Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan has called population decline the country’s “biggest problem” and set out an action plan for her ministers to follow in hopes of tackling the issue.
These demographic trends have hollowed out rural communities, driven up the dependency ratio—the number of working people supporting those outside the labor force—and placed growing strain on social safety nets, threatening the long-term growth of Asia’s second-largest economy.
Japan, like many high- and middle-income countries, has struggled to stabilize its declining birth rate amid the rising cost of living, stagnating wages, and shifting attitudes among younger generations toward work-life balance and parenthood.
edit: The people who are saying “Japan needs to have more Japanese children.” Japanese woman don’t want kids with Japanese men. Japan needs more immigrants Japanese woman can marry and have babies with
That’s not untrue, but are they gonna do with it? Regulate overwork, so people have time to date, raise minimum wages, so one partner can stay home? Or are they gonna do something dumb, like clamp down on abortions or gay people? Blame immigration on that too? Or, more likely, do some ineffective bullshit like singles meeting parties and have kids posters?
That headline and those words from the PM could have come from 2020, 2015 or even 2010 and we wouldn’t have notice.
They say the same things over and over again, keep trying and failing, and sadly I doubt it will get any better.
The average politician in the Diet is over 60 years old, they do not know how things work downtown.
We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!
If you look globally. Highly religious women get married young and have lots of kids. Atheist women or women who use contraception regularly, DONT GET MARRIED. Marriage (before 30) is by far the biggest predictor of # of kids.
Governments will eventually figure this out too late as usual.
So why raise fees for immigrants?!
Good thing Japan has been rallying against immigrants – that will help out 🙂
Let’s work more it should fix the problem
It’s foreigner fault anyway
Oh and let’s work more
Whilst at the same time being against immigration because of the actions of tourists. Human beings are so unbelievably illogical.
I have a solution, let’s increase the visa renewal fee to 40,000 yen and deter even more people from coming to Japan
Those “shotengai” are some of the most depressing places I’ve been.
I’ve been to some in the countryside and oh I pray with all my heart I don’t end up in a place like that because it’s heartbreaking.
Every single shop closed yet you see the elderly stumble on through and you know in your mind the images that man or women must have in his or her head of all the wonderful times they spent in the shut down ramen store, or buying clothes or just having a great time. Yet here it is completely gone.
Go to Osaka and it’s the opposite problem, cram packed full of people who don’t even talk to the person they’re holding hands with, let alone each other.
I don’t have time to go into the work / life balance other than you don’t need a PhD to know that terminology “no longer exists” apparently.
The work culture in Japan is insane. It’s also the primary driver of their success as a nation. The obsessive culture is a double edged sword. You obsess with work, also means you’re not dating (or making babies). But atleast the economy is booming.
Let it decline. Let nature take over. Let society adjust
Japanese women want kids they just dont wanna marry japanese men
You guys talk like this is a problem that only happens in Japan because of overwork, economy, etc, and that it has very easy solutions.
It’s happening WORLDWIDE because culture changes, and there’s literally no known solution to it, you can pay millions to people so they have kids and they’ll still not have them, there are many examples of countries doing that.
I’ll tell you what is not a solution, filling the country with millions of immigrants that will have no kids either and that you’ll have to pay them a retirement pension, which is for some reason the most said “solution” I read here.
If you have enough Japanese start thinking, “work not finished? Let’s do it tomorrow bc it’s 5pm and I need to leave!” then that’s when we will really see things improve.
I’m sure the younger generations have a lot of ideas to fix this if they weren’t stuck trying to adhere with the old ways of doing things.
Immigration is the answer to a shrinking workforce
Population isn’t the problem, the decades of economic stagnation is.
Maybe they can try the “Quietus” like in that movie.
It’s a problem if you want to keep the old system alive
Just change the system
Cap the work week at 30 hrs and pay more people a living wage. Provide ways for young people and families to enjoy their time together and reduce the emphasis on mandatory after-hours activities outside the office for coworkers.
Japanese women are not attracted to Japanese men because they get shown gaijin fitness influencers above 6 feet everyday. Solved it for you
This isn’t news really
test tube babies and artificial wombs?
sort of like Judge Dreadd Janus project.
The population crisis is only a crisis if you are concerned about filling the jobs of tomorrow and manning your military with Japanese workers. If elderly care is a problem bring in qualified workers from overseas AND make them a part of Japan’s future. Either way, Japan is going to need more and more elder care professionals that will eventually not be needed as those populations dwindle. Be ready to help those people (domestic or foreign) transition to other careers after that.
I think it is a structural cultural change that cannot be reversed.
Women have better things to do with their lives vs. sitting around having multiple babies and derailing their career/education.
The only solution is to go full Taliban but doing so would be barbaric.
