
Japan's fertility crisis even worse than before as births fall sharply - bookofjoe
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/asia/japan-fertility-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
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Porthos9K
This isn't a crisis. It's a strike. When the birthrate tanks, it's because
people have decided that the society they live in is not only not worth trying
to fix, but not worth perpetuating.

And it's no wonder this is the case in Japan:

1\. Mothers seem to be expected to raise the kids on their own.

2\. Fathers seem to expected to work all day into the night, and not spend
time with their spouses and children.

3\. Children seem to not get to be kids, but instead are expected to spend all
day in school and then go to cram school.

4\. There's no meaningful support from society or government, and extended
families aren't around to help with the load.

5\. Raising kids is hard, and expensive, and while nobody will praise you for
doing it well you'll get plenty of blame if your kid doesn't turn out exactly
the way others think they should.

6\. Thanks to climate change and environmental collapse, Ragnarok seems just
around the corner.

Given these premises, there seems to be zero upside to having children, and an
endless downside. Why bother? That's the question Japanese adults seem to be
asking themselves.

It's also the question many Americans and Europeans are asking themselves for
similar reasons, but the low birthrate in the US is masked by immigration so
the "threat" of population decline doesn't seem as imminent.

Once there's an actual upside to having kids, and parents aren't expected to
do everything on their own while also working to "earn a living", we might see
this "crisis" reverse itself.

But that would require fundamental social and economic changes that _probably
won 't happen_ because the powers that be profit from the way things are.

