What is the cause of Japan's low birth rate?
 

Something that I have always been curious about.

Japan has had a long time problem with birth rates, but what stands out to me is that Japan doesn't really have the problems the western countries do.

Western countries (America and Europe) are overran with feminism and skanks so our women are generally not marriage material so American men generally avoid American women for anything other than sex. As a result the US has the highest sex rate in the world but a very low birth rate.

Japan doesn't have any of these issues and I have been corresponding with a female Japanese pen pal and she says women there are still looked down upon in the workplace and gender roles are still very much in place. Not that I support strict gender roles but my point is feminism hasn't completely destoryed women like it has in America.

So what exactly is the deal in Japan? Their birth rate should be AT LEAST 2.0 yet from what I can find it's 1.1 or something extremely low.

I heard that at the rate that was current a year or two ago, the population of Japan in the year 3000 would be 3.... 3 people....

Generalizing, men overwork and don't have the time or desire to be intimate with their spouse, so procreation rates aren't the same as other countries.

It is said women are paid less and seen as temporary labor because they are expected to leave their job when they become pregnant. Therefore, women try to get ahead in the workplace by not getting pregnant or by being single altogether. This also reduces birth rates.

But these are just observations of a gaijin and are not intended to be facts.

I believe,and someone correct me if i'm wrong on this,that in Japan,as a general rule,they do not have the concept of maternity leave as they do in the US or UK. This would be one reason that women would do their best not to get pregnant if they are focusing on their careers.

Another reason might be that, until recently,Japan was still a very male dominated society. If the husband dosen't want a child,then that's how it was. As the generations go by,this line of thought is diminishing,which is good,but there is still some of it.

Back on careers,I would guess that many people are simply too busy working to have a child.

These are all my opinions,so someone feel free to correct me if my facts are askew.

Here are two articles that should help with your questions one is a few years old but the information in the article addresses a lot regarding why Japan's birth rate is so low and still falling.

Italy is also facing the same problem. Birthrates in multiple western countries have actually started to decline there are many reasons behind this. But we will stick to Japan for now.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Gender issues key to low birth rate

A special report on Japan: The dearth of births | The Economist

Frankly I find your reasoning offensive. Women's liberation may have prompted a move towards smaller families but it is absolutely NOT the sole cause of the modern declining birthrate, and it's disgustingly narrow minded of you to pin the whole problem on women alone. Have a good stare at the nearest man (or yourself) and consider this; male impotence has rocketed in the last decade or two, due to a combination of bad habits and exposure to modern chemicals. Also more men expect their partners to work in order to be 'marriageable' and are less inclined to adhere to their OWN traditional gender role.

As for Japan, the low birth-rate has less to do with the freer role of women in society and the fact it is incredibly impractical to have a big family. It takes a long time to establish enough of a career (for either gender) in order to afford to marry, dating behavior is more prolonged with modern couples and so people marry later and even if they don't marry, people are having kids later in life compared to decades past.

Unlike other countries abortions are more available (albeit expensive) and there's no religious slur against aborting unwanted pregnancies. Japan has small houses so having a dozen babies is often a terrible idea, and it's incredibly costly. If a woman marries and has kids, she may lose out on income if she chooses to stay at home and then struggle to get full-time regular employment again, so couples can go from two people on two reasonable incomes to three or more people on less. As the cost of living in some areas is high, this can be a point of real concern for some families. It's particularly hard to be a single parent- there's a slight stigma against it, unless you're bereaved or divorced, and again the financial situation is difficult, so women in that situation have more incentive to abort than keep the child. Of course, some wouldn't take that route. There's no real drive for men to have big families or women to have a lot of children, so people don't.

ETA: Wow, that article. What possessed that politician to think it was appropriate to refer to women as 'birth machines'? And 'devices'? Is that... men? Wonder what the original Japanese was...

ETA 2: I realize I may have mis-read the initial tone of the OP in the first post. If, as later posts suggests, you didn't mean to imply that feminism = ruined women= low birth rate= BAD AND TOTALLY ALL WOMEN'S FAULT, then I duly apologize. If you did, then my point still stands.

Wow those are two very good article, especially the last one.

