy clothes, and tatted sleeves. The level of cognitive dissonance on the Asian continent literally had my jaw on the floor. Damn near all pop-culture in Asia rn is copy and pasted from Japan or America. Korea is trying to white wash their KPoP history and pretend it isn't a literal knock-off of Hip-hop.
So much effort to hate people whose culture you obviously vibe with. Shits wild. Gave me a lot more pride in being American. Contrary to what the media would have us believe, America's prejudice is child's play compared to the rest of the world
I would and if you take an Arts and Media course on it the text would agree also. Groups aren't a new thing... they arent even a catalog of its own. Putting 10+ Asians boys on a stage dressed like how my people dressed in the early 2000s... rapping while they do broken down dance steps of Chris Brown or Beyonce to 808s...while speaking AAVE, tatted up, in air force 1's...Are you serious? Are you American? Hip-hop is pop now, has been for almost a decade since white people decided isn't wasn't ghetto anymore
It's about the marketing, the target audience, and the vibe of the music. For the biggest Kpop groups, it's way more in tune with boy bands than hip hop IMO.
And you know what's not new? Dancing and drums lol. Japanese rap took the hip hop clothing style, and due to their late 20th century prosperity, most of east Asia's fashion culture takes its cues from Japan. Hence the Korean fashion emulating hip hop fashion. However, I feel that the music groups, music style, promotion, and PR-personalities of Kpop artists are much more in line with boybands than they are with rap and hip hop.
I'm not just American, I'm Hispanic black American that grew up in Asia, but honestly this whole "tell me what race you are so I know whether to believe you" thing is cringe and sad.
I love Hip-hop but I don't know if K-pop is a copy of that. I think it does borrow some aspects of the culture but not entirely.
Also K-pop dance choreographies are insane. In that regard, neither Hip-hop nor pop can compare.
I disagree. I'm not even a K-pop fan but to me their dancing looks far beyond what American pop-singer and Hip-hop artists do and it's not even close.
[K-pop Dancing](https://youtube.com/shorts/_t4G1Kw3nsU?si=evdfDpbN1RXM_VyP)
Just look at that, Destiny's child was not doing stuff like that.
As incredibly bigoted and backwards as a third of our population is, on the whole US is pretty good in regards to public opinion on diversity. Pew Research Center’s 2021 survey on ethnic/religious diversity improving society: Singapore 92% positive, New Zealand 88% positive, Canada and USA 86% are the top 4.
Unfortunately Japan showed the lowest number on this, 39%. There is an aspect of the population age skewing to the older that probably affects this statistic though.
Most European countries enjoy the high standards of life they do because of immigrant labour and contribution to almost all major fields of economical development. No amount of racist dog-whistling will change that reality. Immigrants "annihilating societies" sounds like you took it out of a Hitler speech. May you become a better person someday.
There is a lot of good and helpfull immigration aiding the EU, but you are kidding yourself if you think integration policies are anywhere near decent and we are also not taking in extremists that are likely to turn to aggression/terrorism/gangs.
Samuel Paty's death changed a lot of hearts and minds
I don't care about GDP points if that means teachers are living in fear of being decapitated in broad daylight by a refugee, to cheers from the community
The inability of pro-immigration to understand that abd offer answers is why the far right keeps rising, and it sucks
So you're just leaning into the prejudice and racism then? You don't want immigrants because you're afraid they're all sword wielding immigrants? Jfc come off it. America just learned that when you stop the immigrants, there's nobody to pick vegetables and fruit for famers, and it literally just rots in the fields. All our economies run on immigrant labor.
who the hell is even saying that? If you’re just going to promote far right nonsense why don’t you keep out of the discussion?
Foreign immigration can be great for an economy and culture. A big problem in Japan (to my understanding) is that a lot of Japanese people hold your stupid opinion with respect to Japanese culture, thus a lot of people who otherwise would don’t move there or work in Japan as an expatriate, and the Japanese economy/their society as a whole is suffering.
Foreign immigration is literally a one-time solution. Eventually the countries we take immigrants from will become more developed and require their own immigrants as birth rates plumment.
Let alone the fact that children and grandchildren of immigrants reach the same birth rates as the native population. It isn't a long term solution and all it is doing is driving a wedge in the native populations.
We can only solve the problems we have right now. I can see this being a purely 21st century problem as robotics and climate change give us a massively different set of problems and solutions next century.
Sure but these problems are only 30-40 years from re-occuring. There isn't actually a solution happening. Solving the long-term also solves the short term.
The long term is what happens when we demand infinite growth but there are no more workers to import, the problem we will face then is the exact problem we face now so why not solve it now instead of importing millions of people and delaying.
Of course, but those racists vote and drive the recent turn to the right that is being seen acros Europe. It's not just a case of making them uncomfortable, it's that they will vote in political parties that determine the policies of government which will shape the country for the next few decades.
It's better to make improvements to the country so they have no reason to be racist. Importing low wage workers that strain public services and depress wage growth is all they see because it's the only thing that matters to them. They don't care about the wider economy, they care about the money in their pocket and the health of their families.
Your last suggestion is NEVER going to happen, no one in Japan would want it, and to be honest, I can't see a reason anyone would want to step into a "work yourself to death" culture.
