>

I didn’t complain about bringing up racism, I complained about making racism the sole issue at the core. 
Whereas here, I read the above comment as being ignorant, while it of course seems a great idea on paper, I doubt culture wise people from HK would be very happy in Japan, although Japan has tried more than enough to get them to work here, more Japanese are actually going to HK to work, especially as expats.
Under loose plans that reportedly won’t be outlined until March, ...

That's all you need to know. It's an article about nothing, wait till the actual policies come out. >

Increase immigration? Nah, "it'll make the country less Japanese."
Raise salaries to pay for nannies or support stay-at-home parents? Nope. "Can't reward those mooches."
Reduce work hours to give more time to raise kids? Hell no, "muh economy!"
Increase childcare benefits and opportunities for young adults? Lol no, "sink or swim!"
Instead, let's just blame the overworked, underpaid, and stagnating parents for not raising more babies, so that the generation in power gets their old-age caretakers, despite giving nothing to the young generation in return.
If your answer to any complaint about life getting more difficult and less rewarding for parents and young adults alike is "you chose to have kids, now you get to raise them", don't complain when the solution young adults take is to simply not have kids. If it means your economy, society, and country has no future, too bad, you brought it upon yourself. >

This is not just happening to Japan. It's pretty much all of East Asia.
There seems to be a mass decision by people in their twenties to remove themselves from society in these places. Not leave the house, not get a job, not go to college -- and certainly not get married and have kids.
It's happening to other countries too. As far as I know I think every western country has a declining population. Hence, immigration, to maintain the numbers.
But the essential question for both sides of the argument is why?
Having lots of kids is not necessarily good for the average person in Japan.
Having largescale immigration is not necessarily good for the average person in Germany. (I'm not saying it's bad. Please don't get excited)
But having a large number of people is good for the government and for all the large corporations they do business with.
That seems to be the only reason why they need to maintain a large population.
We will start to see clear visible signs of the effects of lowering populations in the next few years. Gonna be interesting. >

It happens to essentially all advanced economies. Its mainly that economic pressures and social expectations lead to children being much more expensive for parents. In extremely poor rural areas, children actually have positive economic value to parents >

Yes, I would agree with that. But I think having a family -- and buying a house for the family to live in -- has also become a business model for banks.
If there are fewer people around, that means fewer people buying overpriced houses way out in the suburbs.
How will the banks survive? >

Housing and healthcare should be all subsidized.I honestly want to strangle folk who thought to turn such essential things into business >

Winston Churchill, a man that I wouldn't exactly call a socialist or even a particularly sensible or pleasant person, railed against landlords because they made their money in a way that contributed absolutely nothing to society. This was back in the early 1900s. He pointed out how they just bought up property and expected hefty payments simply because someone dared to live on it, without even bothering to maintain that property, which I'd call the bare fucking minimum. They were reliant on public services like water and gas, but they were the ones that wanted money? They didn't even produce anything!
If his hyper-conservative arse could see it... >

A lot of sci fi predicted a future where humans were sterile. It didn't predict a future where people just didn't want kids. >

Let’s riddle our kids with student debt, price them out of property, depress wages and then wonder why they aren’t having children or spending their time taking care of us.….. lol man, Boomers really are universally arrogant and clueless. >

It’s becoming a global issue >

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot)


For all his implied warnings of a dystopian, hollowed-out Japan, Kishida is largely sticking to a script that has already been roundly rejected by young Japanese.
Subsidies for pregnancy, childbirth and childcare have failed, while some experts complain that politicians target parents who already have children while failing to ask themselves why young people are reluctant to start families.
The government says it will provide better support for families with young children, but I don't have much faith in politicians.


Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: children^#1 family^#2 Japan^#3 Kishida^#4 continue^#5 >

Abenomics at it's finest. Cut worker pay, slash permanent hire, increase temp jobs. >

Don’t forget funneling money into agriculture and rural areas, where the elderly voters are living. 
Abe loved this shit. >

its like every country needs a leader that is a carbon copy of reagan where they funnel all the money to the elderly and blame the young for existing and wanting a chance to live  
and then pump them full of drugs so the elders wont die and leech from society, while the young has to pay for all of it >

I swear the government has told the manga industry to subtly get young people to think about sex and/or marriage a lot.
Cause so many involve young kids falling in love, or wanting sex and I never noticed it till now. >

Darling in the franxx was basically pro child propaganda by the end of it. >

The only homo becomes crippled lol >

Japan is going to get in a hole so bad they can't get out of >

They're already in it. >

Profits before people. Until that changes, there'll be less slaves and peasant laborers work force.
Profits before people is how our economies are arranged, and is not concerned with the next generation, only the greed of the living billionaires. Even the planet's ability to support life is secondary to the profits margins of the billonaire class. >

I fear we'll just end up descending into a twisted 21st century feudalism. You'd think it'd be in their best interests then, to have people churning out more peasant labor. But then, as a consequence, they'd have to improve upon the system they've dug up all into. 
Weird to think that they're genuinely incompetent at replenishing the slave stock. Suppose that means there's a sliver of hope that with the gradual fading of tradition, society has a chance to improve in this instance at least. Or idk, maybe I'm wrong, lmao >

They arent having any because they have no representation in politics as their leaders only pander to a out of touch and very self centered older generations. Their working conditions and strict social protocol combined with no money and time for family means it aint fuckin happening. 
Just like the US and other western countries we are too overworked, underpaid, unsupported, not represented and completely disregarded by older generations, the politicians and the businesses and corporations. We(Japan included) dont have time, space or standard of living to support and raise a child especially when neither us nor our kids will be supported as everything deteriorate and the working class is wrung dry for as few scraps as employers can get away with. 
You can panic and urge all you like but unless you address the underlying systemic cause for no one having kids then its not going to change.
Heres a video talking about it >

