I remember watching a video similar to this but about a train. There was only a single girl who rides that train to her school. After she graduates, that train line will be closed because there are no passengers except her. Huge respect to them for not closing down the schools and trains even if there are only very few students remaining. In most countries, those students will be forced to transfer to another school.
I'm just wondering... Why they keep the trains and buses running if there's only a couple of students? A Taxi would be faster, cheaper, more enviromentally friendly and more comfortable. (I know japanese are really introverted so that last one can be debatable.)
It’s crazy they keep mentioning the birth rates but never mentions the work culture in Japan that is killing the birth rate. Really shows the priorities of policymakers.
@cats Factually incorrect from a population and economics perspective. Developed nations need immigration to maintain a strong labour force. Japan is a prime example of what happens when immigration is so strongly discouraged. As nations develop and infant mortality rates fall, they experience a population boom. This is what happened to Japan after WWII. Following this period of explosive population growth, birth rates fall. The lower birth rates are typically counteracted by increased immigration, as people are attracted to the higher quality of life in the now mature nation. Closing off this important source of young, able workers is how you end up with an aging population and stagnant economy, as seen in Japan.
My cousin works in a multinational company with a huge Tokyo office and she would tell me how her Japanese co-workers adore their company. Most of them are very social and active, and most of the married ones have multiple kids which is RARE nowadays. All it took to encourage them to have babies is not working to death and giving fair compensation and time for family. As a result most of the employees don't want to leave, because working elsewhere meant giving up that joy.
I would love to know which company is implementing such a women friendly policy that makes women to think about having kids. Other Japanese companies should learn from this and should implement this, not only for Japan but for their own future, because a boost in working population will ensure their profits.
@@subhankarbaral9236 it's a US-based fin-tech company, I forgot the name sorry! I do remember that most of the starting head managers are European and they really championed work-life balance. In return they have happy and motivated employees, it's a win-win and I wish Japan as a whole would see it that way.
@@margaesperanza are you serious it's japan i know some immigrants they are terribly pressed by employers for 15 hours plus they have to work on weekends japan is same as it the same tired people sleeping in trains offices buses everywhere
Japan really needs to get it together and stop forcing people to work themselves to death. This isn't a big issue right now, but this could be catastrophic in the future.
They're not forcing their people to work to death. They even encourage people to be more active sexually. And even if you're not working, you'll get a support from the government. It's just the Japanese people themselves, it's a trait, they really are just workaholic people.
It's the same even in supposedly freer society in EU and N.A. I don't know always blame work and cost of living. You simply disprove these theories when you realise poorer people snd nations have more children despite working longer. Even here in the UK people don't have children so they can buy the newest E class and don't any weekly party. Nothing to do with cost of living or long work.
@@dinte215 It has nothing to do with being able to buy an E class. The birthrates in wealthy countries are lower than poorer countries is because people in wealthy countries have more access to education and contraceptives. In the wealthier countries we als have things like pensions so there is no need for the children to take care of their parents as much as in Africa, that's why families in poorer countries are typically way larger.
This is really the result of young Japanese people not wanting to have children. These days many young Japanese don’t even want to get married. It’s a trend worldwide because we have so many other ways to spend our free time rather than raising kids. Japan’s issue is exacerbated by the long life expectancy so there are tons of old people too.
@@death2putin718 I'm more concerned about the Japanese government sending a ton of "free yen" to war profiteers in the Ukraine than overstaffed schools.
When my children were growing up they watched us work full time, come home and work more, plus run a household, look after elderly parents and try our best to parent. As a consequence they are in no rush to be parents themselves. Who can blame them?
@@maya-uz4wc in parts of the world like America yes, but European countries and Japan has social programs, ability to provide for their children. It is just in Japan that there is a workaholic attitude and reverence of old people that politicians pander to them instead of the young. I think Japan has strong unions and social movements but cultural values are antagonistic so less progress is seen.
@@zeyadsaeed9580 even in Europe child's are not more than just a "toy". In the past you need childs to work for you and take care for you while you getting older but now you do not need to be a parent anymore. So why giving birth to a child?
@@heinrich6294 i mean it is their freedom, the european country's government has done all they can to increase the benefits a child would get and so forth. if citizens dont want children then i am fine with it since it is their freedom. Moreover, it is suppose to be something celebratory not stigmatizing that children when they grow up should be free and pursue their dream instead of being forced to working and taking care of their parents as ways of limiting freedom and adding stress and pressure into the children. In fact, this is something totally ingrained in japan's youth, this idea of taking care of elder and pressure, is probably what exacerbated the suicide rates in japan. Depression, overwork, mental exhaustion is very real. I am not saying taking care of elderly is bad, but it shouldn't be forced into the youth's mind as if it is some sort of destiny and limit their potential.
in singapore during my graduation, in 2016 there was around 35 students per class, and a total of 7 classes per level. Its really incredible to see such a drastic difference of atmosphere..
SG is a city-state mah. Impossible to have scenarios like those in the video. Probably the closest thing are tiny schools in super rural parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.
@@shastasilverchairsgthe crazy thing is though that Singapore is also having a declining birth rate and is closing down schools. Many of the schools are getting combined to make up for their dropping student population.
People, specially government officials, need to understand that population decline isn't just about people being "lazy" and not wanting to have children, it has to do with financial costs, medical attention, mental health, work culture, accessibility, and many, many other factors. There are plenty of people who would love to have a family but can't for any of the reasons I listed above. Who could've thought that improving life quality would have better results than forcing people to pop out some babies?
When you destroy traditional family system Women being baby raisers and house wives And men being breadwinners and protectors of their families This was expected when women and men both prioritizing their careers more than families and making such economical system that 1 man cant feed 5 people for a month and pay pills and health care this was expected And in Japan people are moving away from relationships to "toys" Completely ruined society
Please. Y’all treat children like they’re a burden. As if you weren’t a child once yourself to even give you a life to consider all the things you mentioned. Funny thing is those same people probably have pets that require all of the above which makes that argument moot.
A lot of factors are involved..But you can clearly see that both Korea and Japan are mysoginist country.. When the women are not treated equally, they would not want to have children...
From what I’ve been seeing from Japanese you tubers covering it a lot of the issue lies in the culture forcing people to go to the cities to find work, and then once there you work so much you don’t have time for a personal life that leads to a family. They’ve been told the future is in the cities, not the country, people aren’t interested in living that kind of lifestyle anymore. It’s seems to be a whole cultural shift that is needed, not just a birth rate issue.
Birth rate has decreasead due to modern issues such as long work hours, inflation and economic instability. This can also cause migration to more populated cities for more work, as you well said. This isn't only happening in Japan, EU and America suffer of the same problem, although to a lesser degree due to not having the insane work ethic that is typical in Japan. In short, this is a worldwide trend, and it will only go away as the economy straightens up and allows for an opportunity for people to be financially stable enough to have kids. New welfare programs could solve this issue, but you wouldn't be playing your child's future on a welfare program, if you could, it would only take a slight change in government for those policies to be gone. On the other hand, the children which are going to school like that, are getting the best education they can, since there's overall, less chaos, more attention can be given to them by the teachers, and the teachers themselves are less overworked so it would lead to a better education for the few children that go to schools like this. I'm not promoting this as it's still a bad situation, all things considered, but at the very least it has some form of positives for the children themselves.
@@shroomer3867that’s not the problem , it’s a cultural issue where women on average are doing better than their male counterparts that leads to higher standard when it comes to dating.
This problem isn't just limited to Japan. I grew up in rural area and my classroom was full. Now twenty years on they have less than half a dozen per class, two pupils in one case and the school is in danger of closing. Meanwhile families are encouraged/forced to move to big cities and towns where classes are jam packed and housing costs are sky high. Sad to see a school that's been open for a hundred years close.
Now it seems like Japan really is facing a devastating crisis. Who knows? If the population plummets further, then you could already imagine how many people will there be left.
Id be happy to take over their beautiful country with all those sakuras and temples after their species extinct!😂. But this is kinda sad tbh. If you're in Malaysia, you see babies in stroller every 5 seconds either in shopping mall, housing areas or even clubs..
@@mubaraksenju7521 I think it's a world problem. You might be in a big city and this one is in a rural area, Malaysia's population is also declining and a lot of countries too, Japan has it worse.
If the work culture does not change this will continue to happen, also they need to move or to invest in starting big businesses in these rural areas, also starting a campaign to incentive financially move to these locations. All the big cities are taking talent away and in such a competitive environment where you need to do your best and work hard there's no time for starting a family.
Why would they need those rural areas? What for? They are dying because they have served their purpose. Japan population in 1923 was 36m, in 2023 they are 157m. Are they dying? I guess they are.
Год назад+381
@John Jack regardless if you think the population is dying or not, rural areas are needed in every country and lifestyle. Not to mention agricultural, environmental, and historical benefits, I fail to see how rural areas can finish serving their purpose. Also, considering how Japanese culture is so infused in maintaining historical traditions that were born in "rural areas,"
It’s not just in Japan where rural areas are dying. If you look at USA, there’s also dying towns. This is just a natural progression of the economy of developed countries.
@@unhash631 The key to keep these rural areas is just accessibility to services. If accessibility increased, more people would move to rural areas than cities. Say, if there's a daily commute that can connect rural areas to city, then people wouldn't have to move into cities just to go to work. If there's a market or hospital, people wouldn't have to go far to get their needs.
Man, the closure will surely be sad, knowing that each corner, room, and even the tiniest spot of the school contains a memory of the past where students stood. And as a future teacher, it saddens me to hear that it is shutting down.
I lived in a village about an hour away from this place and it was a similar story with the total number of students dropping year on year. The two middle schools in the area I worked at actually combined into one a few years after I left since one of the schools only had 30 something students across 3 grades. It's a real shame that the rural areas just don't have the people to support a more local school. It's such a great place to live overall.
When my dad was a kid in west Texas 90 years ago, the town he lived in had around 250 people. There were several such tiny towns in that rural area. One of those towns had a school, and a couple of buses circuited around those towns to pick up kids to take to that school. That's how it's always been in sparsely populated rural areas.
On another note, I respect Japan for not closing with this limitation. I've seen a handful of videos where they don't close their establishments until there are no more people to accommodate, like that ONLY student riding the train to her school, that one I recall the most. But it's sad state that they are in, hope Japan can work it out.
Same, I respect them for that! As for the plummeting birth rate, there is no solution. It's not something government measures can fix. They need immigration, if they don't want the country to die out. Xenophobes can cry as much as they want.