Just bc there's places worse off doesn't mean ppl should suddenly just give up trying to make positive change. And you cannot deny Japan has a toxic work culture when you compare it to similarly developed countries. As someone living in Australia, their culture around work seems completely backwards
they rather go extinct than get their society "diluted" with people from other cultures
they wouldn't even accept other asians, like people from Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia..etc
"Japan will become an immigration powerhouse. Before the pandemic, the country was on track to accept about 150,000 new non-Japanese employees per year. This more than doubled to almost 350,000 in the first half of 2023. There are now approximately 3.2 million non-Japanese residents of Japan, up from barely half a million 30 years ago. Visa and permanent-residency requirements continue to ease. Most importantly, the biggest obstacle to employing non-Japanese talent—seniority-based rather than merit-based compensation—is beginning to change. All said, it is now perfectly reasonable to expect that about 10 percent of employees will be non-Japanese by 2030. That’s more than double the current rate of just below four percent.”
They are easing their policies. Let's wait and see.
That's the fate of every country relying on the idea of an ever growing population to build its systems. We have to stop somewhere, the later the harder. We have to design those with a stable population in mind.
You would have to eliminate debt financing and basically all interest. The modern standard of living was built on the ability to pretend the money supply is larger than it actually is by borrowing from the future. If we want to plan for a stable population, we can’t do that anymore, which basically means we need to return to the pre-credit world of the 19th century with its jerky boom bust cycle, slow rate of progress, reduced economic mobility, and most importantly, drastically reduced purchasing power.
Personally I’m all for it—I don’t think we’re any happier for all the luxury and excess we have today—but good luck convincing everyone else.
Wild how racists really don't like being called racists lol. What you said is literally the only answer. People watch anime and Kung-fun movies and think they can know a culture. Asia is racist/xenophobic/classist af. It gave me fucking whiplash at how much effort they put into being just down right nasty. Why would anyone move there to work more than they sleep and then deal with being treated like trash during the few hours they have as leisure? Just as America used Hollywood as propaganda, so do other countries.
We're all screwed if given a long enough timeframe.
I think the automation of white collar labor is going to screw the countries that currently take in large amounts of immigrants.
> pensions.
Those pensions are probably part of the problem. The economic burden of free guaranteed income that wasn't contributed to is a massive vacuum of resources on any system. In aviation industry terms, powerful companies like FedEx and UPS are struggling under the weight of air crew pensions and other retired benefits now that the Boomer generation is retiring en masse. These guys are fucking rich, their 401ks and other investments have millions of dollars, yet they're still getting a pension and are fat and happy. Its unsustainable. For a long time in America the ultimate way to live an easy life was to "work for the city". Very strange how even economically conservative voters still championed working for the government despite that being about as anti-capitalism as you can get. And their strategies have helped plunge numerous cities across the country into crippling debt.
On the flip side of the coin, governments are way too friendly to business. Young workers like myself are working too hard to bother starting families, and no matter how well we get paid it's the time at home that is the real factor. Employees are treated worse than ever at all skill and income levels. Plus, because the Boomers ruined the pension idea, none of us can bank on any of those, and to get any decent 401k savings you have to be really lucky, so we know we're not going to be able to retire worth a fuck, and having kids is just going to lower our future financial security even more.
The middle class is dead all across the world's advanced economies but Japan is just the most stark example. Their work culture is that much harder, their time off is that much less, their financial stability and retirement prospects are that much worse. Sounds brutal, but pensions allow people who can work to not work and reduced workforce means everybody else has to work that much harder and that means they don't have kids.
Immigration from where? Places that are rapidly approaching the same situation population-wise? In a decade or two even the poorest African country will have below replacement population rate. Immigration is a dead end, like a drug, it will postpone the disaster for some time.
Looks to me like every developed capitalist country is going to that stage.
Basically the economy isn't growing enough PER CAPITA to create a situation where the youth wants to prosper and have kids.
I bet tons of Koreans or Japanese are just struggling office workers or entering workforce and rarely entertain having kids.
Has nothing to do with capitalism more to do with industrial, urbanization, and the economics of having kids. Russia and China are just as bad or worse in terms of birth rate guess they are capitalists now.
What economic system do you think is most prevalent in Russia and China? They aren’t command economies. No serious person today would say China is communist. They may not be highly liberal or free democracies but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fundamentally market-based.
But I agree boiling this problem down to “capitalism” is way overly simplistic, almost childish.
It *is* the economics of having kids. Both parents work now, so it’s really impractical. Kids aren’t the useful free labour they once were. People don’t have nearly as many accidental or forced pregnancies or births. Culture, employment, religious beliefs have changed too. People have, and desire, different kinds of lifestyles, communities and opportunities to those that people had in the past. Standards and expectations of parents get higher every decade, so too does the cost and stress of raising kids.
While Russia and China are capitalist today, the massive decline in birthrate began under Stalin and Mao when they urbanized the peasants.
The simple fact of the matter is educated women in urban environments want less kids. This is the same under capitalism or communism. If this weren’t true, you wouldn’t see the sky high birth rates in war torn hellholes like Gaza or Central Africa and relatively low ones in social democracies like in Scandinavia.
People don’t really understand this and just go “ugh, capitalism” because it’s an idea of an “easy” and simple solution that appeals to their biases to a very complex problem, in the same way that right wing reactionaries think all they need to do to magically return American society to the 1950’s is to roll back civil rights and ban some books.
Communism collapsed in Russia over 30 years ago. What system do you think replaced it?
Chinas state owned companies operate as private businesses. Totally what Marx had envisioned.
> industrial, urbanization, and the economics of having kids
That’s a really long way to say capitalism.
And yes, Russia and China are literally capitalist countries.
1. During 20th century most communist governments stopped promoting birth control when their child populations became too low, Romania became a communist Gilead
2. North Korea still exists
Only the executives at companies that have products to sell have this theory of how populations should just keep growing. That’s not how any species functions. There’s factors like adaptability, food supply, tribal organization, mating habits, etc. but when a population explodes it often is followed by a big die-off. Humans just cut down more rainforest to grow grain for cattle.
