
Japan's Women Opt Out of Marriage - MyHypatia
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/world/asia/japan-single-women-marriage.html
======
leftyted
You can view this as the result of the emancipation of women.

Or you can view it as the sacrifice of the private sphere (family, children,
home and hearth) at the altar of the economic sphere.

I suppose I view it as a bit of both. I certainly don't like the idea of
people being forced into marriage. But I'm also skeptical of the rejection of
marriage. I don't think a career can replace a family. The reason I have a
career is so I can have a family.

A lot of people in their 20s seem to think that their dayjob is actively
involved with "making the world a better place" and will lead to fulfillment.
I think "brainwashing" is a fairly accurate word to describe that mentality.

~~~
gcheong
If having children is so wonderful one must wonder why men still haven’t by
large decided to pitch in when it comes to the nuts and bolts of child
rearing. While I would agree that any vocational claim of making the world a
better place is dubious, certainly that is equally true if not more so of
bringing more people into the world.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> If having children is so wonderful one must wonder why men still haven’t by
> large decided to pitch in when it comes to the nuts and bolts of child
> rearing.

It's, by and large, because those are not the men that women select to have
children with. When women consistently choose the man with the six figure
salary, but that implies working long hours, what follows is predictable.

There is also a high degree of adverse selection there because a woman can't
tell how much a man will help with the children before she has the children,
by which point the father is already chosen. So they choose based on what they
do know (e.g. salary) which is _inversely_ correlated with that.

~~~
dnjdrbdhdbs
Bingo. I was on the kind of career trajectory for a million dollar salary. The
most famous school, name brand employers, etc. But when we had a kid I fell in
love and I wanted to spend tons of time with him. It’s my wife who had to be
OK with moving out of the Bay Area, cutting our expenses, while I transitioned
to a job where I basically work 5 hours a day and make less than $200K. Most
wives would have said no fucking way. We are going to have more kids and I may
even go full stay at home dad.

------
ezoe
It's not just women, but men also opt out of marriage. Because we have no
reason for marriage anymore. The writer, as usual, don't mention the elephant
in the room. It must be intentional because she probably want to write about
women's right and nothing else.

The reason is nothing but for the lack of money. We, the average Japanese,
cannot afford to have a child anymore. We just barely afford to have a life
for themselves.

Why did we have to have a marriage? Because of the children. Because in the
Japanese society, the children is assumed that they have a parent consists of
one male and one female in marriage relationship.

Since we cannot afford to have a child, there is no reason to marriage
anymore.

What other functions the marriage offer?

Asset management and inheritance? No. We can't afford to have a reserve or
real estate. There is no use for that.

Bonding the families? No, as rural areas are more and more abandoned and
everybody concentrate toward a few big cities, there is no traditional bonding
of the families in one area.

Sex? Well, Not anymore. Japanese marriage system assume that the marriage is a
exclusive sex relationship between single male and single female. It support
very narrow traditional sexuality and excluding today's most of the sexuality.

The marriage system is now outdated. Ironically, the traditional marriage
system is one of the cause of birth decline. It's an obstacle. Some people
still want to have a child driven by natural instinct, but the current
Japanese society assume a marriage between a male and a female who share their
asset as the one, agree exclusive sexual relationship. Not following that
pattern and you have huge negative impact on tax, school, health insurance and
everything which makes those who want to have a child but don't agree on
traditional marriage system holding to have a baby.

Conclusion: The marriage is outdated.

~~~
radicsge
It will be never outdated, it is a must for healthy mental grow of children
(as you also weakly pointed out). To get love, to be able to focus and
deliver, get direction, learn and bring forward traditions, learn social
skills, create bond etc.

Of course orphanage also works, but hard to imagine it is the ideal structure,
thou it worked for Turkish janissary (there are probably plenty of other
examples from history) and now China also trying it with minorities.

Children are not as expensive as one imagine, you might have to give up the
most expensive phone/car luxury etc. But just ask any elderly if it worth it.
If your mind thinking more like assets, children has the biggest appreciation
value over anything.

~~~
scooble
I know several unmarried, non-conventional and blended families who seem to
disprove the theory that marriage is a necessary condition for a child's
healthy upbringing.