@@santar5006 immigration only ruins countries and destroys it's unity unless immigrants are similar (same or similar ethnicity and religion). Government measures can absolutely help population growth with incentives like time off work with guaranteed job waiting for them when they can return and monetary aid for families with new borns, limiting prices on baby care products, housewife national pay and pension for women with over 3 children for example, shaving off years before pension for men as well if they have X amount of kids, etc.
It is not as much about respect than it is for keeping the jobs of older people. Japan has one of the oldest populations in the planet, and it will keep growing year after year due to high life spams and the decline of birthrates. Due to fewer young adults on the job market and paying taxes, aging adults have to continue working more years because there's not enough young workers to replace them and pay their pensions. There are a bunch of redundant jobs in Japan made only to keep these aging populations working.
@@santar5006 immigration may fix an issue but it will cost more problems. Just look at other countries. Immigrants just don't respect a country they are not from.
the problem that causes their birth rate to drop is due how important the country take their jobs, leaving them no time to spend with family. its sad really, i hope it improves soon
@@성이름-e8l7x if feminism is the problem, it will not be solved because making more racially pure babies is obviously not worth reenslaving half the population.
It’s not all about the working conditions. Many Japanese woman and men don’t even want to get married nor start a family. They also don’t need bigger families because the mortality rate from birth is low now
I think having proper children daycare near those office location will help a lot.. Helping those parents who work also helping children sociallize and having social interaction daily , so that the children is not anti human interaction when growing up.
@@whatisthis6259But the reason a lot of men and women don’t want children is because of their work culture. Both spouses working from 9am to 9pm 7 days a week doesn’t leave any room for having children. Women are expected to work while also providing child rearing and parental care, which is extremely stressful and not appealing to most women. Giving them access to free daycare wouldn’t be enough, since they still wouldn’t have any time to be parents in between their busy work schedules.
It's happening in most of developed countries cuz the low birth rate is common for almost every developed country. Germany's rate, without the mass immigrants, will be much lower than Japan. Italy, Spain, the US etc will be same. Japan's birth rate is actually highest among developed Asian countries, while S. Korea has the lowest rate. Btw it's joke that, in the comments, ppl from countries with just a bit better birth rates only due to mass immigrants believe they have some superior culture in working or something, and tell Japan what to do. The country has one of the longest life-expectancy, which means the work culture is not what those ppl always try to make it look like.
@@michaelsharp8393 pay people to be moms and dads, the best quality parents in Japan. It would be a 24/7 job, for 40 years. Licensed parents and licensed breeders. You can breed the healthiest smartest happiest people. While hiring the best parents for the job, being a parent can pay 25$/h.
I'd cry my eyes out if this was in our place. This is heartbreaking and saddening esp perhaps for people who grew up there and were alumi themselves of the school :( Congratulations to the new graduates anyway!
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades...
@@mingyuhuang8944 I've seen some initiatives to bring workers to the rural regions from outside the country - but the process is a bit convoluted. I was interested myself since im from a rural area, but I was discouraged from the confusing process and website. It's called WIJC.
This exactly happens in Korea as well. Low birth rates causes schools in rural area to be closed. To make matters worse, there are number of schools in Seoul are closed due to low number of students. I think birth rate is problem not only to Japan but Korea. I wish both countries cope with this problem.
Two major things to note about Japan’s falling birth rate: 1. Toxic work culture makes it harder to start a family. 2. Declining birth rates in developed nations is a well-documented phenomenon. Most countries counteract the lower birth rates through immigration, however Japan has not embraced this option.
That has nothing much to do with the birth rate. In the 1970s, Japanese people worked much longer hours and were paid less than now, but the birth rate was more than twice the current rate. Incidentally, Finland, which is said to have the best work-life balance in the world, has a lower birth rate than Japan. In other words, there is no guarantee that the birth rate will increase if the working environment is improved.
@@collaborativelearning1 Capitalism is, BY DEFINITION, part of traditional life. Of course, knowing this fact requires that you know what capitalism means. Which means you read a dictionary.
It’s way to expensive to have kids nowadays. A lot of countries are going to experience these drops if they don’t make changes. The prices are going up regularly but the pay isn’t. How do these countries expect people who have to overwork themselves to afford daily necessities bring a child into the equation. This new generation is different they see what’s going on and refuse to struggle 🤷🏽♀️ Now one child basically cost what 2+ kids would cost you back in the days it’s ridiculous.
It's expensive in some Western countries. But poorer countries/ regions have no such issues. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa are all doing fine with big families being common. Infact people from these places are now crowding Europe even in colder countries
@@tyc1Z.Z1 People over there will keep having children even they can't afford it. That's why they have the highest child mortality rate. It all depends on the education mindset.
Japan government wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want people to have children; but what are they actually doing to make an environment where children can be raised properly? This isn't only Japan problem either, many countries have governments who complain about birth rates but do nothing to help the people.
it's somehow both funny and maddening to watch a government make empty gesture after empty gesture while never addressing the real problem. This is the cost of runaway capitalism. When you deregulate to the point where corporate wealth starts leaking into politics, you see utter nonsense like the supposedly climate-minded Biden administration opening new oil drilling sites or the japanese government holding peoples' nosed to the grindstone even as their population vanishes.
I think this is because women are choosing to not have kids, in the last decades, women mainly took power from their roles as mothers and wives, now they know that being in a relationship is not that important if you are financially independent especially when men mainly see women as looks
Considering how the population ballooned, there are too many humans in other places as is, so a declining birth rate is warranted. That's not the case for Japan though.
As a US teacher 2 students in the classroom sounds like a dream. Over here we have overflowing classrooms and I have to teach 29 second graders by myself 💀
I didn't know it was this serious 😮 I always thought Japan is one of the bigger countries and that if the birth rate plummets a little, it wouldn't affect the overal general population. But to think it's come to the point that only two students were in school
Japan has a large population, 11th in the world but the ratio of elderly and young people is so imbalanced. Can't blame people really coz the cost of living is so high right now it's hard to have children.
@@mahaphoublue7644 topple that overworking with their unfriendly immigration and they created such a recipe for disaster. lol on that vow to fix this. they wont.
Its their overwork culture that is the main factor. People don't want to have babies/families, they just want enough sleep and rest...... Thats the current issue.
Its been gradually getting worse year after year but its been happening for atleast the last 15-20 yrs id say, just at a slower pace. I do agree its so sad to see
That's really sad 😢 but also, kudos for the teachers who have dedicated their lives and teaching to the last two remaining students. I hope they will reopen the school again if families and children come back to the area.
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades... 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@mingyuhuang8944 Europeans have a much less work-oriented society and more condition to raise a family and even they have the same problem. So they use constant immigration to supply the workforce. In the end, it's basically impossible to raise your own population birthrate, and im sure the japanese would rather reach extinction than to bring in immigrants. Thus, robots are the only way.
@@mingyuhuang8944 hmm... I dont think robot is what Japan is considering to be the answer to our population crisis... That must be a humourous take but no
My primary school also closed few year ago. It's really sad to think that your childhood memories with school, your classmates and the teachers that shaped you as a person will be gone and only stay in your mind forever. 😢
Who has the money to raise kids in an economy like this. It's not because they are reluctant its because children are too expensive. Even in countries where they incentives such as Singapore and Hong Kong its not enough.
I'm in Nagoya now. If not for the declining birthrate scare, the amount of youths here is quite staggering, as though Japan almost has no problem with birthrates at all. The youths need cities to thrive in because more job opportunities with high incomes are there, not in rural areas. The problem that needs to be solved first is the high-cost living. Like Korea & China now, the Japanese are reluctant to have children because everything in Japan is freaking expensive. Even if you live in the countryside, you still have bills & rentals which don't come in cheap either - believe me on this, I lived in the countryside before in the Kanto region.
Japan's big towns will keep going strong for years to come. Her small towns will die first because all the workers will move to the big towns like Tokyo
Surely if you and your partner have a shared income, it reduces the burden of that. I do understand where you are coming from, but alot of hurdles that come with having kids can be solved with smart financial planning before having kids.
Fair enough if the schooling is expensive af and the work culture in Japan discourage ppl from wanting kids So why don't u go there and have half blood Japanese
People are choosing to have less children, or no children at all, for a variety of reasons: 1) Financial cost 2) Poor genetic screening and poor maternal care, even in the U.S. 3) No support system, meaning the women have to do all of the caregiving for grandparents, aging parents, and now children. 4) No support or care system if you have special needs child 5) Lack of support and options for women who choose to be SAHM, then desire to return to the work force years later. When you have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, why would anyone want to add more burdens to their shoulders? I don't, and didn't.
That's easy, trick a man to marry you, have a kid, divorce him and ruin his life by making him court mandated to give you and the kid more than half of his salary every month. Profit.
@@peludogameplaysmachopeludo3506 It has a lot to do with this. Poor people making bad choices in baby-making is another issue happening at the same time.
Not sure if this would help or not but the government should create school zones delegated to both the urban and rural areas. This way schools in more rural areas would have students that have to go there. It breaks my heart seeing schools with over 60 years of history and memories being forced to shut down.
Who is willing to bus their children hours away from home just to keep a country school open? It’s a great idea on paper but in real like not feasible at all.
Actually the solutions made was to transfer these students to other nearby schools also located in another rural area but has optimal number of students for it to not close down thus your idea of students travelling is still being done. The schools closed down usually if not demolished/abandoned were transformed to government offices or tourist spots like inns.
Gives these people affordable housing , and social security ....stop worrying if the kids going to take care of them ....they can't in most cases.... especially if they got a family.on his own
The better the school the higher chances of getting into a better highschool (then better university, then better job, so on so forth). And the better schools are most likely in the urban
With the birth rate falls in different areas or countries, things get worse from preschool at the first place! When this happens, primary school and then secondary school. Actually the governments has seen this coming before they could actually provide better policies.
Most younger couples here simply don’t want to have children. Those who do, often hold off until they’ve saved enough money to deal with all the expenses. Many young adults still remember there fathers having to work long hours, six days a week and barely see their own kids. They’re the lucky ones because at least they have their mums to raise them. As for two income households, there’s no need to have a family if you’re just paying schools to raise your children
Really sad to think how little friends they probably have. school is an important phase to start socializing and having experiences with other people not to be the last two kids in school.
This is really sad and I’m sorry to see the school closing. On a lighthearted note, imagine being able to confidently say you had the highest grades in your entire high school lol
Yeah, in school life based anime/manga it's allways a big deal the position you have in your class ranking, so this kids could brag about being ranked 1° or 2° place in the entire school... Until they are asked "first place over how many other students?"
my primary school closed down a few years ago for this reason, im 9 years out of it and when i was in my final year we had just 30 students across 7/8 year groups, it’s sad
This is quite sad but with I'm willing to bet that those students got an amazing, personalized education from each of their teacehrs since they only had two kids to focus on.