Better to end pro natality policies and put all that money into automation and AI.
Is there really a crisis?
Sorry for my naive question… I’ve been traveling through Japan in the past 6 weeks, partly by bike through villages. Yes, the number of “lost places” is staggering, but so is the number of “bullshit jobs”. I can’t count the number of “human traffic lights” (guys at construction sites in the middle of nowhere signaling traffic, while an automated traffic light would do the trick) or museums with more staff than visitors.
So couldn’t Japanese companies just produce the same output with fewer people, without so much need for overtime or immigration?
This is on par with “thoughts and prayers”
It’s a giant truck from the Idea Company and the back is filled with hot farts from sleepy old men.
I’m happy the population crisis is happening. This government deserves it. I hope the birth rate gets even lower.
I will say that the developing strict immigration changes doesn’t help. I believe there needs to be multiple changes done to really change the birth rate issues.
I honestly didn’t know until recently that it was at about half of what’s needed for a country to have a sustainable population.
And yet they do nothing about it
This is a global issue for mature(ing) societies, with no perceptible unifying pattern of policies to effectively combat it. If anything, it’s simply implying that as a species, when we reach some level of comfort, safety, and options for leisure, that the prospect of children becomes less attractive.
And yes, it’s clearly not easy to raise children in Japan, and most systems in place are premised on having a stay at home parent. However, if you’ve lived here for any period of time, you can see that there are in fact many policies being pushed to ease the financial and personal burden.
Ultimately, effectiveness will be limited because you’re swimming against the current, regardless of the country. Unfortunately for Japan, it’s the country facing this crisis first with no other case to learn from.
They want more immigration to put a bandage on this issue, but at the same time charge immigrants an arm and their left kidney for Visa renewals, and actively blame them for absolutely every last thing going wrong in the country?
Make it make sense.
“We’re raising it to match costs in the west….” when Japanese salaries are rapidly approaching parity with Mexico.
Japan says….. this should be a tik tok account.
That and xenophobia.
Thank god the current government is focusing on implementing change to improve this! /s
But let’s take that population coming in from the outside and raise the prices for them coming to stay long term. Very brilliant idea.
“Focus your entire life only on work and don’t let anyone move here” not paying off like they thought I guess.
40 comments
By Micah McCartney — China News Reporter |
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan has called population decline the country’s “biggest problem” and set out an action plan for her ministers to follow in hopes of tackling the issue.
These demographic trends have hollowed out rural communities, driven up the dependency ratio—the number of working people supporting those outside the labor force—and placed growing strain on social safety nets, threatening the long-term growth of Asia’s second-largest economy.
Japan, like many high- and middle-income countries, has struggled to stabilize its declining birth rate amid the rising cost of living, stagnating wages, and shifting attitudes among younger generations toward work-life balance and parenthood.
Read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/japan-says-population-crisis-is-biggest-problem-11078544](https://www.newsweek.com/japan-says-population-crisis-is-biggest-problem-11078544)
Japan needs more immigration
edit: The people who are saying “Japan needs to have more Japanese children.” Japanese woman don’t want kids with Japanese men. Japan needs more immigrants Japanese woman can marry and have babies with
That’s not untrue, but are they gonna do with it? Regulate overwork, so people have time to date, raise minimum wages, so one partner can stay home? Or are they gonna do something dumb, like clamp down on abortions or gay people? Blame immigration on that too? Or, more likely, do some ineffective bullshit like singles meeting parties and have kids posters?
That headline and those words from the PM could have come from 2020, 2015 or even 2010 and we wouldn’t have notice.
They say the same things over and over again, keep trying and failing, and sadly I doubt it will get any better.
The average politician in the Diet is over 60 years old, they do not know how things work downtown.
We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!
If you look globally. Highly religious women get married young and have lots of kids. Atheist women or women who use contraception regularly, DONT GET MARRIED. Marriage (before 30) is by far the biggest predictor of # of kids.
Governments will eventually figure this out too late as usual.
So why raise fees for immigrants?!
Good thing Japan has been rallying against immigrants – that will help out 🙂
Let’s work more it should fix the problem
It’s foreigner fault anyway
Oh and let’s work more
Whilst at the same time being against immigration because of the actions of tourists. Human beings are so unbelievably illogical.
I have a solution, let’s increase the visa renewal fee to 40,000 yen and deter even more people from coming to Japan
Those “shotengai” are some of the most depressing places I’ve been.
I’ve been to some in the countryside and oh I pray with all my heart I don’t end up in a place like that because it’s heartbreaking.
Every single shop closed yet you see the elderly stumble on through and you know in your mind the images that man or women must have in his or her head of all the wonderful times they spent in the shut down ramen store, or buying clothes or just having a great time. Yet here it is completely gone.