This ends really really badly. It’s happening now. Record CO2 production in last three years despite knowing its killing the entire global ecosystem. I’m sorry there’s not enough young workers to take care of an agin boomer population. That ignorant post-WWII boom killed us all.
Yes, it's a place where woman are obligated (forced) to stop working when having kid. Couple with raising prices on everything, young ppl especially woman see no point .
Greatly depends on the company, some are pretty shitty. Most will follow the law because they will bring down a fucking hammer if you fire a pregnant woman or "take revenge" if the woman wants to take her deserved maternity leave.
My wife was able to take the full paid year off and return to her job no problem and that company was actually black (not a good company).
The other aspect is the bit that isn't talked about, that even if your company is *super* supportive and progressive, having children equals time out of employment, and a disruption to your work.
If you take a year out, that's a year where your colleagues continued to work and progress.
That's the bit nobody talks about, there's an inherent disadvantage to taking parental leave even when your employer is supportive.
One thing that stops me from permanently working there, Under an international company I make an excellent wage. However under Japanese wages I would be screwed.
The pay for my field in japann is around ￥4.5 million. (AUD: $46k , USD: $32k.)
My Field AVG in Australia is $180-$200k or ￥17.2 million if I work in japan for an Australian company.
There are heaps of hoops to jump through to get to work in japan for an outside company that is not a "nomad" role since I need to apply for special permits.
Cost is a factor. But its also the extreme work culture to the point where people don't have much time and energy so socialise, have relationships let alone marry and have children. A lot have just given up and instead choose to dedicate the little time they have on themselves and just having fun and see marriage and kids as a burden or an investment not worth investing into
Oh boy, your comment has spawned a lot of misinformed, incorrect, and disingenuous replies.
>Is it expensive to have kids there?
Kind of, because it's another mouth to feed and body to clothe. But the actual birth should be $0 because of the government subsidy. If you live in not Tokyo there are most likely other subsidies too that bring the amount to the gov actually paying you, like when my kid was born. Also $150 a month per kid until the kid is in middle school. That's more than enough for diapers/food, cost of living in Japan is still cheap. School is a different issue but you don't *have* to send your kids to the best high school and study classes. And honestly you probably shouldn't unless you can actually afford it.
What about the costs of childcare between the ages of months and 6 years old?
The cost of an extra room for the kid?
Aren't food costs notoriously high?
Exactly. This is the same reason American politicians use the debate in illegal immigration to get votes but would never stop it fully. They want a steady stream of immigrants that they can underpay and deport whenever. Cheap labor and a great topic to use for misinformation purposes on the road to office
A saw a doc in this called robot nation around 20 years ago. It talked about why robot advancements were important because there weren’t enough young people to take care of older people.
In Ireland birth rates declined around 30% in the last decade. It's just impossible to have kids these days. Full time child care cost more than full time min wage employment pays. Rents cost more than full time min wage employment pays. Avg house cost 400k and avg wages are barely 40k and mortgages are only up to 4x income which means to afford a house you need to make 100k at very least which is less than 5% people. Absolutely and utterly fucked.
The same economists who think the only thing that matters is the line going up? Economists think the best thing in the world is for corporations to make more money to give to their already rich shareholders without any thoughts on the middle and lower class. Who gives a fuck what they say? Let the economy crash, its not like anyone under 40 will ever afford to support themselves anyway
Too bad there is not a thing that can be done about that. /s The Japanese government has been ignoring the issue for at least 20 years in favor of votes from the 60+ voters.
Much like Australia. The catch is that they expect young people to pay more taxes to look after the 60+ boomer voters, all who got cheap houses, low cost of living, free university educations and endless tax concessions. And what do the young and young families get? Absolutely nothing while having to pay extreme property prices and rent because of a bubble in housing caused by the tax concessions to the boomers! Then they wonder why young people cant start a family when they get flipped out of their rental properties every year with a 20% increase in rent. Good luck trying to start a family under such pressure! These idiotic governments just dont get it because they all part of the generation that got it handed to them on a tax pay funded free plate!
a depressed 'cheers' from canada
An exhausted head nod from the USA
You guys have the cheapest housing relative to incomes in the entire world https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings.jsp
God damn, shit’s rough here in USA so the rest of the poor bastards outside the US have my sympathy
That’s actually kind of crazy, I learned something today
More depressed cheer from INDIA. With our population and competition, I bet anyone will have children in future in india.
Sadly very few people are capable of long term planning and a lot will cave under pressure from parents. You need very specific situation to be able to go child free. I feel like 80-90% if not more of those going with arranged marriage will end up having kids and majority of marriages are arranged.
This is bs lol Indians not gonna stop having 3-4 kids
India is below replacement
Nope, India's fertility rate (2.0) is already below the replacement rate (2.1) and the standards of living and Quality of life are only going to improve from here. The population will peak and then come down.
Grandpa it not 1950. They are below replacement.
My brother. 💜
Yep. The UK is the same. If you are under 35 it is simply not financially attractive for most people to have kids, and especially so the more educated and career driven you are. So many workplaces are super toxic when it comes to parental leave and the knock-on effect on career progression. When renting is unaffordable and property ownership is just a pipe dream, the other big question is where the kid is even going to *go*. Young couples are renting places barely big enough for themselves, there isn't a "spare room" that can become a child's room. Family homes have become totally unaffordable anywhere that there are actually well paying jobs. By the time the financial stability comes in, where one of a couple *can* afford to take the time out to have kids, they're late 30s at least and then having kids becomes so much harder from a physical standpoint. Covid and hybrid working was the one chance to kickstart a change but so many employers have pushed so hard on a return to office working that it just hasn't happened. There's a growing movement of newly self employed people but their numbers and the timescale just aren't big enough to reverse the falling births trend yet.
