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And they elected a conservative leader that’s wants to reduce immigration.
We've tried nothing and were all out of ideas!
They haven't tried nothing, they consistently raise taxes on consumer goods while salaries remain stagnant. And since it hasn't solved anything yet they'll just keep trying it until it works.
Yeah, not going to get better until the government addresses the actual problems and reasons people aren't having kids.
I think we're just going to have to come to terms with the idea that people simply have better shit to do.
An educated population has more options to choose from, having kids doesn't make the cut.
Meanwhile you have Handmaids Tale hellscapes like Afghanistan which has one of the highest birthrates in the world at 4.8 births per woman, is it worth it? I think not.
Ideally countries will accept people's choices and prepare for a future with less people but the whole system runs on endless growth so I imagine we'll see some brutal stick action when it's obvious the carrots aren't moving the needle enough.
I know people who want to have kids but they worry about daycare and such (rough lottery-ish system in Tokyo) and jobs (which means moving to someplace like Tokyo) and the overtime expectations and such. So much stuff here nearly expects one person being home or not working during business hours to get stuff done yet, on the medium japanese, or even Tokyo, income, that's not tenable. The yen keeps dropping compared to other currencies yet our fuel, agricultural inputs, and many raw materials are still imported.
I've been here a decade and have citizenship elsewhere so, if worse comes to worse, I have options. Most japanese do not. Yet salaries remain stagnant whilst everything goes up in prise or disappears from the market.
People also generally need support if they are to have kids.
If you have a cultural expectation that people need to move out when they are of age, they can't rely on grandparents or extended family to look after the children, and if they are spending all their other time working, they're just not going to have the time to find someone to have kids with, or be able to actually raise the children.
In the absence of other factors, like needing the kids to help out on the farm, people have no reason to have them. Especially in countries like the US, where healthcare and childcare are quite expensive. A childbirth alone is about $3000 - $30000 over there, to say nothing of health-care costs, complications, there being very little parental leave, or any of that.
humans can't breed in captivity
705,809 births and about 1.61 million deaths, leading to a net population decrease of 899,845. Wikipedia says the total population is about 123.4 million, so they lost about 0.73%.
losing anything close to a full percentage is scary shit.
I'm a bit conflicted on the population and birthrate issue. On one hand you have those who worry that an ever increasing population will lead to resource scarcity, economic stress and degrading climate resilience. Then you have those, especially on the right, that insist we need to have more babies. Usually, that "we" is white people. For example, that weird Collins couple who are having kids not of love but out of ~~eugenic~~ patriotic obligation.
So, my question is this: when discussing population crisis, be it overpopulation or under-population, what is legitimate concern and what's just ring-wing fear mongering?
The legitimate concern is every economy runs on the assumption of infinite growth. In essence every nations economy is one big pyramid scheme that can go on and on as long their women have at least 2.1 births on their downline.
We need a system that can run well on degrowth, there's no good reason why one couldn't work but there are trillions of reasons why people will fight tooth and nail to prop up the current one. People's choices and the environment be damned.
The optimist in me hopes that AI just makes up for the loss in human labor from population loss and everything just keeps functioning.
The issue happening in Japan is that there won't be enough young people to support all the old people who can't work
The core issue is population distribution. Most governments are designed to run with a certain proportion of people in each age bracket. Japan and much of Europe is headed towards being essentially old age communities. Governments are not effective at saving money to provide for the needs of a majority elderly population elderly. They typically make use of resources coming from the productively employed segments of society. With an elderly skewed population, there would need to be major institutional overhauls to meet the needs of people.
There are advantages and issues with both high and low population, but the most pressing issue is that when population decreases, it puts a strain on working people because there's a higher share of the population that is retired.
All I can say is that they have to find a solution, and their time is limited.
I think it's a safe bet to say that Japanese sociologists are already studying the problem for decades.
Choosing some solutions they might propose is becoming increasingly urgent. It will most likely require adopting a different view on topics like employment and career. If a career is valued highly and having kids blocks it effectively and incurs enough expenses to set a person back in life, then people are discouraged from raising kids.
Mandatory daycare on site at every job except specific industries
Degrowth. It's here. It's now. It's wow!
Er, have you seen the work culture in that country?
'Not enough people' isn't as bad as 'not enough money'. And since money is a made up thing, I'm sure everyone will figure out who to eat if there's not enough to go around 🤑
Crispy marinated elite meat yummy!!!
I wonder why