@Charizard S It's more about wanting more younger people specifically. The less younger people there are, the less people we have to replace the aging workforce.
@Charizard S you know the population is shrinking right. Meaning if the birthrate continues to drop we might end up having more old people around than young ones. There needs to be a balance
It's also about people moving from the countryside to the city. And that's not an issue of Japan. It happens everywhere around the globe. Growing up my parents and grandparents told me I need to learn so I'll get a job in the city. This year the school in my village was closed and the remaining students take the school bus to another school. Most of the people born after 1990 don't live here anymore.
My husband and I would have liked to have had more children. But, expenses limited us to 2. We couldn't have children of our own, so we adopted both. Besides the cost of raising them to adulthood, we also had adoption fees. It was very expensive, so we both had to work. Daycare costs were also very expensive. It is not just a Japanese issue, but everywhere. We live in the USA.
This is very heartbreaking. This problem is LIKE a silent virus spreading across Japan. I can't even think of a best solution. It's easy to said than done. Usually this problems takes decades to solve. But effects is unavoidable. I love Japan, I love their culture and etc. It's very heartbreaking.
Maybe they need to stop modernizing and being so materialistic. In Africa people are trying to adopt that fast paced lifestyles but foreigners love it because everything is so slow and people are living in a different times. Economic hardships are there but never social
Japan has 124 million people. Even if present fertility trends continue, they'll still have 73 million people by the end of this century, the same number they had in 1940. They were thriving then, they're thriving now, they'll thrive long into the future. And another thing, around 65% of women in Japan have at least one child. There's not some virus going around, most women in Japan have children and will have children.
@@dalegreer3095 economic models crash with less harsh factors than this. There actually is no known working model where most of the population is elderly. New territory. It could be horrible. Like 1929 but no end in sight.
I live in Tokyo and lots of my 30s and 40s coworkers said they don't have bf/gf and not interested in getting married. While the married ones decided to not have kids. No wonder...
The same is happening in Australia but the only thing holding it together is migration, although barely. But this seems to be an issue in most western countries, where policies are geared towards the elite and actively hurt families. Casualisation of employment, stagnant wages, long hours, high migration, poor childcare and so on … seems like people are resources to be squeezed for every penny and then thrown away, easily replaced by another low paid migrant … no care about people … it’s just become about consumption and money
Canada is in the exact same situation, our homeless population is rising and 2.5 million Canadians would starve without food banks. It's time for action! Nationwide strikes!
Don’t forget 80% of divorces are initiated by the female so they can get that alimony and child support. Smart men aren’t playing the rigged game anymore.
They’re trying to replace white people with literally anyone else. Nonwhites are promoted, imported and supported financially to spawn more and erase us.
Very sad. I visited Japan years ago and loved the country and its people. I hope they can increase their birth rate and keep this beautiful place & culture alive and thriving. Love from America.
There needs to be a cultural shift in Japan. From my understanding of it, Japan's current overwork culture stems from when it was recovering from WWII. They've long since rebuilt, but that overwork culture stuck around even to this day. The younger generation picks up on it when there is no need to because they think it's the norm, but then it leads to problems like having no work-life balance to build families, suicides due to the stress, and literally working themselves to death. They need to get the message out there that it's okay to relax a little bit to enjoy life. If income is an obstacle, they need to fix that to accommodate the shift in lifestyle.
Everyone says this but countries like Finland have a way better work-life balance yet have terrible birth-rates. Let’s just be realistic. It isn’t the 1960s. We no longer need kids to support us, many want to focus on their careers and not have a nagging child to deal with.
I taught English in Japan for several years. One of my schools was an elementary and junior high on an island. When I arrived there was one girl in the junior high school and about 8 kids in the elementary. When the JH girl graduated the following year they sent the JH entire faculty away and closed the JH just keeping the elementary going. The next year after that one boy became a JH student and once again they brought an entire faculty of subject teachers principle and vice principle and all back just for this one boy. (There was no high school on the island so after JH all kids would have to commute to the mainland by ferry).
The thing that really impacted me is that without the school couples might not consider relocating there and without the family's relocating there's no hope of the school continuing
There’s something very sad about a 76 year old school closing. There for decades, think of all the student and teachers and staff that walked its halls and grounds, all the memories made and the work done over generations, just gone
This is a combination of many factors such as exaustive working hours and few social welfare policies. A lot of countries are watching the birth rates go down and is very hard to fix it, specially in countries that women have less rights than men, earn less even when they occupy the same position at jobmarket and are seen as caregivers. South Korea will have the same path or worse, since Japan have been trying to reverse that problem and Korea is making life even more difficult to young adults with their proposals of increase working hours.
@@johnjack3578 because a large number of eldery people combined with a low number of young adults overleoad healthcare and retirement systems. In Brazil we are seeing the rates get lower too and the first thing that government did was change our retirement rules because we wont have working adults to compensate the number of old people in the future.
I disagree with you. Men and Women don't have the same position at work! Men are Male doctors and women are female doctors. (Ignore this it's a bad joke)
"the birth rates go down and is very hard to fix it, specially in countries that women have less rights than men, earn less even when they occupy the same position at jobmarket and are seen as caregivers." what? only countries that are becoming more developed and liberal has this issue. what about middle east, what about india, africa where population is booming. Do they have more rights for women and don't see women as caregivers?. Do you live in another world or just the "white women syndrome" is making you blind to accept reality?
This is so heartbreaking 💔 Japanese government needs to act fast to aid the rural communities. Also, the low birth rate is worrisome. Japan is a powerhouse of talent, artistry and innovation. You better not become extinct.
I think it's also important to note the areas these things are happening. In rural towns where jobs are scarce and money scarcer. Less and less people are willing to make a life in rural towns due to disparity in ways of life. The same is happening all around the world. In Spain and Italy is the same problem, people are emigrating out of rural areas. Leaving behind dead villages with not enough people to keep up public services.
By your name I'm guessing your Spanish? Even if you're not I completely agree with you, I definitely know what you're talking about since I am Spanish and my grandfather has lived his entire life in the rural countryside working in the fields, and he has often told me how all the young people leave for the big cities and how the rural parts of Spain are basically drying out, its really sad to see
@@war_designer8763 I'm half Spanish but raised in the UK. The same would be happening in the UK but because of how small the country is, there's at least rich people who are building their homes with acres of land either for farming or recreation. Unfortunately for Spain being so vast, some villages are really badly connected. I lived in a village called Castalla for a while and for the young people to get to work or uni there was one bus every two hours that came down from Alcoy and took 2 hours. I think it's a shame but either there villages are going to depopulate completely or have their culture irreversibly changed due to the need for modernity (better transport/roads, tech links etc)
This breaks my heart. Rural Japan is so beautiful, and seeing such history come to a whimpering end is such a shame. I really hope the new PM is able to convince the people to start families again.
It feels so rare to see such schools even exist, in my school in India which is a well known school in my city there are about 200 Teachers in total. Surprising thing for me is that they had 160 students in their peak times. It explains the advantages and disadvantages of population of a country.
Back in 2015, I visited a school in Ishinomaki Sendai. There were very few students left mainly because of the tsunami that hit the area (around 2011) 😢 In one Biology class, there were only 8 students left while in Music class, only 10 students left 😢
But. Then you have Tokyo, where people struggle to find a place to live. It's not only about birth rate decreasing, it's also about the distribution of population and the centric economic activities.
I lived in Nagoya a few years ago teaching English before COVID hit, but I never thought the birth rates would ever become my issue until I had to cut a class from my schedule because there weren't enough students to populate it. I was actually losing money because people aren't having kids.
You really can't blame people if they don't want to have kids. It's somehow hard to sustain oneself , let alone a family of their own. especially when the cost of living keeps going up
1. it‘s not only birthrate. Young people all move to the cities for work. So only old people live in the countryside. 2. Japan is densly populated. Throughout japans history a population of 120 Mio. people is extraordinary. There is nothing wrong with the population decreasing.
Completely correct: Depopulation is needed as it's over the carrying-capacity. Eventually lower population leads to lower prices which leads to less stress and more space and higher fertility rates again in Japanese women. Immigration at mass scale would ruin that entire cycle. Only moderate high qulaity select migration shold be kept as it is.
It's not just Japan - Korea has an even bigger issue, and China is facing the same issues. A big reason in Korea is that women are avoiding getting married or getting married at a much later age because they are focused on their career - They feel that getting married and taking time for a child will hurt them too much in the workplace.
Birth rate is declining in rural japan. But when I went to tokyo, kyoto and osaka there are a lot of youth mostly students wearing school uniforms over crowding the place.
Japan's total fertility rate is very low at just 1.20 children per women. The population is aging faster than any nation on earth, and it's even on the decline
Japan has likely understood the importance of balancing work and life and why failing to achieve this balance will prevent a future population to exist.
It‘s so funny to see so many drama queens. Japanese population will not die out. The island has reached the highest population in the history of their existence and the cities are densely populated. The population will shrink by 20-50 Mio. towards an historical average. Most countries in the world right now have historical high population and are overpopulated. It‘s absolutely normal that some population are shrinking again. Big cities today: 5-10 Million inhabitants. Big cities 300 years ago: 1 Million
I wish Japan can do something to fix this soon, as a teacher in Japan this hurts me, because Japanese students/children are very endearing, honestly, Japan is beautiful, and the next generations shouldn't be denied that. Japan is magnificent, if I wasn't just one person.. if I could do something, anything significant.. I would. Hopefully Japan rises, yoroshiku onegaishimasu
Because women choose bigger, stronger, richer Men, Japanese women are refusing to have kids and go to the west. Japanese government will have to do many things women won't like, to stop this. Such as stopping most travel abroad especially for women (study and work abroad), banning all social media and dating apps, stopping all birth control including medication used for acne and mood disorders, and a few other things. Without these changes and taking away of freedoms, birthrate will continue to plummet. They can't/wont do it so things won't change.
Wow! I knew they were facing declining birth rates but I didn't know it was this bad. Even paediatricians in Korea are closing their practices because they don't receive patients anymore
I looked at the date that this video was posted and found something SHOCKING: the two students really DID graduate and the school shut its doors permanently.