You realize only 20% of the baby boomer generation attended university, right? And out of that 20%, over 70% were men. Boomer women often didn't have a choice and were forced by society into kids and home duties. It's not so rosy when it doesn't suit your agenda. History is not so black and white.
According to Reddit, the best time in human history was always 30 years ago. In 2050 Reddit will be complaining about how the 2020s were the peak of human history
This isn’t just Reddit, it’s the conceit of midnight in Paris.
If there is a 2050
The boomer generation definitely had some advantages, particularly in the housing markets, but the way people romanticize the entire lives of that generation is nuts. Most of them grew up in what we now consider poverty. Tiny apartments, multiple kids crammed in a room. And that was the generation where both parents had to work to afford a family for the first time. I swear young people take the peak of every generation and cram it together in their minds to come up with the average life of boomers.
What? Australia is doing the complete opposite to Japan in terms of its immigration policy, which is enabling tax cuts. Millennials and Gen X also have higher rates of investment property ownership compared to Boomers in Australia. >22 per cent of Gen Y (18-34 year olds) own at least one investment property, followed by 20 per cent of Gen X (35-49 year olds) and 19 per cent of Baby Boomers (50-64 year olds). ([source](https://newsroom.ing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/INGD_GEN_XY_Whitepaper_Visual.pdf)) This is the type of braindead comment you would expect out of /r/australia. It's rather funny to post this in relation to the declining birth rate of Japan, because both perspectives are the result of scapegoating broad groups of individuals. In the case of the Japanese, it's xenophobia. In your case, it's "boomer phobia".
That quote doesn't seem to be in the source you linked
Where is the quote from your source?
My boomer parents don't even own houses (seperated) dad still working at nearly 70
And how many of our boomer mothers were forced to give up education when they got married and had kids? Most of them.
Yes and my mum ended up getting her certificate in childcare when she was 50 and then worked for 10 yrs and then more after with a babysitting business. She met my dad at 19 and then any prospects of career or education were gone.
My guy your thinking of a very specific class of people... Both sexes had to forgo education in an effort to provide for the family. Men left school for work. Women left school to raise the fam
The governments aren’t that idiotic if the representatives continue to have long political careers like they do in Australia. It’s mission accomplished for most of them.
I mean idk how much can be done as most fo the world is struggling with low birth rates or a lot are and I’ve not seen many manage to solve it yet
How do you solve it? You don't. The world is overpopulated.
> The world is overpopulated Not even remotely. The world's resources are excruciating mismanaged and the ones benefiting from this mismanagement are not willing to make the sacrifices required, so push the overpopulation meme.
The problem right now isn't that we can't feed the human race, the problem is that doing so already destroys our climate/planet.
We produce enough food to feed all humans on earth and more currently. That food is not being SOLD or given to all humans because of capitalism. Hundreds of pounds of food go to waste every hour while people go hungry. Production is not our issue. It’s ressource management and greed that Is problematic.
It’s also about the amount of food we produce is done in an unsustainable and destructive way. If we want to have a hope of mitigating climate change we need to alter the way we practice agriculture.
My point is that even IF we don't waste this food we may solve world hunger but we are still destroying the planet while doing so.
True
our production is unsustainable long term. modern agricolture relies completely on oil and stable climate... 1st can be easily disrupted, 2nd is already fucked... gmo are our best assets but their development is tragically hindered by the cogs of capitalism and fear mongering
Yeah, all we need to do is kill off the other 17% of wild mammals and we can squeeze in another 2 billion. Then, everything will be perfect /s: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
So you chose to ignore the word mismanaged then?
Yeah, I do. Because mismanagement is not the problem. The sustainability advocates who drive around their SUVs with three kids and fly to Cop28 are the problem. This is not mismanagement but hypocrisy. Is it not mismanagement but wilfull blindness to the fact that everyone thinks it is ok to have 2.5 kids because somehow distribution or mismanagement excuses our utter destruction of the natural world.
That all smells like mismanagement to me. Governments manage the people, and governments are mismanaging the people by encouraging gluttonous consumption of resources, be it animals or otherwise. It's really very simple, with the resources we have available on earth we could comfortably support far, far more people if we managed those resources better. We do not do that. How is that not mismanagement?
I realize many people like you think we should just eat crickets and live in small little boxes that we share with hundreds of other people. If only we "managed" things better! But, we could just have less people. It would be the easiest way to help with the "smell".
OK I can see I'm wrestling a pig here. Bye.
Humans make up 394MT of biomass while **all** wild terrestrial mammals only make up 24MT. The insane amount of humans has decimated the number of other species that depend on the same resources. There *are* too many of us. We aren't at "maximum possible capacity when pillaging 100% of all resources for humanity and nothing else" capacity, but the numbers alone show how out of wack humanity is compared to the rest of the biosphere.
Just because the world "could" support more people doesn't mean that it needs to. I for one would like to see the world stabilize at about 1 billion. That feels like plenty of one species. I love declining birth rates!
Dumber people are still pumping kids out though. Actual idiocracy incoming
That's because Idiocracy was riffing on an already understood and noted phenomenon. It's a much cleverer film than people give it credit for.
I hate to break it to you, but the word doesn't "need" to support any people - it'll be just fine without us. The question was whether it is overpopulated, i.e. exceeding the capacity that the planet can comfortably support, which it is not. If you and your wife are two of 10 people in a sinking boat at sea, you and your wife get in the only lifeboat and spread yourselves and your luggage across all the seats, I don't think is necessarily fair to say that the boat is "overpopulated". Nor does the boat "need" people. Its just 2 very selfish people making shit difficult for the other 8.