How do you make women want to marry an average guy and have kids with him? I don't see how that's going to be possible. Something like 30%+ of Japanese men are isolated. This is the core of the issue behind all of these problems in the west in my opinion and not purely related to financial matters. >

My wife is a career women in tokyo, she is 33 right now. And she has about 10 single lady friends about her age who are also career women. And they are desperate for a real relationship.
The problem is here, ladies dont want to marry a guy who earns less than them.
Men who earn that much money dont want to marry a women who is same age as them. Because they can get much younger wives due to their high salary
Her friends actually tried paying matchmakers to get a husband, but it just doesnt work, only options left for those career women are divorced 50 years old.
So unless either party gives up on their priorities it just doesnt work. >

This is problem in other Asian countries too. >

It's becoming a problem in most any modern westernized country. The US has negative population growth internally too, we just make up for it with immigration.
I can't blame either gender for things, our economies and political systems have become kind of endless fear and depression factories. That's not great for childbirths. >

We, being the world as a whole, need to figure out how to have functional societies and economies that don't rely on everlasting growth and even better if we can figure out a humane way to reduce the population long term. >

Population reduction carries with it the implosion problem. It's like a star at the end of its life, when it loses the ability to perform fusion, it stops pushing out against its own gravity. All that mass comes back down and bang. You've got a society and economy built around a certain level of production, what happens if you no longer have the incoming workforce and tax base to support what you've built? >

Seriously, what educated modern woman wouldn’t want to give up her career to stay at home and be subordinate to her husband, her mother in law, and her son? Isn’t that a scene every woman dreams of, kneeling by the door when your husband comes home and getting ready to take off his coat? >

Well that isn’t really a reality anymore, it might be unbelievable for Reddit, but a lot of women here have babies and return to their job without problem. 
Actually all of the mothers I know who are not working aren’t working because they chose to stay home. 
I also don’t know a single case where the wife was told to stay home or care for the mother in law, it may have been true 50 years ago but at this point it is just a Reddit fantasy about the poor and repressive Japanese fascist culture. >

I mean if you actually read the article, it quotes young people who explicitly mention those kinds of cultural pressures/expectations as reasons they don’t want kids. In 2022. >

Yeah but I live here, and see the reality and was is said on the mews here why young people don’t have kids. 
I have worked with a lot of women with kids, and while the “traditional family model” of course still exists (it does still exist in the west as well, right?), if the article reduces it to that, it’s not grabbing the issue correctly. 
I know so many young men who are great fathers, they are there for the family, help at home, want to spend time with the family as well. In Tokyo at least, you need a double income to live a good life, so the mother staying home will most likely not be possible anymore. 
The high cost of living when it comes to food, housing, education and anything leisure is a much bigger factor that keeps young people from getting married and having kids in the first place from what I’ve see in Japanese media. 
Dating is costly, stressful and time consuming as well. 
For a young Japanese, there are no positives to having kids, you will be poorer, have less freedom and a lot of stress. 
But yeah probably there are still a lot of girls who think they need to be a perfect little housewife once they get married, maybe my perspective is warped because the women I meet are all working mothers. >

Feels like a change in Japanese culture would be more effective than these solutions. >

Yeah, it looks like the pressure is on women to abandon everything for the oh so fulfilling call of motherhood. While men are expected to provide for everyone in this economy? Forget it. Investing in the people rather than these half assed solutions should be a priority indeed >

I'm a little confused by the pure economic argument though since it seems the wealthier someone is, the less children they have on average in a lot of developed countries. >

Because parenthood means sacrificing either career time (less ambitous roles, forgoing promotioms, not working 24/7) or forgoing any personal/rest time to make room.
With cost of living as it is no one's willing/able to afford reducing their job role/hours and taking a paycut, and no one wants to have a kid and lose the few hours of rest they currently have from a demanding job. 
Add to that a stay at home parent isn't really viable financially if you actually want any reasonable savings/retirement, and it's easy to see why a couple who each has a solid career isn't interested in ruining that kinda stability and lifestyle to raise a child. >

The core of the issue is the modern concept of family.
One father, one mother and at least two kids.
While in the past we had distantish relatives living together as family in one household and everyone pitched in raising children. And it wasn't just that family, the entire neighborhood cared at least a little for those kids.
If we go a little further back we see that an entire village raised children together.
So the more people your definition of family includes the easier it is to raise kids.
It also works in reverse, being a single parent is so much more harder. >

Yup. We need more social communities and larger families from poc of children. 
It is said, It takes a village to raise a child >

Among many aspects of modern living that suppress ones desire to procreate, let us not forget the ubiquity of hormone disrupting chemicals like phthalates that have contributed to massive global lowering of sperm count, among other things like reduced testosterone levels. It really feels like we are being attacked on all sides. Not just economic depression. It's a brutal world. Who would want to bring children into this when so many of us can barely afford to live. >

Their solution is probably gonna be a lab created pheromone that inhibits mindless sexual cravings. That’s way more likely than any quality of life improvements >

France had similar problems. They responded by encouraging women with children to continue working and subsidising childcare heavily - two of the key concerns various Japanese governments have left alone or only paid lip service to - with good results
Turns out that listening to the problems younger people say they have and providing change accordingly can work. Who knew? >

Its irony how Japan has oversexualizing their female in media so much yet they still failure to increase birthrate >

One possible solution will be to open up a channel for Hong Kong citizens who are unhappy about the broken Chinese promises to emigrate. Won’t turn the tide, but will at least bring in some younger blood. >

Ah yeah because these Asians are all the same, right? >

You just complained about someone else bringing up racism on reddit and here you are doing the same, albeit inappropriately.
Well done.