I saw a video a few weeks ago about a school in China with only 1 student--a 3rd grader I think. He was sad about not having friends, but 2 4th graders took him under their wings. Asia has some serious issues with their birth rates and i honestly think the work culture has a lot to do with it. Who has time to date and raise a family when youre working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.??? 😢
Sadly many died over the course of decades due to bullying, overwork, and stress. So of course It would effect the population. 😢 Hopefully if they take on more respectful residents from across the globe to stimulate re-population but keeping their laws and mortals the same this will change and bring back up mixed race Japanese citizens. Japan really is a beautiful place! ❤
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades... 😢😢😢😢
Not to mention high taxes/inflation/cost of living compared to the stagnant wages. It is estimated you need to spend ¥10 million to raise 1 kid in Japan. Most families can only manage to raise 1 or 2 kids comfortably.
yall are wirdos ew . they should just change the work ethics and work on other regions of japan other than the big ones and the lives of many would make them start a family . there is so much you can do
While some countries in the world are experiencing over population due to high birth rate , some countries are having plummeting birth rate . This situations are very unfortunate for us
I see in the comments people are saying it’s the work culture that is killing the population. Can someone explain this to someone who isn’t Japanese? Thanks
The same thing is happening in Denmark although it is not do to falling birthrates but rather urbanization and the lack of available work in rural areas.
@@bezklavikaszekminmespukzk9961 If I were to try that the government gonna arrest me for trespassing on the forest, if that doesn't happen I might be eaten by tiger, leopard or hyena or get stomped by elephant or wild buffalo.
I chose not to have kids because I watched my mom and dad work themselves to death. Their bodies broke down from neglect. Mom died when I was 22. Dad died before I turned 30.
Dang, sorry for your loss... I can't imagine a human literally working themselves to death especially at such a young age. I usually hear them dying when the kid is round 40-50, but 22 is so young to lose your mother at.
When a single 500 sqft room costs $1,500 a month no one can afford kids! Problem is the top 1% of every nations wealth is held by fewer than 20 people. 1 person having more wealth than an entire nation shows they’re not paying adequate cost of living compensation to their employees who then in turn can’t afford to have families or children because they know it’s irresponsible to bring a child into the world when they can’t afford to care/house themselves as a result of the world wide greed that is shattering lives daily!
Stop repeating these nonsense, they were much more poorer than now and had a lot of kids, poor countries are the one making the most babies, it has nothing to do with economics, it's a cultural problem, basically marriage laws and antimen culture.
@@death2putin718 that’s still highlighting the issue. $400 for a bedroom but would you bring a spouse & child into that single bedroom? Probably not I’m betting so then you have to get a 2 bedroom rent becomes $1000-$1200 on the same salary you make now plus child care and all other family costs on top which puts affording a family out of reach for thousands because one man needs to be worth 100 billion by paying you bare minimum Or because he sends all the jobs overseas where it’s even worth. Salaries world wide have not kept up even remotely close to cost of living but the already wealthy are richer than ever before
@@Twitchguy exactly, so let the rich keep their money. I don’t blame the working class people for refusing to procreate, let’s end this BS….no more generations. Let’s see how they are gonna spend all that money.😂
I studied at a school located at remote place. With only fourteen students in my class, and it was indeed very weird since I previously studied in the city. Watching this video reminded me of the past but in a very sad manner. Wish things go back to normal
I don't understand why people are so enamored by the city. Sure it's a cool place to be, but not more cool than living in someplace like this. That school is beautiful. This is such a shame.
There is actually an Australian youtuber who lives in the same town as this was filmed in. The channel is called Global Family In Fukushima. They have three daughters. I believe their daughters are the only students at the local kindergarten. I wonder where they will go to school now the junior high school has closed down. I guess they will have to commute to the junior high school of a nearby town.
I remember watching a video similar to this but about a train. There was only a single girl who rides that train to her school. After she graduates, that train line will be closed because there are no passengers except her.
Huge respect to them for not closing down the schools and trains even if there are only very few students remaining. In most countries, those students will be forced to transfer to another school.
Absolutely true
I'm just wondering... Why they keep the trains and buses running if there's only a couple of students?
A Taxi would be faster, cheaper, more enviromentally friendly and more comfortable. (I know japanese are really introverted so that last one can be debatable.)
@@Kaltsukka taxi is cheaper? nahh it's way more expensive
@@Kaltsukka if you think taxis are cheaper and greener than trains then there's something wrong with your country.
@@takoyaki9211 Yeah, but if the government pays for it, it doesn't matter. I'm just talking about from the logistics perspective.
It’s crazy they keep mentioning the birth rates but never mentions the work culture in Japan that is killing the birth rate. Really shows the priorities of policymakers.
you are misinformed
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
always remember that policymakers are backed by huge companies...
Or that the country is anti-immigrant.
Japan: "you can't sit with us."
@cats Incorrect.
@cats Factually incorrect from a population and economics perspective.
Developed nations need immigration to maintain a strong labour force. Japan is a prime example of what happens when immigration is so strongly discouraged.
As nations develop and infant mortality rates fall, they experience a population boom. This is what happened to Japan after WWII. Following this period of explosive population growth, birth rates fall. The lower birth rates are typically counteracted by increased immigration, as people are attracted to the higher quality of life in the now mature nation.
Closing off this important source of young, able workers is how you end up with an aging population and stagnant economy, as seen in Japan.
My cousin works in a multinational company with a huge Tokyo office and she would tell me how her Japanese co-workers adore their company. Most of them are very social and active, and most of the married ones have multiple kids which is RARE nowadays.
All it took to encourage them to have babies is not working to death and giving fair compensation and time for family. As a result most of the employees don't want to leave, because working elsewhere meant giving up that joy.
I would love to know which company is implementing such a women friendly policy that makes women to think about having kids. Other Japanese companies should learn from this and should implement this, not only for Japan but for their own future, because a boost in working population will ensure their profits.
@@subhankarbaral9236 it's a US-based fin-tech company, I forgot the name sorry! I do remember that most of the starting head managers are European and they really championed work-life balance. In return they have happy and motivated employees, it's a win-win and I wish Japan as a whole would see it that way.
@@margaesperanza are you serious it's japan i know some immigrants they are terribly pressed by employers for 15 hours plus they have to work on weekends japan is same as it the same tired people sleeping in trains offices buses everywhere
@@subhankarbaral9236 nope japan population willl continue to decline further
I wanna know to research the company too
Japan really needs to get it together and stop forcing people to work themselves to death. This isn't a big issue right now, but this could be catastrophic in the future.
They're not forcing their people to work to death. They even encourage people to be more active sexually. And even if you're not working, you'll get a support from the government. It's just the Japanese people themselves, it's a trait, they really are just workaholic people.
It's the same even in supposedly freer society in EU and N.A. I don't know always blame work and cost of living.
You simply disprove these theories when you realise poorer people snd nations have more children despite working longer.
Even here in the UK people don't have children so they can buy the newest E class and don't any weekly party. Nothing to do with cost of living or long work.
@@dinte215 It has nothing to do with being able to buy an E class. The birthrates in wealthy countries are lower than poorer countries is because people in wealthy countries have more access to education and contraceptives. In the wealthier countries we als have things like pensions so there is no need for the children to take care of their parents as much as in Africa, that's why families in poorer countries are typically way larger.
This is really the result of young Japanese people not wanting to have children. These days many young Japanese don’t even want to get married. It’s a trend worldwide because we have so many other ways to spend our free time rather than raising kids. Japan’s issue is exacerbated by the long life expectancy so there are tons of old people too.
@@dinte215 Culture has a role on all of this, africans have tons of having tons of children and in Brazil families have assistence of the gov.
It must be a unique experience for those students. To know that they’ll be the last ones to ever walk through those halls as students.
If this turn into anime plot. I will definitely watch it.
@@alfathonys.pd.1346 🤦♂️
@@alfathonys.pd.1346 same
@@alfathonys.pd.1346 wibu woi lah
@@kata5398cry
When there are more teachers than students in the graduation photo... so heartwrenching
Scaremongering tactics by media
And wallet wrenching for tax-payers
@@death2putin718 I'm more concerned about the Japanese government sending a ton of "free yen" to war profiteers in the Ukraine than overstaffed schools.
feel ya bro and i know what it feel to see yer school life long memory suddenly shut down🥲
Not really
When my children were growing up they watched us work full time, come home and work more, plus run a household, look after elderly parents and try our best to parent. As a consequence they are in no rush to be parents themselves. Who can blame them?
Exactly this
Right. Having children is really a death sentence In this world
@@maya-uz4wc in parts of the world like America yes, but European countries and Japan has social programs, ability to provide for their children.
It is just in Japan that there is a workaholic attitude and reverence of old people that politicians pander to them instead of the young.
I think Japan has strong unions and social movements but cultural values are antagonistic so less progress is seen.
@@zeyadsaeed9580 even in Europe child's are not more than just a "toy". In the past you need childs to work for you and take care for you while you getting older but now you do not need to be a parent anymore. So why giving birth to a child?
@@heinrich6294 i mean it is their freedom, the european country's government has done all they can to increase the benefits a child would get and so forth.
if citizens dont want children then i am fine with it since it is their freedom.
Moreover, it is suppose to be something celebratory not stigmatizing that children when they grow up should be free and pursue their dream instead of being forced to working and taking care of their parents as ways of limiting freedom and adding stress and pressure into the children.
In fact, this is something totally ingrained in japan's youth, this idea of taking care of elder and pressure, is probably what exacerbated the suicide rates in japan. Depression, overwork, mental exhaustion is very real.
I am not saying taking care of elderly is bad, but it shouldn't be forced into the youth's mind as if it is some sort of destiny and limit their potential.
in singapore during my graduation, in 2016 there was around 35 students per class, and a total of 7 classes per level.
Its really incredible to see such a drastic difference of atmosphere..
SG is a city-state mah. Impossible to have scenarios like those in the video. Probably the closest thing are tiny schools in super rural parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.
@@shastasilverchairsgthe crazy thing is though that Singapore is also having a declining birth rate and is closing down schools. Many of the schools are getting combined to make up for their dropping student population.
I graduated from primary school in 1996. I think we had like 40-50 students per class.
People, specially government officials, need to understand that population decline isn't just about people being "lazy" and not wanting to have children, it has to do with financial costs, medical attention, mental health, work culture, accessibility, and many, many other factors. There are plenty of people who would love to have a family but can't for any of the reasons I listed above. Who could've thought that improving life quality would have better results than forcing people to pop out some babies?
When you destroy traditional family system
Women being baby raisers and house wives
And men being breadwinners and protectors of their families
This was expected when women and men both prioritizing their careers more than families and making such economical system that 1 man cant feed 5 people for a month and pay pills and health care this was expected
And in Japan people are moving away from relationships to "toys"
Completely ruined society
When they get that stability, why would they stay in the country?