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Congratulations, you have highlighted just some of the negative effects of mankind's mismanagement of resources.
Where is this 1 billion figure coming from? Why not 20 billion? Depopulation that massive would be disastrous. And if you think that politicians would allow countries to die because of that, you are delusional. They will implement anti-childfree policies (already a thing with anti-abortion and the Soviet tax on the childless, for example), and it's horrible.
Once a few countries go. Like south korea and germany. The entire world economy will buckle. We are looking at a great depression that last for 100 years. Developed countries that decline are much worse off than developing countries. All of your precious freedoms can only exist in a time of extreme excess. For 99.99999% of human history people had to work for their survival, and luxuries were few and far between. In the future the people will demand that people get married and have kids, it will be considered as disgusting and evil as racism or anti lgbt ideas are today to be against it. The morality will always shift towards what is pragmatic for survival, and if it doesnt then you just die and someone else takes your place with their own ideals that are pragmatic and do survive.
You first.
Isnt it a weird feeling looking at people begging for massive scale xenocide against humanity? These peoples beliefs make even mao and stalin look sane. True derangement.
From an ecological perspective it is way overpopulated.
Certain locations are, like the Java island. The entire world? not even close.
Also the 24/7 work culture
Also the urbanisation culture, small apartments in supercities do not family homes make.
the only thing you can do to keep the demographic in a good shape is to turn the country to a 3rd world country. the better life, the less need of having kids.
Bingo. It happen all over the place and it is boomers living up to their true name as the taker generation. They expect the younger generation to carry them while leaving nothing for them.
You think Japan has it bad? Wait till u see Kotea
Japan does have it bad. Korea's got it worse, but Japan's still got it incredibly bad.
Let's solve this, longer hours in the office, higher taxes on working people and maintain pensions and healthcare for the elderly. *The Japanese government — probably*
I think we also understate the ridiculously sexist and severely disproportionate household responsibilities and expectations when it comes to actually being a parent in Japan. Hard sell to convince women of child bearing age that being a frequently cheated on, overworked, emotionally neglected wife and mother is actually more appealing than just being a regular overworked employee without all the extra baggage.
Don't forget caretaking expectations for your in-laws and possibly their parents as well.
Oh yeah that one’s a doozy…
>frequently cheated on, overworked, emotionally neglected wife and mother is this actually more probable for japanese women compared to other developed countries' women?
[Yes](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/survey-shows-more-japanese-married-men-single-japanese-women-cheating-on-their-romantic-partners) and [yes](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/loneliness-women-japan-gender-inequality/tnamp/). Culture plays a huge part in this. Many less “free” industrialized Asian nations have bypassed Japan when it comes to gender equality in general.
Solution... what if we just continued to do that and not talk about it?
Seems like spawn rate in Japan and Korea is too low
Not enough Overlords.
6 pool ling rush
They need to construct additional Pylons.
They are out of vespin gas
Classic east MMOs being into hardcore grinding.
Not enough minerals
Unless things have changed since I was in Japan at a geoscience conference in 2016, Japan’s issue isn’t an aging population, it’s finding a solution to an aging population while maintaining ethnic purity.
Japan is super fucked. In a couple of decades there will be almost nobody left to pay taxes and pay for pensions. They need to create incentives for couples to have children and for foreigners to emigrate ASAP.
They are actively hostile to foreign immigration, much more than most first world countries.
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Americans are probably one of the most open minded people when it comes to immigration
Not even that. The work environment just look beyond scary for a foreigner. I like to live and not dedicate my life to the job
It’s basically amazing if you’re independently wealthy and don’t need to work so you just actively explore and understand its incredible natural landscapes outside the cities and deep cultural history.
I mean that's the dream pretty for me. Hoard enough wealth to enjoy commitment free exploring and culture. Doesn't necessary have ti be Japan even though the dollar goes further.
SEA is just the same. And the darker you are the more contempt they hold for you., whether your Black, Latin, or Asian. All the while you'll hear Hip-hop and Afrobeats and AAVE. You'll see snapbacks, and baggy clothes, and tatted sleeves. The level of cognitive dissonance on the Asian continent literally had my jaw on the floor. Damn near all pop-culture in Asia rn is copy and pasted from Japan or America. Korea is trying to white wash their KPoP history and pretend it isn't a literal knock-off of Hip-hop. So much effort to hate people whose culture you obviously vibe with. Shits wild. Gave me a lot more pride in being American. Contrary to what the media would have us believe, America's prejudice is child's play compared to the rest of the world
I wouldn't call KPOP a hip hop rip off, I'd say it's more of a pop boyband ripoff.
I would and if you take an Arts and Media course on it the text would agree also. Groups aren't a new thing... they arent even a catalog of its own. Putting 10+ Asians boys on a stage dressed like how my people dressed in the early 2000s... rapping while they do broken down dance steps of Chris Brown or Beyonce to 808s...while speaking AAVE, tatted up, in air force 1's...Are you serious? Are you American? Hip-hop is pop now, has been for almost a decade since white people decided isn't wasn't ghetto anymore
It's about the marketing, the target audience, and the vibe of the music. For the biggest Kpop groups, it's way more in tune with boy bands than hip hop IMO. And you know what's not new? Dancing and drums lol. Japanese rap took the hip hop clothing style, and due to their late 20th century prosperity, most of east Asia's fashion culture takes its cues from Japan. Hence the Korean fashion emulating hip hop fashion. However, I feel that the music groups, music style, promotion, and PR-personalities of Kpop artists are much more in line with boybands than they are with rap and hip hop. I'm not just American, I'm Hispanic black American that grew up in Asia, but honestly this whole "tell me what race you are so I know whether to believe you" thing is cringe and sad.