Just as I suspected, it seems the problem in Japan has almost nothing to do with women. It seems like it's too much of an economic disadvantage to have kids and that the Japanese ultra-urban ultra-expensive lifestyle is a major deterrent to kids.

Also, the article touched on the social stigma to out of wedlock births which because of the feminist movement is no longer present in the US. In fact single mothers are celebrated here and rewarded with welfare checks :rolleyes:

Very very interesting how different Japan's problem are than the US.

Oh, save me with that garbage :rolleyes:

Feminism is DIRECTLY responsible for the declining birth rate in western countries. Men responsible? Oh please. You may think impotence may be contributing, but the fact is men don't want to marry women who act like men.

Feminism is responsibly for the free sex its ok to be a skank movement women have been on for the past 20 years. It's basically removed the stigma for women to sleep around like men. Yeah, it's fun for guys for women to slut themselves around, but NO guy wants to marry this type of women or have kids with them.

Also, I'm not some male chauvinist or anything, but if women want to work I'm perfectly fine with that and most men are. But we do appreciate a female with female qualities and females who want to take on female responsibilities. Biologically females are the ones who take care of the young and take care of the family with the resources the man brings up (money or supplies). We don't want am aggressive woman who works 12 hours a day pushing and shoving her way to the top in an attempt to "bring home the bacon". Sorry not that's not a feminine quality.

Sorry but it's the sad truth.

Nope you got it right, thats exactly what I meant.

You not chauvinist? that is laughable. you obviously don't have a clue.

I state that most men want a feminine woman, and that makes me a chauvinist?

No, referring to women as "skanks responsible for low birth rates" at least twice makes you that. Or incredibly foolish, or a very successful troll.

Your choice.

so what woman is not feminine. you want a woman who will run to their masters will saying yes sir no sir three bags full sir. you are living in the dark ages.


You sure are no gentleman with your dreadful attititudes to women. How dare you!!

Basically you are afraid of women who have a mind of their own. consider them unfeminine.

what planet are you on?

this is an interesting history of the role of Women through Japanese History.

The Changing Roles of Women in Japanese Society

another interesting item re women and having children etc.

RIGHTS-JAPAN: Motherhood Is A Choice, Say Activists - IPS ipsnews.net

I'm not a troll and the truth is no one wants to marry or have kids with a skank.

Guess you are a troll. GOD HELP ANY WOMAN WHO got tied up with someone like you. whatever a skank is?

Women just want money. Never give em money before having a child.

Plainly put, the problem is selfishness. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is a popular concept in Japan, and in order to have the big home, nice clothes, and designer bags, one must forego having children. Nevermind the fact the fact that you can't take any of these material things with you when you die, and with no children there is no one to leave these things to.

In the old days there used to be a concept of "successive generations" where each generation worked to improve the quality of life for the generation that followed. The has been replaced by the "me" generation, which wants everything for itself, with no thought or care for anyone else. God forbid you have a child, you might not be able to afford a second car, or have a television in every room of your designer apartment.

Another big issue is responsibility. People nowadays have become increasingly neurotic about trivial things, and can't stand the thought of shouldering the responsibility of raising a child. People seem to forget that having children is the most natural of occurances, and human beings, like other animals, are far more adaptable to raising children than they are to adapting to otner things in modern life.

Think of all the things you have done and experienced in your life, if you don't have children, then you rob someone else of the chance to experience those things as well.

The issue is money.
Plain and simple. Money.

It`s not an issue of men working too long, and not having time for intimacy - as western men LOVE to point out as if Japanese men are sexually inferior in some way. The average working hours were longer in the past, and apparently peaked in the 1960s and 70s when the birthrate was so high there were efforts to slow it.

It`s expensive to have a kid. Housing to accommodate a child is expensive. Birth itself is expensive. School is expensive.

Companies used to offer pay raises, bonuses, etc based on the number of children you had. Now they make the assumption that both parents are working, so they don`t need to do anything like that. The biggest problem is, pay has been dropping so that it`s hard to get by without two incomes... But there is no support structure in place for the two incomes to continue once a baby comes along. Maternity leave most certainly DOES exist, but it doesn`t last until the kid goes off to school. Daycare - even the government run ones - are incredibly expensive for under 3s... Plus they tend to give priority based on income. Literally being unable to survive without mom working receives priority for the limited number of spots over those who may be able to just scrape by on one...