Please. Y’all treat children like they’re a burden. As if you weren’t a child once yourself to even give you a life to consider all the things you mentioned. Funny thing is those same people probably have pets that require all of the above which makes that argument moot.
@@Kingdom_Heart children aren't a burden, which is why people are refusing to raise them in substandard ways.
100% right there are many many reasons and nothings equal.
this is extremely serious , population should not grow at an intense rate but should also not plummet at an intense rate
Japan and Korea have similar problems
A lot of factors are involved..But you can clearly see that both Korea and Japan are mysoginist country..
When the women are not treated equally, they would not want to have children...
Also China, Hong Kong and tons of Asia countries too
@@kathyyau1984 but china is most populated
@@anstinsk
But their birth rate is smaller than the elderly, which translates to less-working age population in the future = Ruins the economy
From what I’ve been seeing from Japanese you tubers covering it a lot of the issue lies in the culture forcing people to go to the cities to find work, and then once there you work so much you don’t have time for a personal life that leads to a family. They’ve been told the future is in the cities, not the country, people aren’t interested in living that kind of lifestyle anymore. It’s seems to be a whole cultural shift that is needed, not just a birth rate issue.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Birth rate has decreasead due to modern issues such as long work hours, inflation and economic instability. This can also cause migration to more populated cities for more work, as you well said. This isn't only happening in Japan, EU and America suffer of the same problem, although to a lesser degree due to not having the insane work ethic that is typical in Japan.
In short, this is a worldwide trend, and it will only go away as the economy straightens up and allows for an opportunity for people to be financially stable enough to have kids. New welfare programs could solve this issue, but you wouldn't be playing your child's future on a welfare program, if you could, it would only take a slight change in government for those policies to be gone.
On the other hand, the children which are going to school like that, are getting the best education they can, since there's overall, less chaos, more attention can be given to them by the teachers, and the teachers themselves are less overworked so it would lead to a better education for the few children that go to schools like this. I'm not promoting this as it's still a bad situation, all things considered, but at the very least it has some form of positives for the children themselves.
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ Is that a message to the rich people hoarding wealth and making working-class families unable to have children?
@@shroomer3867that’s not the problem , it’s a cultural issue where women on average are doing better than their male counterparts that leads to higher standard when it comes to dating.
@K E Religion could probably fix this though
This problem isn't just limited to Japan. I grew up in rural area and my classroom was full. Now twenty years on they have less than half a dozen per class, two pupils in one case and the school is in danger of closing. Meanwhile families are encouraged/forced to move to big cities and towns where classes are jam packed and housing costs are sky high. Sad to see a school that's been open for a hundred years close.
sad to hear this.
@@collaborativelearning1 you can blame Japan's one child policy on the school closing
@@mehchocolate1257 that's china you absolute Muppet
What are you talking about? Japan has never had a one-child policy.
@@m-rz actually they do
It’s almost like when you enforce a culture where work is more important than having a family, people work and don’t start families.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Looking at you, America
@@chromiyum6849 I see where you’re coming from but Japan is so much worse in this aspect
You just describe feminism
@@のむ-sanwhat
Now it seems like Japan really is facing a devastating crisis. Who knows? If the population plummets further, then you could already imagine how many people will there be left.
Id be happy to take over their beautiful country with all those sakuras and temples after their species extinct!😂. But this is kinda sad tbh. If you're in Malaysia, you see babies in stroller every 5 seconds either in shopping mall, housing areas or even clubs..
They can import from India. Both Japan and India share similar vedic culture.
@@mubaraksenju7521 I think it's a world problem. You might be in a big city and this one is in a rural area, Malaysia's population is also declining and a lot of countries too, Japan has it worse.
@@mubaraksenju7521 Shut your mouth.
@@mubaraksenju7521 malaysia pon sama bang.....
If the work culture does not change this will continue to happen, also they need to move or to invest in starting big businesses in these rural areas, also starting a campaign to incentive financially move to these locations. All the big cities are taking talent away and in such a competitive environment where you need to do your best and work hard there's no time for starting a family.
Why would they need those rural areas? What for? They are dying because they have served their purpose.
Japan population in 1923 was 36m, in 2023 they are 157m. Are they dying? I guess they are.
@John Jack regardless if you think the population is dying or not, rural areas are needed in every country and lifestyle. Not to mention agricultural, environmental, and historical benefits, I fail to see how rural areas can finish serving their purpose. Also, considering how Japanese culture is so infused in maintaining historical traditions that were born in "rural areas,"
It’s not just in Japan where rural areas are dying. If you look at USA, there’s also dying towns. This is just a natural progression of the economy of developed countries.
@@unhash631 The key to keep these rural areas is just accessibility to services. If accessibility increased, more people would move to rural areas than cities. Say, if there's a daily commute that can connect rural areas to city, then people wouldn't have to move into cities just to go to work. If there's a market or hospital, people wouldn't have to go far to get their needs.
It's not work culture, everyone worked hard in any Era, is about marriage laws and feminism, but no one wants to admit that.
Man, the closure will surely be sad, knowing that each corner, room, and even the tiniest spot of the school contains a memory of the past where students stood. And as a future teacher, it saddens me to hear that it is shutting down.
I lived in a village about an hour away from this place and it was a similar story with the total number of students dropping year on year. The two middle schools in the area I worked at actually combined into one a few years after I left since one of the schools only had 30 something students across 3 grades.
It's a real shame that the rural areas just don't have the people to support a more local school. It's such a great place to live overall.
What village? Very interesting, may I ask how you speak English so fluently?
When my dad was a kid in west Texas 90 years ago, the town he lived in had around 250 people. There were several such tiny towns in that rural area. One of those towns had a school, and a couple of buses circuited around those towns to pick up kids to take to that school. That's how it's always been in sparsely populated rural areas.
@@goeticfolklore I'm from America. I taught in schools over there which is how I got to love in Fukushima. It's a place called Nango
On another note, I respect Japan for not closing with this limitation. I've seen a handful of videos where they don't close their establishments until there are no more people to accommodate, like that ONLY student riding the train to her school, that one I recall the most.
But it's sad state that they are in, hope Japan can work it out.
Same, I respect them for that! As for the plummeting birth rate, there is no solution. It's not something government measures can fix. They need immigration, if they don't want the country to die out. Xenophobes can cry as much as they want.
@@santar5006 immigration only ruins countries and destroys it's unity unless immigrants are similar (same or similar ethnicity and religion). Government measures can absolutely help population growth with incentives like time off work with guaranteed job waiting for them when they can return and monetary aid for families with new borns, limiting prices on baby care products, housewife national pay and pension for women with over 3 children for example, shaving off years before pension for men as well if they have X amount of kids, etc.
It is not as much about respect than it is for keeping the jobs of older people. Japan has one of the oldest populations in the planet, and it will keep growing year after year due to high life spams and the decline of birthrates.
Due to fewer young adults on the job market and paying taxes, aging adults have to continue working more years because there's not enough young workers to replace them and pay their pensions. There are a bunch of redundant jobs in Japan made only to keep these aging populations working.
@@santar5006 immigration may fix an issue but it will cost more problems. Just look at other countries. Immigrants just don't respect a country they are not from.
@@santar5006 healthy immigration requires for them to integrate not just work and live
the problem that causes their birth rate to drop is due how important the country take their jobs, leaving them no time to spend with family. its sad really, i hope it improves soon
ya u got jail if u homeless , jail mean force labour
It's about marriage laws, not working culture.
Why people keep saying same things? All are you educated in same space? it is not work, it is urbanization and feminism
@@성이름-e8l7x if feminism is the problem, it will not be solved because making more racially pure babies is obviously not worth reenslaving half the population.
@@성이름-e8l7x please elaborate further.
It's happening in South Korea as well :(
The intense, rigid working conditions in Japan can have serious consequences for the population. A family needs a happy, healthy home.
Japan politican is too scared for drastic changes due they afraid displease older generation
In any country boomer always the bottleneck
It’s not all about the working conditions. Many Japanese woman and men don’t even want to get married nor start a family. They also don’t need bigger families because the mortality rate from birth is low now
Is that better in China?)))
I think having proper children daycare near those office location will help a lot.. Helping those parents who work also helping children sociallize and having social interaction daily , so that the children is not anti human interaction when growing up.
@@whatisthis6259But the reason a lot of men and women don’t want children is because of their work culture. Both spouses working from 9am to 9pm 7 days a week doesn’t leave any room for having children. Women are expected to work while also providing child rearing and parental care, which is extremely stressful and not appealing to most women. Giving them access to free daycare wouldn’t be enough, since they still wouldn’t have any time to be parents in between their busy work schedules.
This is heartbreaking, I admire schools and teaching so much and it is incredibly sad to see this happening :(
May governments should have human embryos production and hire women for pregnancy jobs.
It's happening in most of developed countries cuz the low birth rate is common for almost every developed country. Germany's rate, without the mass immigrants, will be much lower than Japan. Italy, Spain, the US etc will be same.
Japan's birth rate is actually highest among developed Asian countries, while S. Korea has the lowest rate.
Btw it's joke that, in the comments, ppl from countries with just a bit better birth rates only due to mass immigrants believe they have some superior culture in working or something, and tell Japan what to do.
The country has one of the longest life-expectancy, which means the work culture is not what those ppl always try to make it look like.
@alex if only they at least hired the women, some of them are instead forcing women to be pregnant * cough cough * USA
@@alexoolau A child needs balance with two loving and caring parents. Mass producing everything creates problems. Quality over quantity…
@@michaelsharp8393 pay people to be moms and dads, the best quality parents in Japan. It would be a 24/7 job, for 40 years. Licensed parents and licensed breeders. You can breed the healthiest smartest happiest people. While hiring the best parents for the job, being a parent can pay 25$/h.
I'd cry my eyes out if this was in our place. This is heartbreaking and saddening esp perhaps for people who grew up there and were alumi themselves of the school :( Congratulations to the new graduates anyway!
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades...
@@mingyuhuang8944 I've seen some initiatives to bring workers to the rural regions from outside the country - but the process is a bit convoluted. I was interested myself since im from a rural area, but I was discouraged from the confusing process and website. It's called WIJC.
im sure they wouldve cried too if it didnt seem so awkward..
I would be very happy if this was in our country (India) 😁
This is happening all over the world but just an extreme rate in Japan. Rural areas are losing population because a variety of reasons.
This exactly happens in Korea as well. Low birth rates causes schools in rural area to be closed. To make matters worse, there are number of schools in Seoul are closed due to low number of students. I think birth rate is problem not only to Japan but Korea. I wish both countries cope with this problem.