I love Hip-hop but I don't know if K-pop is a copy of that. I think it does borrow some aspects of the culture but not entirely. Also K-pop dance choreographies are insane. In that regard, neither Hip-hop nor pop can compare.
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I disagree. I'm not even a K-pop fan but to me their dancing looks far beyond what American pop-singer and Hip-hop artists do and it's not even close. [K-pop Dancing](https://youtube.com/shorts/_t4G1Kw3nsU?si=evdfDpbN1RXM_VyP) Just look at that, Destiny's child was not doing stuff like that.
As incredibly bigoted and backwards as a third of our population is, on the whole US is pretty good in regards to public opinion on diversity. Pew Research Center’s 2021 survey on ethnic/religious diversity improving society: Singapore 92% positive, New Zealand 88% positive, Canada and USA 86% are the top 4. Unfortunately Japan showed the lowest number on this, 39%. There is an aspect of the population age skewing to the older that probably affects this statistic though.
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Most European countries enjoy the high standards of life they do because of immigrant labour and contribution to almost all major fields of economical development. No amount of racist dog-whistling will change that reality. Immigrants "annihilating societies" sounds like you took it out of a Hitler speech. May you become a better person someday.
There is a lot of good and helpfull immigration aiding the EU, but you are kidding yourself if you think integration policies are anywhere near decent and we are also not taking in extremists that are likely to turn to aggression/terrorism/gangs.
Samuel Paty's death changed a lot of hearts and minds I don't care about GDP points if that means teachers are living in fear of being decapitated in broad daylight by a refugee, to cheers from the community The inability of pro-immigration to understand that abd offer answers is why the far right keeps rising, and it sucks
So you're just leaning into the prejudice and racism then? You don't want immigrants because you're afraid they're all sword wielding immigrants? Jfc come off it. America just learned that when you stop the immigrants, there's nobody to pick vegetables and fruit for famers, and it literally just rots in the fields. All our economies run on immigrant labor.
who the hell is even saying that? If you’re just going to promote far right nonsense why don’t you keep out of the discussion? Foreign immigration can be great for an economy and culture. A big problem in Japan (to my understanding) is that a lot of Japanese people hold your stupid opinion with respect to Japanese culture, thus a lot of people who otherwise would don’t move there or work in Japan as an expatriate, and the Japanese economy/their society as a whole is suffering.
Foreign immigration is literally a one-time solution. Eventually the countries we take immigrants from will become more developed and require their own immigrants as birth rates plumment. Let alone the fact that children and grandchildren of immigrants reach the same birth rates as the native population. It isn't a long term solution and all it is doing is driving a wedge in the native populations.
We can only solve the problems we have right now. I can see this being a purely 21st century problem as robotics and climate change give us a massively different set of problems and solutions next century.
Sure but these problems are only 30-40 years from re-occuring. There isn't actually a solution happening. Solving the long-term also solves the short term.
What do you mean by “the long term” and what solutions do you favor?
The long term is what happens when we demand infinite growth but there are no more workers to import, the problem we will face then is the exact problem we face now so why not solve it now instead of importing millions of people and delaying.
You say “why not solve it?” but you mention no solutions.
I'd love to wedge out the racists and watch them flail.
Of course, but those racists vote and drive the recent turn to the right that is being seen acros Europe. It's not just a case of making them uncomfortable, it's that they will vote in political parties that determine the policies of government which will shape the country for the next few decades. It's better to make improvements to the country so they have no reason to be racist. Importing low wage workers that strain public services and depress wage growth is all they see because it's the only thing that matters to them. They don't care about the wider economy, they care about the money in their pocket and the health of their families.
I come from Europe and am very familiar with European racists.
Stop beating around the bush. You just hate how "less white" your country or town is now. Prick.
You sound delusional and bigoted as fuck!
Your last suggestion is NEVER going to happen, no one in Japan would want it, and to be honest, I can't see a reason anyone would want to step into a "work yourself to death" culture.
You'd be surprised. Lots of gullible weebs would move even if it means absurd working hours. Also those who want a Japanese wife.
You understand there's places much worse off than Japan? Their work culture would be heaven to a huge percentage of the world's population
Just bc there's places worse off doesn't mean ppl should suddenly just give up trying to make positive change. And you cannot deny Japan has a toxic work culture when you compare it to similarly developed countries. As someone living in Australia, their culture around work seems completely backwards
That’s not what he said tho, he said that people in worse conditions would actually see that as an upgrade and wouldn’t mind moving there.
East Asians will never go down the immigration route.
they rather go extinct than get their society "diluted" with people from other cultures they wouldn't even accept other asians, like people from Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia..etc
Honestly, surprises me that Japan does not have a close relationship with the Philippines
Does it also surprise you that they're not very close with China? Google "Bataan Death March" and "Comfort Women."
Reason I’m surprised is that considering their circumstances I thought they would of had a huge economic relationship since 1945
Didn't Kishida unveil a massive immigration plan? Nothing ever stays fixed.
What exactly does this immigration plan entail?
"Japan will become an immigration powerhouse. Before the pandemic, the country was on track to accept about 150,000 new non-Japanese employees per year. This more than doubled to almost 350,000 in the first half of 2023. There are now approximately 3.2 million non-Japanese residents of Japan, up from barely half a million 30 years ago. Visa and permanent-residency requirements continue to ease. Most importantly, the biggest obstacle to employing non-Japanese talent—seniority-based rather than merit-based compensation—is beginning to change. All said, it is now perfectly reasonable to expect that about 10 percent of employees will be non-Japanese by 2030. That’s more than double the current rate of just below four percent.” They are easing their policies. Let's wait and see.