And it is clearly false that marriage is a sufficient condition.

~~~
mensetmanusman
There are outliers, usually composed of individuals who are also outliers in
terms of ability.

------
dmaldona
These are other articles by the NYT:

* Japan’s Working Mothers: Record Responsibilities, Little Help From Dads

* In Japan, More Women Fight to Use Their Own Surnames

* Japan Desperately Needs More Day Care Workers. New Mothers Need Not Apply.

* A Princess in a Cage

Seems like NYT has a mission to liberate woman in Japan...

I am really skeptical of this ideology that affirms work and a wage as some
sort of spiritual liberation.

~~~
danharaj
If you earn your own money then you have more independence. If that's
ideological then I don't know what's not ideological.

~~~
dmaldona
I am employed and I earn my own money, but I am not truly "independent".

~~~
danharaj
Well yes, we are all as such under capitalism. But it's a matter of degree.

~~~
dmaldona
What I want to discuss is the underlying premise of these articles, that by
woman being liberated from the burden of the family, they achieve a sort of
independence that leads them to increased happiness. And furthermore, that
this trend is nothing but the next step in societal evolution and previous
models of organization are not only outdated, but a form of subjugation.

~~~
scooble
It is a bit odd. I suppose by this light, men's increased participation in
home life and parenting represents a forgoing of their independence and an
reduction in their happiness. This does not seem to be the case e.g. in
Scandinavia.

------
rolltiide
The thing that bothers me the most is the lack of consensus.

For every economically free woman there seem to be 5 more that would prefer
the man to pay for every date or assume other traditional roles, no matter how
it is rationalized. (My experiences in the Americas and most European
cultures.) In this article about Japan that seems like an accurate
distribution, given that it mentions only 1 out of 7 subscribe to any of the
logic/circumstances the article is written about.

To be a male ally for the economically free and liberated woman is almost the
worst form of altruism.

The incentives are completely misaligned. All you can do is learn about what
the sensibilities are, never publicly disagree with them on record or around a
woman striving for these ideals, but do the complete opposite with the much
larger population of women that expects a certain traditional heteronormative
gender role.

(The goal, of course, is to be an eligible mate - or not ineligible - for all
of them)

~~~
krapp
>The thing that bothers me the most is the lack of consensus.

>For every economically free woman there seem to be 5 more that would prefer
the man to pay for every date or assume other traditional roles, no matter how
it is rationalized.

Women, like men, are individuals possessed of a diverse set of opinions and
beliefs, they do not operate according to a consensus algorithm. To expect
"consensus" among an entire gender on a topic like feminist identity and inter
(and intra) gender relationship dynamics, particularly at the level of social
and cultural expectations, is sexist and diminishing.

>The goal, of course, is to be an eligible mate - or not ineligible - for all
of them

No, the goal is, or should be, to support human rights, because that is what
womens' rights are. Men should be allies of women and of feminism because the
belief that women have the right to bodily, social, political and career
autonomy is the morally correct position to hold, not as a pretext to
maximizing their chances of getting laid.

~~~
rolltiide
I agree with you

Many people deciding what feminism is are speaking on behalf of their whole
gender and leave no oxygen for others to point out the lack of consensus on
these matters. Its the same filter bubble seen on other polarizing topics,
your echo chamber agrees with you and everyone that disagrees is an
irreconcilable deplorable.

I agree people should be treated as individuals

Lack of consensus accurately describes my frustration

------
rufusroflpunch
They didn't even attempt to talk to a single married woman in Japan who likes
her life.

~~~
hurrdurr2
That wouldn't have fit the tone and bias of the article... there's a good
reason why I rarely read the NYT anymore.

------
kalleboo
> _As recently as the mid-1990s, only one in 20 women in Japan had never been
> married by the time they turned 50, according to government census figures.
> But by 2015, the most recent year for which statistics are available, that
> had changed drastically, with one in seven women remaining unmarried by that
> age_

If anyone is curious, the statistics for the U.S. look similar.
[https://i.redd.it/qn25qiv8fawz.png](https://i.redd.it/qn25qiv8fawz.png)

~~~
TomK32
With the difference quite likely being that Japanese children are rarely born
out of wedlock as the article suggests.

------
mrhappyunhappy
Can confirm. Wife tells me all the time about how shitty Japanese guys are as
husbands (heard all of her friends complain), and how happy she is that I’m
not Japanese.