Go to Osaka and it’s the opposite problem, cram packed full of people who don’t even talk to the person they’re holding hands with, let alone each other.
I don’t have time to go into the work / life balance other than you don’t need a PhD to know that terminology “no longer exists” apparently.
The work culture in Japan is insane. It’s also the primary driver of their success as a nation. The obsessive culture is a double edged sword. You obsess with work, also means you’re not dating (or making babies). But atleast the economy is booming.
Let it decline. Let nature take over. Let society adjust
Japanese women want kids they just dont wanna marry japanese men
You guys talk like this is a problem that only happens in Japan because of overwork, economy, etc, and that it has very easy solutions.
It’s happening WORLDWIDE because culture changes, and there’s literally no known solution to it, you can pay millions to people so they have kids and they’ll still not have them, there are many examples of countries doing that.
I’ll tell you what is not a solution, filling the country with millions of immigrants that will have no kids either and that you’ll have to pay them a retirement pension, which is for some reason the most said “solution” I read here.
If you have enough Japanese start thinking, “work not finished? Let’s do it tomorrow bc it’s 5pm and I need to leave!” then that’s when we will really see things improve.
I’m sure the younger generations have a lot of ideas to fix this if they weren’t stuck trying to adhere with the old ways of doing things.
Immigration is the answer to a shrinking workforce
Population isn’t the problem, the decades of economic stagnation is.
Maybe they can try the “Quietus” like in that movie.
It’s a problem if you want to keep the old system alive
Just change the system
Cap the work week at 30 hrs and pay more people a living wage. Provide ways for young people and families to enjoy their time together and reduce the emphasis on mandatory after-hours activities outside the office for coworkers.
Japanese women are not attracted to Japanese men because they get shown gaijin fitness influencers above 6 feet everyday. Solved it for you
This isn’t news really
test tube babies and artificial wombs?
sort of like Judge Dreadd Janus project.
The population crisis is only a crisis if you are concerned about filling the jobs of tomorrow and manning your military with Japanese workers. If elderly care is a problem bring in qualified workers from overseas AND make them a part of Japan’s future. Either way, Japan is going to need more and more elder care professionals that will eventually not be needed as those populations dwindle. Be ready to help those people (domestic or foreign) transition to other careers after that.
I think it is a structural cultural change that cannot be reversed.
Women have better things to do with their lives vs. sitting around having multiple babies and derailing their career/education.
The only solution is to go full Taliban but doing so would be barbaric.
Better to end pro natality policies and put all that money into automation and AI.
Is there really a crisis?
Sorry for my naive question… I’ve been traveling through Japan in the past 6 weeks, partly by bike through villages. Yes, the number of “lost places” is staggering, but so is the number of “bullshit jobs”. I can’t count the number of “human traffic lights” (guys at construction sites in the middle of nowhere signaling traffic, while an automated traffic light would do the trick) or museums with more staff than visitors.
So couldn’t Japanese companies just produce the same output with fewer people, without so much need for overtime or immigration?
This is on par with “thoughts and prayers”
It’s a giant truck from the Idea Company and the back is filled with hot farts from sleepy old men.
I’m happy the population crisis is happening. This government deserves it. I hope the birth rate gets even lower.
I will say that the developing strict immigration changes doesn’t help. I believe there needs to be multiple changes done to really change the birth rate issues.
I honestly didn’t know until recently that it was at about half of what’s needed for a country to have a sustainable population.
And yet they do nothing about it
This is a global issue for mature(ing) societies, with no perceptible unifying pattern of policies to effectively combat it. If anything, it’s simply implying that as a species, when we reach some level of comfort, safety, and options for leisure, that the prospect of children becomes less attractive.
And yes, it’s clearly not easy to raise children in Japan, and most systems in place are premised on having a stay at home parent. However, if you’ve lived here for any period of time, you can see that there are in fact many policies being pushed to ease the financial and personal burden.
Ultimately, effectiveness will be limited because you’re swimming against the current, regardless of the country. Unfortunately for Japan, it’s the country facing this crisis first with no other case to learn from.
They want more immigration to put a bandage on this issue, but at the same time charge immigrants an arm and their left kidney for Visa renewals, and actively blame them for absolutely every last thing going wrong in the country?
Make it make sense.
“We’re raising it to match costs in the west….” when Japanese salaries are rapidly approaching parity with Mexico.
Japan says….. this should be a tik tok account.
That and xenophobia.
Thank god the current government is focusing on implementing change to improve this! /s
But let’s take that population coming in from the outside and raise the prices for them coming to stay long term. Very brilliant idea.
“Focus your entire life only on work and don’t let anyone move here” not paying off like they thought I guess.
Comments are closed.