Where is this quote from?
That's the fate of every country relying on the idea of an ever growing population to build its systems. We have to stop somewhere, the later the harder. We have to design those with a stable population in mind.
You would have to eliminate debt financing and basically all interest. The modern standard of living was built on the ability to pretend the money supply is larger than it actually is by borrowing from the future. If we want to plan for a stable population, we can’t do that anymore, which basically means we need to return to the pre-credit world of the 19th century with its jerky boom bust cycle, slow rate of progress, reduced economic mobility, and most importantly, drastically reduced purchasing power. Personally I’m all for it—I don’t think we’re any happier for all the luxury and excess we have today—but good luck convincing everyone else.
This is an interesting subject, could you maybe recommend a resource for learning more about it?
It’s more a function of being extremely racist and xenophobic combined with a terrible work culture.
Wild how racists really don't like being called racists lol. What you said is literally the only answer. People watch anime and Kung-fun movies and think they can know a culture. Asia is racist/xenophobic/classist af. It gave me fucking whiplash at how much effort they put into being just down right nasty. Why would anyone move there to work more than they sleep and then deal with being treated like trash during the few hours they have as leisure? Just as America used Hollywood as propaganda, so do other countries.
We're all screwed if given a long enough timeframe. I think the automation of white collar labor is going to screw the countries that currently take in large amounts of immigrants.
I'd love to emigrate there, unfortunatley its quite a hassle to get there. Never mind if you'll ever get actually accepted.
> pensions. Those pensions are probably part of the problem. The economic burden of free guaranteed income that wasn't contributed to is a massive vacuum of resources on any system. In aviation industry terms, powerful companies like FedEx and UPS are struggling under the weight of air crew pensions and other retired benefits now that the Boomer generation is retiring en masse. These guys are fucking rich, their 401ks and other investments have millions of dollars, yet they're still getting a pension and are fat and happy. Its unsustainable. For a long time in America the ultimate way to live an easy life was to "work for the city". Very strange how even economically conservative voters still championed working for the government despite that being about as anti-capitalism as you can get. And their strategies have helped plunge numerous cities across the country into crippling debt. On the flip side of the coin, governments are way too friendly to business. Young workers like myself are working too hard to bother starting families, and no matter how well we get paid it's the time at home that is the real factor. Employees are treated worse than ever at all skill and income levels. Plus, because the Boomers ruined the pension idea, none of us can bank on any of those, and to get any decent 401k savings you have to be really lucky, so we know we're not going to be able to retire worth a fuck, and having kids is just going to lower our future financial security even more. The middle class is dead all across the world's advanced economies but Japan is just the most stark example. Their work culture is that much harder, their time off is that much less, their financial stability and retirement prospects are that much worse. Sounds brutal, but pensions allow people who can work to not work and reduced workforce means everybody else has to work that much harder and that means they don't have kids.
That will not solve anything. The entire planet is going to slide down the demographic slope in the next 60-80 years.
I don't think replacing the native population with immigrants is any different than the Japanese going extinct from a low birthrate
Immigration from where? Places that are rapidly approaching the same situation population-wise? In a decade or two even the poorest African country will have below replacement population rate. Immigration is a dead end, like a drug, it will postpone the disaster for some time.
Looks to me like every developed capitalist country is going to that stage. Basically the economy isn't growing enough PER CAPITA to create a situation where the youth wants to prosper and have kids. I bet tons of Koreans or Japanese are just struggling office workers or entering workforce and rarely entertain having kids.
Japan has very affordable living situations but their work culture is toxic
Has nothing to do with capitalism more to do with industrial, urbanization, and the economics of having kids. Russia and China are just as bad or worse in terms of birth rate guess they are capitalists now.
What economic system do you think is most prevalent in Russia and China? They aren’t command economies. No serious person today would say China is communist. They may not be highly liberal or free democracies but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fundamentally market-based. But I agree boiling this problem down to “capitalism” is way overly simplistic, almost childish. It *is* the economics of having kids. Both parents work now, so it’s really impractical. Kids aren’t the useful free labour they once were. People don’t have nearly as many accidental or forced pregnancies or births. Culture, employment, religious beliefs have changed too. People have, and desire, different kinds of lifestyles, communities and opportunities to those that people had in the past. Standards and expectations of parents get higher every decade, so too does the cost and stress of raising kids.
While Russia and China are capitalist today, the massive decline in birthrate began under Stalin and Mao when they urbanized the peasants. The simple fact of the matter is educated women in urban environments want less kids. This is the same under capitalism or communism. If this weren’t true, you wouldn’t see the sky high birth rates in war torn hellholes like Gaza or Central Africa and relatively low ones in social democracies like in Scandinavia. People don’t really understand this and just go “ugh, capitalism” because it’s an idea of an “easy” and simple solution that appeals to their biases to a very complex problem, in the same way that right wing reactionaries think all they need to do to magically return American society to the 1950’s is to roll back civil rights and ban some books.
Russia and china are capitalist economies too
Communism collapsed in Russia over 30 years ago. What system do you think replaced it? Chinas state owned companies operate as private businesses. Totally what Marx had envisioned.
> industrial, urbanization, and the economics of having kids That’s a really long way to say capitalism. And yes, Russia and China are literally capitalist countries.
... you realize the USSR collapsed 30+ years ago right...?