Two major things to note about Japan’s falling birth rate:
1. Toxic work culture makes it harder to start a family.
2. Declining birth rates in developed nations is a well-documented phenomenon. Most countries counteract the lower birth rates through immigration, however Japan has not embraced this option.
& they shouldn't
Why not?
@@mysticreaper896 Many a times immigrants are hostile to the natives.
3. Japan has higher birth rates than China and South Korea.
That has nothing much to do with the birth rate. In the 1970s, Japanese people worked much longer hours and were paid less than now, but the birth rate was more than twice the current rate. Incidentally, Finland, which is said to have the best work-life balance in the world, has a lower birth rate than Japan. In other words, there is no guarantee that the birth rate will increase if the working environment is improved.
So many institutions in Japan have very long and rich histories to them. It's kind of sad to see the end of places with such a long history.
76 years isn’t that long
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
@@imoyabrax450 that's older than you, your siblings, and possibly your parents, stop talking mate 💀.
It’s only sad if you actually care about the history of things
Don't worry, the villagers will leave for the nearest city and pick up the trash of the wealthy residents as is tradition in modern Japan
The fact that the school is staying open for those two students is amazing, let's be honest no 'state funded' school in the west would do that.
Your missing the point,and naive to think that its remaining open for the STUDENTS....grow up in your thinking....
in “the west” yes, it definitely would and does happen. In the US though, that’s another story
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Can you help me understand, you see, I just turned 18
In America, our policy makers actively discourage and make education bad and inaccessible to keep the population compliant.
Nothing beats traditional life, it is not just in Japan, it happens across Europe and the Northern America.
agreed, traditional life is better, not capitalism.
@@collaborativelearning1
Capitalism is, BY DEFINITION, part of traditional life.
Of course, knowing this fact requires that you know what capitalism means. Which means you read a dictionary.
It’s way to expensive to have kids nowadays. A lot of countries are going to experience these drops if they don’t make changes. The prices are going up regularly but the pay isn’t. How do these countries expect people who have to overwork themselves to afford daily necessities bring a child into the equation. This new generation is different they see what’s going on and refuse to struggle 🤷🏽♀️ Now one child basically cost what 2+ kids would cost you back in the days it’s ridiculous.
less labour
It's expensive in some Western countries. But poorer countries/ regions have no such issues. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa are all doing fine with big families being common. Infact people from these places are now crowding Europe even in colder countries
@@tyc1Z.Z1 and the Government doesn't even pay us for children lol.
I have 4 other siblings and I'm a Pakistani
@@tyc1Z.Z1 People over there will keep having children even they can't afford it. That's why they have the highest child mortality rate. It all depends on the education mindset.
Not my country
We have the we two our two philosophy
What’s sad is that the kids have no one to play with 😢 How times have changed.
Whats sad is that a race is dying off into extinction because they are too stubborn for mixed race(to live in japan)
they have each other to play doctor/patient with
@@donniegrande9186 But that gts boring easily.
as if children "played" these days, this is not common in many places.
the internet exists now
Japan government wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want people to have children; but what are they actually doing to make an environment where children can be raised properly? This isn't only Japan problem either, many countries have governments who complain about birth rates but do nothing to help the people.
"Family" breakdown.
it's somehow both funny and maddening to watch a government make empty gesture after empty gesture while never addressing the real problem.
This is the cost of runaway capitalism. When you deregulate to the point where corporate wealth starts leaking into politics, you see utter nonsense like the supposedly climate-minded Biden administration opening new oil drilling sites or the japanese government holding peoples' nosed to the grindstone even as their population vanishes.
I think this is because women are choosing to not have kids, in the last decades, women mainly took power from their roles as mothers and wives, now they know that being in a relationship is not that important if you are financially independent especially when men mainly see women as looks
Why does the government "have" to do something???
Considering how the population ballooned, there are too many humans in other places as is, so a declining birth rate is warranted. That's not the case for Japan though.
As a US teacher 2 students in the classroom sounds like a dream. Over here we have overflowing classrooms and I have to teach 29 second graders by myself 💀
I didn't know it was this serious 😮 I always thought Japan is one of the bigger countries and that if the birth rate plummets a little, it wouldn't affect the overal general population. But to think it's come to the point that only two students were in school
Japan has a large population, 11th in the world but the ratio of elderly and young people is so imbalanced. Can't blame people really coz the cost of living is so high right now it's hard to have children.
@@haven6254 and the worst part is that the policy of working, everyone really supports it but it just end up destroying people sanity instead
@@mahaphoublue7644 topple that overworking with their unfriendly immigration and they created such a recipe for disaster. lol on that vow to fix this. they wont.
Its their overwork culture that is the main factor. People don't want to have babies/families, they just want enough sleep and rest...... Thats the current issue.
Its been gradually getting worse year after year but its been happening for atleast the last 15-20 yrs id say, just at a slower pace. I do agree its so sad to see
That's really sad 😢
but also, kudos for the teachers who have dedicated their lives and teaching to the last two remaining students.
I hope they will reopen the school again if families and children come back to the area.
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades...
😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@mingyuhuang8944 Europeans have a much less work-oriented society and more condition to raise a family and even they have the same problem. So they use constant immigration to supply the workforce. In the end, it's basically impossible to raise your own population birthrate, and im sure the japanese would rather reach extinction than to bring in immigrants. Thus, robots are the only way.
@@mingyuhuang8944 hmm... I dont think robot is what Japan is considering to be the answer to our population crisis... That must be a humourous take but no
@mingyuhuang8944
Uh, robots ARE the answer. How do you think they got so rich?
My primary school also closed few year ago. It's really sad to think that your childhood memories with school, your classmates and the teachers that shaped you as a person will be gone and only stay in your mind forever. 😢
I wish they wouldn’t even stay in my mjnd
@@whatisthis6259 who hurt you?
+rosssilver what? how are you gonna blame declining birth rates on teachers?
It may b sad for you but not me. Plus many others.
+amandaham7571 incredible display of empathy
Same problem in Hellenic Republic (Greece). Hundreds of schools closed
This is a problem that occurs in several developed countries, the declining birth rate is triggered by people's reluctance to have children.
Yeah because who can afford to have children in this economy?
Its not triggered because its the reason. Its triggered by cost of living and cost of childcare
@Closet Faggotry yes they literally take themselves out of the gene pool lol
Who has the money to raise kids in an economy like this. It's not because they are reluctant its because children are too expensive. Even in countries where they incentives such as Singapore and Hong Kong its not enough.
They need to deploy me to single-handedly increase the birth rate ngl 🗿
I'm in Nagoya now. If not for the declining birthrate scare, the amount of youths here is quite staggering, as though Japan almost has no problem with birthrates at all. The youths need cities to thrive in because more job opportunities with high incomes are there, not in rural areas. The problem that needs to be solved first is the high-cost living. Like Korea & China now, the Japanese are reluctant to have children because everything in Japan is freaking expensive. Even if you live in the countryside, you still have bills & rentals which don't come in cheap either - believe me on this, I lived in the countryside before in the Kanto region.
日本の場合は､食品以外すべてが高いだろうと存じます｡ 税金､ 水道､ 電気､ ガス､ 家賃､ 交通費が高いです｡ 民営化の結果です｡ | Миру мир!
@@xohyuu 一人暮らし生活するだけではなく、結婚したらも、子供を育てるが高いので、ほとんど夫婦は子供を欲しくないんだ。また、日本の政策のせいで、福利厚生は高齢者向けだ。政治家は若者に有利な政策を作成する方法を分かれば、いいと存じます。
@@rebeccaliew2247さんのお言葉が正しいです｡ 仰った通りです｡ | 政治に若い方々の意見が反映出来ぬ環境ですので､ 若い世代も政治に関心が無くてですね｡ お年寄りにお金がとても沢山集まっている様な感じです｡ 若い方々の中には､ パートタイマーさんが多相ですし｡ 若い方々は海外でお金をお稼ぎに成った方が良いです｡ 隣のオーストラリアの最低時給が昔から千円以上だったのが分からなければなりません｡ | Cầu nguyện cho Үкраїна và hòa bình.
Japan's big towns will keep going strong for years to come. Her small towns will die first because all the workers will move to the big towns like Tokyo
Surely if you and your partner have a shared income, it reduces the burden of that. I do understand where you are coming from, but alot of hurdles that come with having kids can be solved with smart financial planning before having kids.
That's an unfair burden of sadness for such young people to be carrying. School should be an experience of having masses of classmates.
Yea, couldn't have any after school clubs or sports, either.
I for one think this setting would make for a very romantic Ghibli movie.
@@infiad1275 they could 2 player sports like badminton
@@fumomofumosarum5893 well there 1 girl 1 boy
Fair enough if the schooling is expensive af and the work culture in Japan discourage ppl from wanting kids
So why don't u go there and have half blood Japanese
Japans situation is quite opposite to our India 😅
We are over - populating
People are choosing to have less children, or no children at all, for a variety of reasons:
1) Financial cost
2) Poor genetic screening and poor maternal care, even in the U.S.
3) No support system, meaning the women have to do all of the caregiving for grandparents, aging parents, and now children.
4) No support or care system if you have special needs child
5) Lack of support and options for women who choose to be SAHM, then desire to return to the work force years later.
When you have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, why would anyone want to add more burdens to their shoulders? I don't, and didn't.
That's easy, trick a man to marry you, have a kid, divorce him and ruin his life by making him court mandated to give you and the kid more than half of his salary every month.
Profit.
I wholeheartedly agree and yet there are people out there that still don’t get it and try to tell people or women specifically to have kids.
It doesn't have anything to do with this, hence poorer people have more kids.
Use your brain, I bet you can guess it correctly
Also most women don’t want to have kids because most men treat women like trash
@@peludogameplaysmachopeludo3506 It has a lot to do with this. Poor people making bad choices in baby-making is another issue happening at the same time.
Not sure if this would help or not but the government should create school zones delegated to both the urban and rural areas. This way schools in more rural areas would have students that have to go there. It breaks my heart seeing schools with over 60 years of history and memories being forced to shut down.
Thats been tried and it limits school opportunity and social mobility.
Who is willing to bus their children hours away from home just to keep a country school open? It’s a great idea on paper but in real like not feasible at all.
Actually the solutions made was to transfer these students to other nearby schools also located in another rural area but has optimal number of students for it to not close down thus your idea of students travelling is still being done. The schools closed down usually if not demolished/abandoned were transformed to government offices or tourist spots like inns.
