
Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began - tshannon
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/12/21/national/number-babies-born-japan-2018-lowest-since-records-began-population-decline-highest/#.XB0GwktKiUm
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peter303
Half of the population cannot have natural children, i.e. the median age of 47
is past menopause.

[http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/median-
age/](http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/median-age/)

(Prefrozen or surrogate embryos can make it into their 50s)

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bunnycorn
My country is even worse, 1.31.

Japan looks like a kindergarten compared to Portugal.

~~~
polotics
Not the same thing: Portugal has a very healthy immigrant diaspora, some will
go back.

~~~
smackay
It's pretty standard for people to work abroad for a couple of decades then
retire back home to their birthplace and open a pastelaria (cafe). Sadly, the
market is pretty saturated and the net contribution to the economy is not that
high.

From personal experience there are a number of professionals at early stages
in their careers that return but quickly they realise that the opportunities
are still rather limited and reverse their decision within a few years.

The situation is changing, but slowly.

~~~
bunnycorn
> From personal experience there are a number of professionals at early stages
> in their careers that return but quickly they realise that the opportunities
> are still rather limited and reverse their decision within a few years.

I don't see any of that.

The only people that came back, were those that went to Angola before the oil
crash that halted the country.

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jmpman
Do the Japanese do anything to making having children easier? Free daycare?

~~~
bayesian_horse
I don't believe monetary incentives are a good way to raise birth rates. In
the end a child is massively expensive, and no government can afford to
compensate parents completely.

Child care is partly such a monetary incentive (being subsidize and/or
enabling parents to earn more), but women will still lose out greatly by
giving birth. From what I know of Japanese culture, all these factors must be
even worse than in the West...

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> I don't believe monetary incentives are a good way to raise birth rates. In
> the end a child is massively expensive, and no government can afford to
> compensate parents completely.

Transfer payments don't consume resources, they only reallocate them. If you
enact a larger child tax deduction, people with children will pay lower taxes
and people without children will pay correspondingly more. The result will be
more consumption of childcare and childhood education and less consumption of
tourism and luxury cars, but that doesn't harm the local economy -- if
anything it helps it, because the things children need tend to be locally
produced, rather than your citizens spending money they earned locally to
vacation in the Caribbean.

The argument you would have to make is on the other side, that the economy
can't afford people to spend time rearing children that they could have spent
working. But at a world average level that can't possibly have been true or
humans would already be extinct, and economies have _much more_ surplus now
than they had in the past. And the cost is inherently short-term, because the
net work done by the average human is more than the cost of raising them, so
in the long term you get much more from having a working adult than it costs
to raise the child.

You also don't have to provide enough in tax incentives to cover the entire
cost of the child, only enough to push enough potential parents at the margin
over the threshold to raise the fertility rate to the population replacement
rate. This may still be a significant amount, but nowhere near the entire cost
-- and you only have to offer it during the years when the child is in the
care of the parents, not for the parents' entire working life, much less the
child's, by which point you're already making dividends -- the now-adult child
is working and paying taxes that more than pay for the next generation.

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bayesian_horse
Maybe this will make Japan warm up to the idea of more immigration.

Just kidding, of course...

~~~
nonamechicken
Actually, they seem to be warming up. There was a report a few months back
that they want to bring 200k IT professionals from India. Not sure if they
actually mean that though.

>Japan will open up its doors to about two lakh IT professionals from India,
and issue green cards to settle down in Japan and support the country's
rapidly expanding IT infrastructure, said Shigeki Maeda, Executive Vice
President at Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), a government body,
here on Thursday.

[https://m.indiatimes.com/news/india/forget-america-japan-
has...](https://m.indiatimes.com/news/india/forget-america-japan-has-2-lakh-
jobs-for-indian-techies-will-issue-green-cards-to-settle-down-341149.html)

~~~
lotsofpulp
Having had experience in both cultures, I can’t imagine two more opposite
cultures. One is extremely deferential to others, the other you have to think
about yourself first otherwise you won’t get anywhere. At least in public
interactions.

~~~
bayesian_horse
My maybe slightly pessimistic view of Japanese attitudes toward immigration is
that they will try to keep the Indians in a state of limbo, ready to deport
them at the drop of a hat. Which of course won't work at these kind of
numbers, anyway.

~~~
nonamechicken
The article mentions how they plan to handle it.

>The Japanese government, Maeda said, will be issuing Green Cards for highly
skilled professionals, the first of its kind in the world, thereby, providing
people to get permanent resident status in as short as one year. This is one
of the fastest granted right of residence in the world.

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archagon
Everybody is posting suggestions on how to improve Japan’s birthrate. It seems
to me, however, that this is a problem _every_ country will have to deal with
in the medium-term. We can’t keep growing indefinitely, and any system
developed with perpetual growth in mind will have to change.

~~~
iamnothere
In every discussion about birthrates, this point is raised. And every time, it
is ignored, glossed over, or deflected. Overpopulation was briefly a concern
in the 1970s, but since then we seem to have forgotten about the problem, at
least in the mainstream, media-driven consciousness.

I think there may be something fundamental in the human psyche that refuses to
acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, reducing global population growth (or at
least freezing it in place) is essential to prevent an eventual catastrophe.

Of course, this is the definition of a self-correcting problem. It's just a
shame that it is going to result in so much suffering.

"When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of
all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death." -Thomas
Hobbes

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dang
Url changed from [https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/679103541/japans-
population-i...](https://www.npr.org/2018/12/21/679103541/japans-population-
is-in-rapid-decline), which points to this.

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sgjohnson
It wouldn’t be too much of an issue of their welfare system (like any other
welfare system) wouldn’t be a ponzi scheme. Their tax rates are already
crippling.