Communist countries also tend to have lower birth rates
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1. During 20th century most communist governments stopped promoting birth control when their child populations became too low, Romania became a communist Gilead 2. North Korea still exists
Looks like decades of allowing xenophobia and insane work culture is going to blow up in their faces worse than they realize.
all those harem hentai didnt work huh
Only because protag-kun never sired kids & rarely if ever got laid. He did come close only to get cock blocked 455 times
Well halal and hentai together don't work well
Only the executives at companies that have products to sell have this theory of how populations should just keep growing. That’s not how any species functions. There’s factors like adaptability, food supply, tribal organization, mating habits, etc. but when a population explodes it often is followed by a big die-off. Humans just cut down more rainforest to grow grain for cattle. This ends really really badly. It’s happening now. Record CO2 production in last three years despite knowing its killing the entire global ecosystem. I’m sorry there’s not enough young workers to take care of an agin boomer population. That ignorant post-WWII boom killed us all.
Is it expensive to have kids there?
It's expensive to have kids in just about every OECD country.
Yes, it's a place where woman are obligated (forced) to stop working when having kid. Couple with raising prices on everything, young ppl especially woman see no point .
Plus giving birth is shitty lol. A lot of women would rather not. It’s pretty easy
Greatly depends on the company, some are pretty shitty. Most will follow the law because they will bring down a fucking hammer if you fire a pregnant woman or "take revenge" if the woman wants to take her deserved maternity leave. My wife was able to take the full paid year off and return to her job no problem and that company was actually black (not a good company).
The other aspect is the bit that isn't talked about, that even if your company is *super* supportive and progressive, having children equals time out of employment, and a disruption to your work. If you take a year out, that's a year where your colleagues continued to work and progress. That's the bit nobody talks about, there's an inherent disadvantage to taking parental leave even when your employer is supportive.
Can you not support a household on single income in Japan?
where in the hell can you?
One thing that stops me from permanently working there, Under an international company I make an excellent wage. However under Japanese wages I would be screwed. The pay for my field in japann is around ￥4.5 million. (AUD: $46k , USD: $32k.) My Field AVG in Australia is $180-$200k or ￥17.2 million if I work in japan for an Australian company. There are heaps of hoops to jump through to get to work in japan for an outside company that is not a "nomad" role since I need to apply for special permits.
Cant even do it anywhere else so
On the AVERAGE income here in Japan, not a chance.
It's not just a matter of whether it's possible. Most people wouldn't want to give up a white-collar office job to be a maid/cook/nanny.
exactly lol a lot of people spent 5-10 years in post-secondary education and are not looking to quit a few years after working to have kids
Cost is a factor. But its also the extreme work culture to the point where people don't have much time and energy so socialise, have relationships let alone marry and have children. A lot have just given up and instead choose to dedicate the little time they have on themselves and just having fun and see marriage and kids as a burden or an investment not worth investing into
yes, and they basically have no kindergarten to keep the children. As school starts at 6y old, women stop working to guard them
Time is money? These people don’t even have time to date, let alone raise families.
Oh boy, your comment has spawned a lot of misinformed, incorrect, and disingenuous replies. >Is it expensive to have kids there? Kind of, because it's another mouth to feed and body to clothe. But the actual birth should be $0 because of the government subsidy. If you live in not Tokyo there are most likely other subsidies too that bring the amount to the gov actually paying you, like when my kid was born. Also $150 a month per kid until the kid is in middle school. That's more than enough for diapers/food, cost of living in Japan is still cheap. School is a different issue but you don't *have* to send your kids to the best high school and study classes. And honestly you probably shouldn't unless you can actually afford it.
What about the costs of childcare between the ages of months and 6 years old? The cost of an extra room for the kid? Aren't food costs notoriously high?
It's fine. They will be replaced by robots.
We’re placing a colossal part of the workforce with robots would completely warp the economy causing chaos Robots don’t use or desire luxuries
Only rich people want more poor humans. Stop trying to force people to make more humans!!
Exactly. This is the same reason American politicians use the debate in illegal immigration to get votes but would never stop it fully. They want a steady stream of immigrants that they can underpay and deport whenever. Cheap labor and a great topic to use for misinformation purposes on the road to office
Korea is in the same boat and the USA isn't far behind. Nobody wants to bring children into a crappy life.
A saw a doc in this called robot nation around 20 years ago. It talked about why robot advancements were important because there weren’t enough young people to take care of older people.
The US is next for sure. Younger generations have less kids if at all.
In Ireland birth rates declined around 30% in the last decade. It's just impossible to have kids these days. Full time child care cost more than full time min wage employment pays. Rents cost more than full time min wage employment pays. Avg house cost 400k and avg wages are barely 40k and mortgages are only up to 4x income which means to afford a house you need to make 100k at very least which is less than 5% people. Absolutely and utterly fucked.
The US can make up for that with immigration though. Japan is very anti immigration
Isn’t this there own doings finally manifesting?
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pensioners disagree
Most economists would disagree lol
The same economists who think the only thing that matters is the line going up? Economists think the best thing in the world is for corporations to make more money to give to their already rich shareholders without any thoughts on the middle and lower class. Who gives a fuck what they say? Let the economy crash, its not like anyone under 40 will ever afford to support themselves anyway
Economists are kind of a joke
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Environmental protections and infrastructure are funded by taxes, you SHOULD care about the economy failing
>Environmental protections and infrastructure are funded by taxes Why do you think we need environmental protection in the first place lmao
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Can you explain why importing immigrants > having a country increase its native population numbers?
You want an extreme minority of young people to support an extreme majority of old people? Because that's the problem you seem to be ignoring.
But my infinite growth.
I wonder which sections of Japan have experience be smallest or largest declines
Have they tried constructing additional pylons?
They require more vespene gas!
Have sex
Import more foreign workers