Gives these people affordable housing , and social security ....stop worrying if the kids going to take care of them ....they can't in most cases.... especially if they got a family.on his own
The better the school the higher chances of getting into a better highschool (then better university, then better job, so on so forth). And the better schools are most likely in the urban
With the birth rate falls in different areas or countries, things get worse from preschool at the first place! When this happens, primary school and then secondary school. Actually the governments has seen this coming before they could actually provide better policies.
Most younger couples here simply don’t want to have children. Those who do, often hold off until they’ve saved enough money to deal with all the expenses. Many young adults still remember there fathers having to work long hours, six days a week and barely see their own kids.
They’re the lucky ones because at least they have their mums to raise them. As for two income households, there’s no need to have a family if you’re just paying schools to raise your children
It gives me a mixed feelings only to know that only 2 students left in a school
Yes the two must be best friends
Really sad to think how little friends they probably have. school is an important phase to start socializing and having experiences with other people not to be the last two kids in school.
At least I know who I’m going to ask to go to the prom🎉
No one cheats on exams
@@lordenvincar School is not the only place you can have friends. I have more friends outside school.
Very sad !! I really felt sad from heart. The place and people are so beautiful.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
This is really sad and I’m sorry to see the school closing.
On a lighthearted note, imagine being able to confidently say you had the highest grades in your entire high school lol
Yeah, in school life based anime/manga it's allways a big deal the position you have in your class ranking, so this kids could brag about being ranked 1° or 2° place in the entire school...
Until they are asked "first place over how many other students?"
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
my primary school closed down a few years ago for this reason, im 9 years out of it and when i was in my final year we had just 30 students across 7/8 year groups, it’s sad
This is quite sad but with I'm willing to bet that those students got an amazing, personalized education from each of their teacehrs since they only had two kids to focus on.
That's the bright side!
Yes, that’s how it should be. Every child is different and needs someone to take care of them specifically. I hope you are right about this
Yes, they have some luxurious things, a positive sides
@Rings22 *those students received an amazing, personalized education Stop using the word "got"
@@riproar11Prescriptivism is cringe.
😢 it’s wholesome to see them take it seriously despite the situtation, but also sad that it is a reality
@Charizard S It's more about wanting more younger people specifically. The less younger people there are, the less people we have to replace the aging workforce.
@Charizard S dont you want to pass you legacy?
no one to take care of you property after you die?
no one to remember, love you in your old?
@Charizard S you know the population is shrinking right.
Meaning if the birthrate continues to drop we might end up having more old people around than young ones.
There needs to be a balance
It's also about people moving from the countryside to the city.
And that's not an issue of Japan. It happens everywhere around the globe.
Growing up my parents and grandparents told me I need to learn so I'll get a job in the city. This year the school in my village was closed and the remaining students take the school bus to another school. Most of the people born after 1990 don't live here anymore.
My husband and I would have liked to have had more children. But, expenses limited us to 2. We couldn't have children of our own, so we adopted both. Besides the cost of raising them to adulthood, we also had adoption fees. It was very expensive, so we both had to work. Daycare costs were also very expensive. It is not just a Japanese issue, but everywhere. We live in the USA.
This is very heartbreaking. This problem is LIKE a silent virus spreading across Japan. I can't even think of a best solution. It's easy to said than done. Usually this problems takes decades to solve. But effects is unavoidable. I love Japan, I love their culture and etc. It's very heartbreaking.
Maybe they need to stop modernizing and being so materialistic. In Africa people are trying to adopt that fast paced lifestyles but foreigners love it because everything is so slow and people are living in a different times. Economic hardships are there but never social
Japan has 124 million people. Even if present fertility trends continue, they'll still have 73 million people by the end of this century, the same number they had in 1940. They were thriving then, they're thriving now, they'll thrive long into the future.
And another thing, around 65% of women in Japan have at least one child. There's not some virus going around, most women in Japan have children and will have children.
@@dalegreer3095 economic models crash with less harsh factors than this. There actually is no known working model where most of the population is elderly. New territory. It could be horrible. Like 1929 but no end in sight.
I live in Tokyo and lots of my 30s and 40s coworkers said they don't have bf/gf and not interested in getting married. While the married ones decided to not have kids. No wonder...
The same is happening in Australia but the only thing holding it together is migration, although barely. But this seems to be an issue in most western countries, where policies are geared towards the elite and actively hurt families. Casualisation of employment, stagnant wages, long hours, high migration, poor childcare and so on … seems like people are resources to be squeezed for every penny and then thrown away, easily replaced by another low paid migrant … no care about people … it’s just become about consumption and money
Canada is in the exact same situation, our homeless population is rising and 2.5 million Canadians would starve without food banks. It's time for action! Nationwide strikes!
Don’t forget 80% of divorces are initiated by the female so they can get that alimony and child support. Smart men aren’t playing the rigged game anymore.
Happening in America . How many people really having children is minorities cuz they living off welfare.
Finally, a non incel brain rotted comment. This is exactly it.
They’re trying to replace white people with literally anyone else. Nonwhites are promoted, imported and supported financially to spawn more and erase us.
Very sad. I visited Japan years ago and loved the country and its people. I hope they can increase their birth rate and keep this beautiful place & culture alive and thriving. Love from America.
GO BACK AND HAVE A FEW BABIES THEN GOOFY....
The government must take measures to boost its fertility rate!
This school is clearly VERY rural, but it still makes me sad 😥
Yeah, I was confused cuz it's common for most rural schools have very few students due to many preferring to study in the city.
"Rural"
@@rosssilver dawg who are you addressing here
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
@Charizard S Fewer people means a lower probability of the innovators that we shall need to solve the problems of the future.
There needs to be a cultural shift in Japan. From my understanding of it, Japan's current overwork culture stems from when it was recovering from WWII.
They've long since rebuilt, but that overwork culture stuck around even to this day. The younger generation picks up on it when there is no need to because they think it's the norm, but then it leads to problems like having no work-life balance to build families, suicides due to the stress, and literally working themselves to death.
They need to get the message out there that it's okay to relax a little bit to enjoy life. If income is an obstacle, they need to fix that to accommodate the shift in lifestyle.
Sounds like they have a Japanese Biden running things there
Yes totally true. That us the problem with Japan. Well said!👍👍
majority of western countries along with usa have higher suicide rate. japan's suicide rate is not even that high
Even Sony lost its relevance
Everyone says this but countries like Finland have a way better work-life balance yet have terrible birth-rates. Let’s just be realistic. It isn’t the 1960s. We no longer need kids to support us, many want to focus on their careers and not have a nagging child to deal with.
If this was an High School Anime , this might be one of the most overwhelming ending to it
Maybe not 1/1, but Angel Beats is like 0.99/1
I have a friend who lives in rural Indiana and she was in a school of ~60 kids, I could not imagine being the last two kids in your school
I taught English in Japan for several years. One of my schools was an elementary and junior high on an island. When I arrived there was one girl in the junior high school and about 8 kids in the elementary. When the JH girl graduated the following year they sent the JH entire faculty away and closed the JH just keeping the elementary going. The next year after that one boy became a JH student and once again they brought an entire faculty of subject teachers principle and vice principle and all back just for this one boy.
(There was no high school on the island so after JH all kids would have to commute to the mainland by ferry).
The thing that really impacted me is that without the school couples might not consider relocating there and without the family's relocating there's no hope of the school continuing
There’s something very sad about a 76 year old school closing. There for decades, think of all the student and teachers and staff that walked its halls and grounds, all the memories made and the work done over generations, just gone
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Even my private preschool I worked for in Kobe area just closed after being open for 17 years due to the lack of enrollees.
How do they feel to be the last 2 students?
It must be really quiet there.
it will remain open if they dont graduate 😁
@@pepelepew1227
Well.. maybe their teachers could fail them to keep their jobs. 😁
They fall in love and then re-populate the town
what you think 1 boy 1 girl of course they mate
This is a combination of many factors such as exaustive working hours and few social welfare policies. A lot of countries are watching the birth rates go down and is very hard to fix it, specially in countries that women have less rights than men, earn less even when they occupy the same position at jobmarket and are seen as caregivers. South Korea will have the same path or worse, since Japan have been trying to reverse that problem and Korea is making life even more difficult to young adults with their proposals of increase working hours.
@@johnjack3578 because a large number of eldery people combined with a low number of young adults overleoad healthcare and retirement systems. In Brazil we are seeing the rates get lower too and the first thing that government did was change our retirement rules because we wont have working adults to compensate the number of old people in the future.
Middle eastern countries, Muslim communities etc must have more rights for women
@@hmmmmmmm8412 south eastern too, seems like religion play a big factor,l look at india
I disagree with you. Men and Women don't have the same position at work! Men are Male doctors and women are female doctors.
(Ignore this it's a bad joke)
"the birth rates go down and is very hard to fix it, specially in countries that women have less rights than men, earn less even when they occupy the same position at jobmarket and are seen as caregivers." what? only countries that are becoming more developed and liberal has this issue. what about middle east, what about india, africa where population is booming. Do they have more rights for women and don't see women as caregivers?. Do you live in another world or just the "white women syndrome" is making you blind to accept reality?
Wow 2 students. That’s like private education.
Homeschool
very opposite situation in Philippines. We need more schools to cater booming number of students.
This is so heartbreaking 💔 Japanese government needs to act fast to aid the rural communities. Also, the low birth rate is worrisome. Japan is a powerhouse of talent, artistry and innovation. You better not become extinct.
120m Japanese atm...
@@commentarytalk1446 how many are middle age/elderly?
@@vereity3912 more than 30%
How is the government going to encourage people to have kids?
@@ceoatcrystalsoft4942 by blaming young people for not having kids when they live in a 20 square foot apartment working 60 hours a week for peanuts
I think it's also important to note the areas these things are happening. In rural towns where jobs are scarce and money scarcer. Less and less people are willing to make a life in rural towns due to disparity in ways of life.
The same is happening all around the world. In Spain and Italy is the same problem, people are emigrating out of rural areas. Leaving behind dead villages with not enough people to keep up public services.
By your name I'm guessing your Spanish? Even if you're not I completely agree with you, I definitely know what you're talking about since I am Spanish and my grandfather has lived his entire life in the rural countryside working in the fields, and he has often told me how all the young people leave for the big cities and how the rural parts of Spain are basically drying out, its really sad to see
@@war_designer8763 I'm half Spanish but raised in the UK. The same would be happening in the UK but because of how small the country is, there's at least rich people who are building their homes with acres of land either for farming or recreation.
Unfortunately for Spain being so vast, some villages are really badly connected. I lived in a village called Castalla for a while and for the young people to get to work or uni there was one bus every two hours that came down from Alcoy and took 2 hours.