~~~
wycs
Moral hazard. Their welfare system removes the incentive to have children.
Could be fixed by giving parents a cut of the tax revenue of their future
children.

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marsrover
Maybe I’m missing something or not thinking it through but why not pay people
to have babies based on their status? It would cause more divide between
classes but I feel like the ends might justify the means.

Great education and job? You get paid more to have a baby.

Homeless? You get paid nothing to have a baby.

Put the payment on a sliding scale. The lower the birth rate the higher the
pay until you cross your desired threshold (1.8 in this case) at which point
it starts going down again.

Edit: or just go the other way and tax people if they’re not having babies.
Same principle as above but with taking money away.

~~~
asianthrowaway
I'm not sure to what extent the problem is due to economics and to what extent
it's due to culture. I read recently that half of single men in Japan are
virgins, which is quite staggering. Lots of Japanese people seem to have
simply "dropped out" of the idea of having an intimate relationship, replacing
that with video games and pornography.

When I lived in Japan, what struck me was how infantile and coddled the whole
culture seemed: lots of "kawaii" anime everywhere, in advertisements, on
product wrapping, etc. Signs everywhere telling you how to act (in grocery
stores they have footprint markings on the floor to tell you what path to
follow...). Grown men watching anime about little girls. I wonder if all this
is creating a masculinity crisis in Japan.

Funny how they went from Samurais to this.

~~~
candiodari
I think one of the main impediments to having children is just having space
for them. You cannot have a child in a 40m2 apartment, and more is very hard
to get in so many places. Certainly not for the people usually inclined to
have babies (ie. the poor).

I don't know but Tokyo is probably similar.

~~~
mc32
I don’t think that’s strictly true. Flavela housing is also smallish but that
doesn’t stop reproduction. It’s more a cultural thing with many other
contributing factors, like economic outlook, cost of living, etc.

~~~
scotty79
It's not housing. It's basically lack of time. Japanese are allowed to work
almost all of their waking hours. So they do. They pretty much have to because
rent is on average always as high as people can afford. Not much time for
anything else.

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eeZah7Ux
In a world with 7.7 billion people, why are declining birth rates almost
always described as problem?

~~~
sannee
Because children in Africa are not going to finance retirement of japanese
elderly.

~~~
david-gpu
Or at least, not without very substantial immigration.

~~~
chappi42
Of the former children from Africa, Syria, Afghanistan etc. which came to
Germany (Europe) in the last three years a too high percentage does not seem
to have the ability (or willingness) to replace a worker in Germany.
Immigration alone doesn't help. It may even make matters worse if the 'wrong'
people come. (I wrote 'seems' because it is difficult to get objective hard
numbers for this emotional subject).

Regarding birthrates/immigration: Help without conditions is wrong, I now
think. NGO's should not be allowed to 'help in Africa' (and Afghanistan, ...)
without making sure that the birthrates drop significantly. Providing modern
medicine without enforcing the 'recipients' to adapt the culture/custom will
lead to a desaster in those countries (and if 'everybody' migrates - in Europe
also (will happen after my lifetime probably)).

~~~
david-gpu
When immigration is discussed, it is important to separate refugees, illegal
immigration, and legal immigration.

Being an island nation, Japan is in a good position to control their borders
tightly compared with other countries like Germany.

It then becomes a question of having a well-designed immigration process that
selects young, healthy, highly-educated folks who, most importantly, must
speak the local language fluently. Canada has a pretty good system in place
for this.

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sprash
If the Japanese government wants to do the right thing, all it has to do is to
let the population contract even further until Asset prices begin to freefall.

Then everything will be affordable again for young Japanese citizens and a
good longterm economic outlook for the future is the best thing you can do to
stimulate birthrates.

If Japan wants to screw it up, it should allow mass immigration. This way
asset prices can stay high and the native Japanese will eventually cease to
exist. We will speak of them in the future as great ancient civilization.
Similarly we speak of ancient Greeks today.

~~~
beginningguava
One of the better takes I've seen on the situation:

[https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl](https://imgur.com/a/Zg32EAl)

cheaper housing, higher wages, less crime, less pollution

The only people hurt by stable population are giant corporations who want
cheap labor and more consumers. Japan will be fine, they'll just increase
productivity with technology rather than throwing bodies at problems

US should solve the problem by giving bigger tax deductions to incentivize
middle class to have more kids and free child care. But instead of the logical
decision, our politicians tell us we need to bring in millions of immigrants

~~~
Eleopteryx
I see you straightfacedly posting screencaps taken from /pol/ and I'm going to
take it as the first sign that this site is now on a cultural downturn.

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matte_black
Ultimately this is a good thing for the planet and our dwindling resources,
but too bad for those whose retirement depends on fresh new taxpayers being
created in increasingly larger numbers.

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cauldron
Life in Japan seems the most depressing type, harsh weather and earthquake
don't help either.

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diablolicoo
Maybe they should adopt Islam, as it seems very successful in encouraging
people to produce the most amount of babies humanly possible. [1]

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth)

~~~
magic_beans
Nah, all Japan would need to do is teach abstinence-only education.

~~~
berbec
Works for all those conservative states! My wife's from Louisiana and she can
count on one hand the number of female schoolmates who made it out of high
school, let alone to 21, without a child.