Even stay at home mothers without jobs do an insane amount of work here, with
husbands expecting home made meals. This is all anecdotal of course, but I
hear Japanese husbands almost never participate in any household chores. Wives
don’t even bother asking as they are afraid of being seen as incompetent at
doing housework. I can only imagine the schedules for working women! Mind you,
Japan is not a society where hiring others to watch your kids is a common
thing. Women typically do most of the kid raising on their own, with husbands
only around on weekends and holidays.

~~~
distantaidenn
Your wife married a foreigner, and you are touting her bias as some
overarching trend? Japanese men bad; foreigner good. Come on...

I respect that you admit it's anecdotal, but this goes well into data gleaned
from self selection bias.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
My wife didn't marry me because Japanese guys are shitty, she was far too
young to know better when we met. This is coming from a person who interacts
with married women living in Japan. Her personal opinion of Japanese guys was
not formed until after interactions with these women. Even then, you could
argue she is biased just by the company she keeps. I'm just telling you what I
hear from my sources.

------
Hitton
This article read really biased. The part about wife being ruled by her
husband is simply not true. In Japanese households traditionally wife stays at
home to be a housewife and man earns the money. But when he brings the money
home, he gives all of them to wife who traditionally controls household's
money and only gives a husband a small pocket money which he is then allowed
to spend how he wants.

So obviously the article's allusions to Japanese sexism must be taken with
reservation.

~~~
daenz
Gender-based division of labor is heavily frowned upon in modern society, even
if that division of labor still makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.

~~~
lwhalen
Eh, "heavily frowned upon" in certain small (but incredibly vocal) urban
pockets along the US coastline, sure. The rest of the nation... not so much.

------
ThrowawayR2
I guess the key question is whether new cultural norms can be formed that
allow both women and men to have the opportunities they deserve while still
encouraging and supporting the birth of children. Liberation doesn't do much
good if the culture and way of life that liberated them dies off.

~~~
hellisothers
I’m seeing this framing a lot in this thread and I haven’t experienced it
before, where does this “back in the day when women had less freedom it was
better for humanity” come from? Seems like a negative feedback loop if you’re
looking for a date...

~~~
ThrowawayR2
I said nothing of the sort. Since I went to great trouble to avoid any hint of
that in my post, I suggest you re-read my post and apologize.

------
ronnier
It’s not just Japan, but also a lot of the western world. People are getting
married less often and having fewer children and my guess is that it’s largely
driven by women opting out as they are a lot more selective in who they date
and marry compared to men. Historically women didn’t have much of a say in the
matter since they needed to marry for a better life since they lacked the
freedoms or resources to go it alone. Now that women have gained their freedom
and the resources to to survive on their own (higher rates of education,
economy that supports high paying jobs that employees lots of women, etc),
they can totally stay unmarried and have fulfilling lives in their social
circles and wait until they can select exactly what they want. Men largely
take what they can get, they are the selected. Women select. And of course
this is just a generalization.

~~~
nugget
How do you ensure our society survives in such an environment? There’s a
potential future where the birth rate in open and tolerant communities falls
to near zero while the birth rate in closed, ultra orthodox (across numerous
faiths and denominations) religious communities within which women are
commanded to procreate remains high. If you watch a show like Handmaid’s Tale
through this lens you can start to connect the hypothetical dots from here to
there.

~~~
freetime2
I think the solution is probably to make having children more attractive with
government subsidies and labor laws. E.g. free daycare, affordable education
(including college), health care, a minimum amount of paid time off per year,
etc.

Nobody should be forced to get married or have children if they don’t want to.
But if we can alleviate some of the risks/down sides to having children, I
think we will see more people choosing to start families and also having more
children per family.

~~~
klntsky
> to make having children more attractive with government subsidies and labor
> laws

This is a bad idea. Russian government have already tried that, and the result
was that less wealthy people (mostly alcoholic and drug addicts) started to
literally make children to receive subsidies and spend them on themselves.