People tend to be financially responsible when it comes to children, so simply don`t have them until they feel they can afford them.

I hate hate HATE how this has been turned into a soundbyte by the media, completely removed from context, and made into something it was NOT.

To quote myself from back when it was first attacked by feminine groups and the guy basically lynched - and all the GOOD plans he had in place discarded...

And a post I made elsewhere about the issue;

For those who don`t know, the "baby making machines" comment was not calling women machines, was not considering them less than human, etc etc... But was saying that instead of a bunch of old men deciding what is "best" for increasing population, as there are only a limited number of people out there with wombs (said with a hopefully more PC term of "baby making mechanisms" as "womb" is sort of off limits - but then correcting himself as the self coined term probably wasn`t a good one) it would be a MUCH better idea to actually listen to THEIR opinions and cater to them, as they are the ones - the only ones - who really have the power to raise the future population. But congratulations to all the groups who took it out of context and got the guy taken out of office! All the plans he had in place to actually listen to the potential mothers and make things easier have been scrapped, the team he gathered to make Japan a better place for having children has been split up... and replaced with old men who couldn`t care less what women think because they don`t bother talking to have their comments taken out of context - and only have a plan that doesn`t have anything to do with reality. Good job on the kneejerk, I say! *insert eyeroll here*

I hope you are joking. If you are in that sort of relationship,then you clearly have trust issues.

It's amazing how many people are pulling theories out of their ass about this.

One person says that a more materialistic "keeping up with the Joneses" generation is to blame.
Another blames Feminism... :cool:

The (I would assume) RESEARCHED answer was given by Sinestra on the first page.

Thread over.

I agree with Nyororin that one of the main factors is money. From my own observations and experience I'd make the following comments.

Japan does very little in my opinion to assist young families. Tax breaks and family assistance payments are minimal. Minimal when you consider that the low birth rate is such a recognised issue. Overall the economy in Japan is in a shambles and not getting any better. The low birth rate and aging population is not helping one bit. Average pay has actually been declining and job security is not what it once was. Minimum wage here is really very low and barely provides a livable income. There are many working poor in Japan.

The government does provide a payment after a birth that generally covers most of the costs of the birth (assuming there were no complications).There is paid maternity leave here but it is only for 6 weeks before the birth and 8 weeks after (assuming you have insurance). There is quite a lot of pressure on women to not continue working after giving birth (whether that be direct pressure in the workplace or just general societal and cultural norms) and as one of the articles above stated if they try and get back into the workforce it's usually not possible to just pick up and continue with the career they may previously have had. They often find themselves in part time or casual positions earning little more than minimum wage which barely covers the cost of daycare.

Costs of education and raising kids is not cheap and when you are often losing a full time wage out of the relationship after the wife stops working it really isn't easy. Having more than one kid can make it really very difficult.

For there to be another baby boom in this country the economy would really have to turn around. But of course that's really difficult with such an aging population and low birth rate. I believe Japan really needs to open up it's borders and have a comprehensive immigration program for skilled workers. I can't see any other solution unless they are prepared to make some major changes to things to make it easier for families to have more children.

I think Japan just needs to shrink.

150 million people on a bunch of islands that small?

In the short term it will hurt economically.

In the long term it will benefit environmentally.

I figured there was a chance it was mis-translated and then mis-represented, but the article seemed to imply he was put upon by Japanese groups as well, so i couldn't tell. Thanks for the explanation, Nyororin; it's a shame his good intentions backfired.

many of the comments remind me of us in the UK. couples having to work to survive. It is not easy at all and child care is extremely expensive.

there used to be AU PAIRs that were paid a set amount to live with a family and look after the children whilst parents were working. Mydaughter had several AU Pairs when the children were young--- still remaining friends with those girls even now.

I believe that the worry is that there will not be enough young people to care for the older generations---


I used to hear that Japanese families were very close and the gr parents lived with their families all together.

I suppose Britain could do with a population shrinkage too. Isn't it 60 million on an Island not much bigger than Hokkaido is about the same ratio (just off the top of my head)

I think the problem of many young people taking care of the old is exaggerated though. It just means governments are going to have to increase spending in that area.

