Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low
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Capitalism is the best we've got. Even North Korea has acknowledged this. With other systems people starve en masse. My hope is that we get over the taboo of regulation. Capitalism fucks up real-estate and wealth distribution. And health-care should 100% be government funded.
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fear of decline
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The olds expect women to quit basically when they marry or get pregnant. Worker protections are better these days, but the view is still there with some. Some couples do have to have one spouse quit because of the whole daycare thing in some areas, though.
There is a wage gap between men and women and fewer women are in positions of power, though the latter at least is slowly getting better.
Not having a child won't cancel societal expectations of the older generations. Women are often still expected to serve tea and do other things in older/traditional companies.
My company is a westernized Japanese company and we do have a number of women including in higher roles (though none on the board, I think). I'm in a remote IT role so I don't generally hang out after work with non-IT staff to hear real opinions or the rumor mill, though.
My wife was treated well and fairly by her small japanese company, but she has experienced some discrimination previously.
In our village, we do have work we do in the community every month or two (mostly cutting grass, litter picking, and maintaining shared spaces). Some things are definitely typically done by the men or women with women doing the inside cleaning and cooking at events with men doing the outside work. We've already broken that mold some as I'm also the cook (I baked things to bring to our last event).
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I live and work in Japan, and it definitely is not a very condusive environment for younger Japanese people to have children. My wife and I are both foreigners, and we are in out late 30's and just had our first. The country has some really great benefits and support services for having children, but we definitely would not be able to do this if we worked for Japanese companies, and with the Japanese work mentality.
While it IS getting better, work being the central pillar of life and the expectations from the older generations are still very much a thing. The long hours of paper pushing, the culture of promotion based on age and time served rather than innovation and hard work takes a toll on people. If you are not living in the office in your 20s to show your dedication, you are looked down upon, at least accoridng to my Japanese friends.
Immigration could help fix some of this. Japan is a desireable, largely affordable country, that is safe when it comes to raising children. Living here as a foreigner though has specific challenges, and your job prospects are pretty poor unless you are lucky, and access to housing and just general living can be challenging, even if you can speak Japanese.
I just got a new job in Kyoto, and I currently live in Tokyo. I would say around 40% of the houses we applied to look at would not even let us see the properties because we are foreigners. That's 100% legal and totally ok to say here, and I take that in stride. In Australia (where I am from), they would either just tell you to piss off, or show you the property knowing you don't have a chance, so at least they are upfront about it here I guess. Getting a credit card is a massive ordeal, which you kinda need here because debit cards are increasingly hard to find, and they don't even work for all bills and systems, and getting a bank account ... it all just snowballs.
Also anything outside of the major cities is kinda dead. I love it, but living and thriving there in places that have more space that would probably promote having big families, is nearly impossible, or at least impossibly boring. This is not unique to Japan, Australia is largely the same outside of the main cities.
Not sure what the fix is. But annecdotally I see these articles all the time, and yet there are kids and younger families always around, so not sure if it is as serious as they are saying, or more media hype?
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You make the mistake of assuming that pension plans have to be paid by the next generation. Why not use a wealth tax instead?
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Clearly solid, factual, data there.
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A culture of xenophobia
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What are you even talking about?
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Everyone has their opinions and circumstances, but anecdotally my time with children has been some of the happiest.
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I love my kids and my life with them. People who pridefully claim they don't want children is similar to people being prideful of not eating pizza.
No one gives a shit about your preferences.
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Quebec is one of the places with the most parental benefits in the world, you can even make money by having kids if you're careful with your spendings, fertility rate is 1.5
People get a year off work with most of their salary paid by the government, then they get child benefits until the kids turn 18, school is super cheap, guaranteed pension fund for everyone...
Sure you have to deal with other issues that might get in the way of your career, but as I mentioned in another comment, unless you force women to stop working and make them depend on the State or their spouse (and making divorce illegal), you're not reversing that trend... And I sure hope that's not something you're ready to do.
It's a very small minority of women that will take a chance and become 100% dependent on others in case shit happens, the only reason they did back in the day was because they didn't have a choice... by law! No body authority unless their father was dead and they weren't married? Well no shit they'll stay home and raise the kids, they can't even open a bank account!
Give women equality and make contraception legal? Well turns out they don't want to have to deal with all the stress that comes with raising children! Just like men!
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I love my kids and my life with them
No one gives a shit about your preferences.
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It's what follows education. It's the largely uneducated areas of the world that still raw dog like there's no tomorrow.
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Literally: they don't go home, that's how
Hearing about salary men sleeping on the streets or in train stations is one thing, but when I actually finally saw them in person it broke my fucking brain
Imagine the homelessness issues of a major Californian city but instead of homeless people it's a bunch of clearly drunk dudes in suits who all vanish by morning
My wife cried hard because the realization hit that hard
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i heard there's more sexy time without kids
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your preferences about my preferences can suck my balls
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where all viable land is already pretty much taken.
Very much untrue, the actual issue with living away from one of the major cities is the same thing the US is dealing with: capitalism and a highway system (HSR there) encouraging suburban sprawl and the death of the small town. No need to visit 5 different shops in your small town if you're going to pass a Donqi on your train ride into work. Then people eventually just move away from the smaller towns entirely to be closer to where the work and businesses are, and the cycle deepens
Although yeah, Japan is about 2/3 as big as California so it's not as big as people think on top of that
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Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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I don't disagree, but the systems necessary to make this happen non-destructively just do not exist.
BTW, you may like the limits to growth study.
https://archive.org/details/TheLimitsToGrowthAlthough it is kind of a downer. In the 70s, they predicted the downfall of society. We're on track with the prediction, more or less.
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it's a good thing some people like kids because otherwise im not sure what happens