I think it's a shame but either there villages are going to depopulate completely or have their culture irreversibly changed due to the need for modernity (better transport/roads, tech links etc)
@Darkstar recently I've heard Japan will get money to people if they move out from Tokyo
This breaks my heart. Rural Japan is so beautiful, and seeing such history come to a whimpering end is such a shame. I really hope the new PM is able to convince the people to start families again.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
I wonder how.. Seems empty
They could just convert them into Japanese language schools for foreigners and revitalize the rural areas like they did for Yamanashi
It feels so rare to see such schools even exist, in my school in India which is a well known school in my city there are about 200 Teachers in total. Surprising thing for me is that they had 160 students in their peak times. It explains the advantages and disadvantages of population of a country.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Back in 2015, I visited a school in Ishinomaki Sendai. There were very few students left mainly because of the tsunami that hit the area (around 2011) 😢
In one Biology class, there were only 8 students left while in Music class, only 10 students left 😢
But. Then you have Tokyo, where people struggle to find a place to live. It's not only about birth rate decreasing, it's also about the distribution of population and the centric economic activities.
I lived in Nagoya a few years ago teaching English before COVID hit, but I never thought the birth rates would ever become my issue until I had to cut a class from my schedule because there weren't enough students to populate it. I was actually losing money because people aren't having kids.
You really can't blame people if they don't want to have kids. It's somehow hard to sustain oneself , let alone a family of their own. especially when the cost of living keeps going up
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
That's why Population is collapsing
Is that why Japan has a lower birth rate than Nigeria?
But Japan will be non existent so I don't see why we're saying let's not have kids.
@@Smarty2able Non-existent?? Unless an asteroid blows it up, Japan ain't going nowhere.
1. it‘s not only birthrate. Young people all move to the cities for work. So only old people live in the countryside.
2. Japan is densly populated. Throughout japans history a population of 120 Mio. people is extraordinary. There is nothing wrong with the population decreasing.
That's true, 120 million is unsustainable for the island
Completely correct: Depopulation is needed as it's over the carrying-capacity. Eventually lower population leads to lower prices which leads to less stress and more space and higher fertility rates again in Japanese women.
Immigration at mass scale would ruin that entire cycle. Only moderate high qulaity select migration shold be kept as it is.
Thats what im talking about! News channels just wanna make people feel worried.
Exactly. I don't understand why people are so hellbent on keeping population numbers high.
Decreasing population is detrimental for an economy in the long term.
This is so bizarre. I've never seen anything like this happening, and I knew about the birth rates in Japan, but not how bad they were getting.
its world wide - ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Hong Kong is a part of China.
In 日本, children may not be cheerful, because of 日本 collectivism. | Миру мир!
White people In America are going extinct, white girls get snatched up by black men before they can even sexually mature, that all I see nowadays.
It's not just Japan - Korea has an even bigger issue, and China is facing the same issues. A big reason in Korea is that women are avoiding getting married or getting married at a much later age because they are focused on their career - They feel that getting married and taking time for a child will hurt them too much in the workplace.
Birth rate is declining in rural japan. But when I went to tokyo, kyoto and osaka there are a lot of youth mostly students wearing school uniforms over crowding the place.
Japan's total fertility rate is very low at just 1.20 children per women. The population is aging faster than any nation on earth, and it's even on the decline
Another problem is the aging population. A huge burden for the already shrinking young japanese population to support the old generation.
ruclips.net/video/A6s8QlIGanA/видео.html
Aoi and Eita received best education possible, I was in a class with 42 people, we had desk mate and it was nice.
Japan has likely understood the importance of balancing work and life and why failing to achieve this balance will prevent a future population to exist.
It‘s so funny to see so many drama queens. Japanese population will not die out. The island has reached the highest population in the history of their existence and the cities are densely populated. The population will shrink by 20-50 Mio. towards an historical average.
Most countries in the world right now have historical high population and are overpopulated. It‘s absolutely normal that some population are shrinking again.
Big cities today: 5-10 Million inhabitants.
Big cities 300 years ago: 1 Million
What a beautiful country. Not pressuring citizens, wow. Just waiting. Great
I wish Japan can do something to fix this soon, as a teacher in Japan this hurts me, because Japanese students/children are very endearing, honestly, Japan is beautiful, and the next generations shouldn't be denied that. Japan is magnificent, if I wasn't just one person.. if I could do something, anything significant.. I would. Hopefully Japan rises, yoroshiku onegaishimasu
Because women choose bigger, stronger, richer Men, Japanese women are refusing to have kids and go to the west. Japanese government will have to do many things women won't like, to stop this. Such as stopping most travel abroad especially for women (study and work abroad), banning all social media and dating apps, stopping all birth control including medication used for acne and mood disorders, and a few other things. Without these changes and taking away of freedoms, birthrate will continue to plummet. They can't/wont do it so things won't change.
Thanks for teaching, that is my plan as well. I just need to acquire a bachelor's degree, and do ESL courses.
俺助けます!赤ちゃんを作るのに
another filthy dweeb obsessed with japanese culture
Japan is so magnicifent people decide not to have kids due to its toxicicity when it comes to patrial roles and work ethics.
Wow! I knew they were facing declining birth rates but I didn't know it was this bad. Even paediatricians in Korea are closing their practices because they don't receive patients anymore
I looked at the date that this video was posted and found something SHOCKING: the two students really DID graduate and the school shut its doors permanently.
why is that shocking
The date that the video was posted matches the date that the school closed permanently (which is also the date that the two students graduated).
A shame they didn't mentions the reasons for the plummeting birth rate...
I saw a video a few weeks ago about a school in China with only 1 student--a 3rd grader I think. He was sad about not having friends, but 2 4th graders took him under their wings. Asia has some serious issues with their birth rates and i honestly think the work culture has a lot to do with it. Who has time to date and raise a family when youre working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.??? 😢
Yep, you're right, some of them just hypocrites, they know the problems, but shame to admit
@@Cleeon for example who???.. could you explain meaning of that
Sadly many died over the course of decades due to bullying, overwork, and stress. So of course It would effect the population. 😢 Hopefully if they take on more respectful residents from across the globe to stimulate re-population but keeping their laws and mortals the same this will change and bring back up mixed race Japanese citizens. Japan really is a beautiful place! ❤
The Japanese have such a strange and twisted way to not have common sense. For example, if you're short on labour, just get more people to do the labour, don't have enough people? Implement policies and fundamentally change the education system, work system and societal culture, along with improving the aesthetics of the living, working and everyday environment to be actually suitable and encouraging for people to have children and bring up kids confidently and in an empowering manner. But no, the Japanese think robots are the answer, in a hilarious unironic joke of an attempt at a solution to a deep seated issue which has been rotting away at Japanese society for decades...
😢😢😢😢
Not to mention high taxes/inflation/cost of living compared to the stagnant wages. It is estimated you need to spend ¥10 million to raise 1 kid in Japan. Most families can only manage to raise 1 or 2 kids comfortably.
Wait what does mixed race japanese have to do with anything
yall are wirdos ew . they should just change the work ethics and work on other regions of japan other than the big ones and the lives of many would make them start a family . there is so much you can do
It won't be beautiful if its citizens are a bunch of mixed race creatures. Japan for Japanese only!!!!
While some countries in the world are experiencing over population due to high birth rate , some countries are having plummeting birth rate . This situations are very unfortunate for us
I see in the comments people are saying it’s the work culture that is killing the population. Can someone explain this to someone who isn’t Japanese? Thanks
The same thing is happening in Denmark although it is not do to falling birthrates but rather urbanization and the lack of available work in rural areas.
i’d love to live in such remote village for a few months and embrace nature.
except they are gonna kick you out once your visa end.
Id love to live as a hunter gather in the forest.
@@bezklavikaszekminmespukzk9961 If I were to try that the government gonna arrest me for trespassing on the forest, if that doesn't happen I might be eaten by tiger, leopard or hyena or get stomped by elephant or wild buffalo.
@@linnen_elm true.
@@linnen_elm why cant they promote immigration and give permanent residency to other country people
I chose not to have kids because I watched my mom and dad work themselves to death. Their bodies broke down from neglect. Mom died when I was 22. Dad died before I turned 30.
Dang, sorry for your loss... I can't imagine a human literally working themselves to death especially at such a young age. I usually hear them dying when the kid is round 40-50, but 22 is so young to lose your mother at.
Vasectomies should be easy to access globally. I got mine for free within weeks of asking for one. Would save so much suffering
More adult diapers are sold in Japan than baby diapers...
When a single 500 sqft room costs $1,500 a month no one can afford kids! Problem is the top 1% of every nations wealth is held by fewer than 20 people. 1 person having more wealth than an entire nation shows they’re not paying adequate cost of living compensation to their employees who then in turn can’t afford to have families or children because they know it’s irresponsible to bring a child into the world when they can’t afford to care/house themselves as a result of the world wide greed that is shattering lives daily!
Stop repeating these nonsense, they were much more poorer than now and had a lot of kids, poor countries are the one making the most babies, it has nothing to do with economics, it's a cultural problem, basically marriage laws and antimen culture.
Embrace communism then, reject capitalism
That’s only Tokyo city center. I live in a 1 bed in the suburbs for $400/month
@@death2putin718 that’s still highlighting the issue. $400 for a bedroom but would you bring a spouse & child into that single bedroom? Probably not I’m betting so then you have to get a 2 bedroom rent becomes $1000-$1200 on the same salary you make now plus child care and all other family costs on top which puts affording a family out of reach for thousands because one man needs to be worth 100 billion by paying you bare minimum Or because he sends all the jobs overseas where it’s even worth. Salaries world wide have not kept up even remotely close to cost of living but the already wealthy are richer than ever before
@@Twitchguy exactly, so let the rich keep their money. I don’t blame the working class people for refusing to procreate, let’s end this BS….no more generations. Let’s see how they are gonna spend all that money.😂
I studied at a school located at remote place. With only fourteen students in my class, and it was indeed very weird since I previously studied in the city. Watching this video reminded me of the past but in a very sad manner. Wish things go back to normal
日本 is an analogue country. Digital infrastructure is not installed in 日本. | Миру мир!
I don't understand why people are so enamored by the city. Sure it's a cool place to be, but not more cool than living in someplace like this. That school is beautiful. This is such a shame.
There is actually an Australian youtuber who lives in the same town as this was filmed in. The channel is called Global Family In Fukushima. They have three daughters. I believe their daughters are the only students at the local kindergarten. I wonder where they will go to school now the junior high school has closed down. I guess they will have to commute to the junior high school of a nearby town.