I fail to see why there is such a debate over this issue like a think tank needs to be put together to determine the answer. Its not as complex as some are making it out to be. I gave two very useful links on the first page and there is a ton of information on the web that explains in detail why Japan's birthrate is continuing to fall. Plus Nyororin who lives in Japan and is married to a Japanese man and has a child gave her first person answer.

Also, western nations birthrate is also falling but not at the rate as Japans. Italy for one has a very low birthrate even the UK and the US birthrate is falling. The reason being people are waiting to get married and having children later and even then they are not having a ton of kids. It is not necessary to have a huge family anymore and in some cases like Japan inconvenient. The baby boomers in the US are getting ready to retire there was a boom of births after WWII and through the 50's. The population levels are just capping.

Yeah, with that many people they are practically falling into the ocean. It is so crowded.

Not quite. Most of Japan is a very natural landscape. It is just a large part of the population has drawn itself to the two largest plains, Kanto and Kansai.

I think the world will be overrun by Arabs in x years.

I'm thinking in terms of consumption rather than space.

The fact is that Japan cannot sustain it forever.

What do you mean? How exactly will they overrun the world, by number or...?:confused:
I really don't understand.

They are much more environmentally conscious and less wasteful than American, as a society as a whole.

And no country can sustain it forever.

Very true no country can sustain it forever. However if Americans were even half as environmentally conscious as the Japanese i believe greener tech would take a hold faster here and a lot cities would not be as dirty. One of things i hate is when i go into DC our nations capital and i just see how dirty a lot of is, i think i wonder what foreigners would think (even though i already know)

Bottom line no country in the world can no longer avoid important topics like pollution, over populations and dwindling natural resources. I read recently there is going to be a clean drinking water shortage in number of years though i didnt trust the numbers that were stated.

If Japan were cut off from overseas imports - it would not be able to support half the population on the land in Japan. Japan has honestly lost all of it`s ability to be self sufficient.

And even if virtually all the arable land was utilized for farming and land production, there still isn`t enough to get everyone by at subsistence levels.

In a world where imports and exports are perfectly normal, and the worry of being cut off from them is pretty close to zero, self-sustenance doesn`t really carry the weight it should...
But I know one of the reasons I chose to live where I do is that it has a large enough garden attached that I could feasibly use to keep my family alive.

That's true.

But it wasn't my point.

I think countries like Sweden, Norway and New Zealand have a chance to sustain their levels of consumption indefinitely. All these countries are similar in geographic size to Japan but have really low populations comparitively and Scandinavians at least are investing a lot of time and money into green technology.

Norway and New Zealand are under 5 million. Sweden is under 10 million.

Episode 20 of Clannad shows this issue

Thats interesting i didn't think their respective populations were that low. The crappy thing is all the oil companies in the US have already started to move and have been for a while and prepare for the end of the oil age. They are buying up Green technology contracts and patents like hotcakes and sitting on them. Its easy to see why.

Oh yeah.. I've heard about this.

It f*cking sucks what these corporations are doing.

Why is the population declining? If you follow the discussion in another thread, in the UK and other countires it is perhaps a lack of sperm donors. (only 1/2 joking here)


Depends on your chosen definition of "feminine". You do realized the basic definition only refers to a human with female body parts, right? In that case, I would agree.

But the tone of your posts would lead one to believe you meant something less agreed upon by the masses, so your comment becomes considerably less relevant.

I wouldn't say "feminism" persay is part of the western problem, it's more "liberal socialism" and controled population growth aka Ronin's gibberish, that's causeing the problem. Feminism as Brass is describeing it is just part of that liberal elitist philosophy. They teach this crap in school now, the colleges are riff with it. It will destroy America as well as other western cultures. It's partly why the US is in decline and most of Europe is in freefall.

Ronin, a population must have a birth rate over 2.1 to maintain itself. Failure in this means decline and failure of that culture period. You can take that to the bank. The US barely maintains a 2.1 birth rate because we have 12 million plus Mexicans who, thank God, reproduce. Europe will decline and end up Islamic because the White European culture's birth rate is below 1.8 or lower and the islamic immigrants birth rate can exceed 6. Population density for maintainence of a culture is basic social science you learn in "social science 101".