It's fun to me how Google search results differ for "to make a child for
subsidies" and for this same phrase translated to Russian, where it has
already became a phenomenon.

~~~
mlguy456
Subsidies can be tied up to mortgage: the entire cost of housing can be made
deductible from taxes, all expenses related to kids can be reimbursed (by IRS
in April: you show checks and they give you money back). On top of that your
income can be backed by the government for an extended period of time in case
something happens to you, while you still need to pay for everything. You may
ask where do we get money for all this? Tax on wealth. Many countries tax
investments at 1% a year, not income, but investments. This won't bankrupt the
rich people because investments usually make 5-10% per year and the government
can take a small fraction of that. And no, the rich won't move their money
abroad because safety that the US gives is worth a lot.

------
rolltiide
I feel like every generation has this in some capacity, and the movement just
dies off due to lack of reproduction. Leaving just their artifacts from their
writings to inspire a similar distribution of people in a future generation,
who also fail to create offspring to instill similar ideals in. Whereas the
counterparts are reproducing in heteronormative relationships.

Is there enough data to study this now, just to confirm (or accept completely
different findings)

------
xivzgrev
I feel sad reading this article but understand where the women seem to be
coming from. It basically seems like two choices 1) get married and because
your husband works all day, you get zero assistance managing kids and
housework and aging relatives. There’s no safety net there, unlike in the US
where, in many cases the husband could take time off or work from home to help
out when the wife needs 2) don’t get married and be encumbered to all that.
But have to forgo intimacy and the joys of kids.

~~~
watwut
Note that given expected hours from salaried man in Japan, men don't get to
experience joys of kids at all, no matter whether they marry or not.

~~~
hurrdurr2
Yeah the salary men culture of Japan is not one of moderation. I mean they
even have a specific term for being overworked to death: "karoshi".

...but I wouldn't hold my breath on the NYT writing an article on how rough
Japanese men have it.

~~~
johnny22
they sure have. in 1980 even. [https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/19/world/tokyo-
tries-to-find...](https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/19/world/tokyo-tries-to-
find-out-if-salarymen-are-working-themselves-to-death.html)

That was just the first link, I'm sure there are more, but i'm not going to do
your homework for you.

------
daenz
Can any anthropologists answer this: have there been other human cultures that
die out due to a lack of desire to procreate, or is this a new development?

~~~
greglindahl
Has Japanese culture died out already? A trend does not equal actually dying
out.

~~~
pixl97
Well they are on track to have 50% of their population disappear in the next
40 years and a lot of economic upsets because of it. The fact they are
isolated does protect against that, but presents other complications.

~~~
greglindahl
That’s what I meant by “trend”. 40 years is a long time and recently,
fertility rates have frequently changed on shorter timescales.

~~~
rowanG077
Indeed, fertility rates can change rapidly. However it's foolish to simply
claim it can change so it will. If the current trend continues the Japanese
people and culture will be lost to time.

------
dclowd9901
Is the problem here that Japanese men so stubbornly hold onto traditional
morays? I’ve never been and am only passively familiar with cultural
tradition, but it seems like the “company man” tradition is still very much
alive, along with a lot of other very dated concepts.

~~~
freetime2
There’s really quite a bit of bias here in this short statement that I’d like
to highlight:

* Assumes that falling marriage/birth rate is a bad thing. But there are some benefits as well such as fewer unwanted births and unhappy marriages, less environmental strain, affordable housing costs, low unemployment, etc.

* Assumes that only men “stubbornly hold onto traditional mores”. Surely women do this too.

* Assumes cultural differences in Japan are “dated” (and therefore inferior) compared to elsewhere.

Note that I’m not even a cultural relativist. I do think that some cultural
traits are objectively better than others. But you do need to be careful to
avoid bias.

Finally I’d just point out that marriage and birth rates are on the decline in
much of the developed world. Which leads me to believe that the cause must
more universal than a single population of men refusing to abandon their
stubborn traditions.

------
sharadov
I don't think Japanese women have a say in the society, you see very few women
rising up, the gender roles are strictly enforced. Had a female friend who was
fairly ambitious, she left and moved to the US, since she said there was no
way she could pursue those there

~~~
mrknowitall
I know a Japanese women who went to college in the states and had the opposite
opinion so she moved back to Tokyo. I guess our experiences cancel one another
out!

~~~
downrightmike
Both of your experiences are valid for each other.

------
zadhi
can you check out this, do you satisfy the theory and reasoning they have
given. [https://geniesmag.com/being-single-women-new-freedom-
trend-j...](https://geniesmag.com/being-single-women-new-freedom-trend-japan/)

------
raincom
I think it is good for other species, if more and more women won't find
suitable partners to procreate.

Right now, only the poor and the wealthy are procreating.

------
mrknowitall
Few houses have electric driers. Japan's energy consumption rate is also lower
than America's. The good and the bad.

