Why Japan's Women Hesitate to Give Birth | Birthrate Crisis (ep.6)
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- Japan's birth rate continues to decline and the government has pledged more financial aid to reverse the trend. But many people still hesitate to have children.
In this series, a Japanese journalist Nobita investigates the reasons behind his nations's crisis and meets with various people on this phenomenon.
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■Episode5:
• Japan's Virginity Pand...
■Episode4:
• Japan's Rise of Unmarr...
■Episode3:
• How Japan's Marriage H...
■Episode2:
• Why Japan's Birthrate ...
■Episode1:
• Why Japan's Birthrate ...
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■Chapters:
00:00 Social change
00:39 Difficulties in cities
04:03 Anxieties
05:15 Giving up on it
06:33 Chose to give birth
09:26 Move out of cities
10:45 What is it like?
13:56 Issues
17:15 Dilemma
19:25 What can convince them?
#JapanBirthrateProblem
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I teach in a special English program at a public high school in Tokyo where 80 percent of the students are girls. Every year I ask how many plan to have kids. Ten years ago 2/3 said yes with most wanting 2. This year only 1 girl out of 32 said yes and she only wants 1. Everyone sees the storm around us, but there seems no way to get out.
Wow.
Wow. That’s pretty astonishing. What a change a decade can make I guess
I wouldn't be too worried as the artificial womb is in development along with gamete formation from stem cells. I believe technology can solve the low birth rate problem.
@@extremepsyche3135that sounds stupid. An artificial womb is only going to produce an artificial human, not a real one. Hello!
I can understand them myself got a kid pretty late in life. I'm barely keeping up with everything. I know the first three years i was tired.
It's not easy and it takes a lot of energy. I lived in Stockholm at that time, and commuting back and forth to work was exhausting.
It took an hour just to get to work and the same thing back home.
So I can relate with people living in Tokyo. It's stressful during the peak hours to be clammed in a subway with other people.
Ozawa-san hit the nail on the head. People think that only the parents are needed to raise a child, but there is the old saying, "it takes a village to raise a child." Families were bigger in the past and many members got involved to make it easier for the parents. It was a communal effort. However, with people living apart from their parents it is hard. Plus there are often clashes in personalities between in-laws, which make it even harder.
There's certainly nothing wrong with asking for help when it's needed, as long as the parents aren't fobbing their kid to others to raise them rather than the parents who should be doing most of the work ( considering they were ones who have them in the first place. ) Of course I don't know how life or things work in Japan, but that is my view on the matter.
That's how Africans raise kids. The parents work while the rest of the village take care of the children.
@@TTMS-Khaz-kun You give for granted there's somebody available to help out. When I was at last month of my first pregnancy, we had to move to another city for work and we were cut off from our "social net" of our family and friends that might have pitched in many occasions if they only lived closer by. It was really super though having to affront it all on your own and for the very first time... my mum helped out for a couple of weeks, then her "vacation days" were over, so practicly before even my post-partum period expired I was grocery shopping with my newborn... those were the times e-commerce wasn't a thing and you couldn't order your groceries on-line or have them delivered at home. Once, me and the baby were so sick with the stomac flu that I couldn't get out of bed and stop vomiting and having diarrhea that my husband had to take a few days off at work to take care of us, go to the pharmacy and find me a nurse to give me the injections, becouse I couldn't retain any normal medicine or even stand streight and fix me a tea without feeling terribly nauseus or vomiting... but it didn't stop me from having a second child! 🤣
This may be true, but there's also the risk of abuse coming from those close to you as well. We often think our children are safe, but it's usually from family and/or friends.
@@LikeItSaysInTheBook if they're obviously abusive and aggressive. it's hard to miss that. go watch the video about omori baby boom in japan by NHK Japan.
I think this is definitely a problem in big cities but people forget that Japan is a whole country outside of just Tokyo. We live in Kosai, a small lakeside town between Hamamatsu and Toyohashi. We have had so much support from both the hospital where I gave birth to my two kids and the city itself. As an American I was shocked when the child welfare center called me just to ask how I was after my firstborn and if there was anything I needed help with. They called again at 2 and 3 months, just to check on us. Whenever I've needed help with my kids I can go there for advice or counseling. When my 4 year old was struggling in preschool they sent two social workers to observe his class and give advice to us and to his teacher about how to support him. The city has given out multiple stipends for kids during the pandemic, plus the regular monthly child allowance, free child medical care (my son was hospitalized for a month and the city reimbursed us for 80% of the $2000 bill), and even after or reduced fee house cleaning services during your first year after giving birth. Emergency childcare is always available at $2 an hour because our town is small. It's not a tiny mountain village, but it's also not a big city like Nagoya. I hope people can move out of the big cities and get more support.
My thoughts exactly. Japan is large and vast, yet all the people who are worried and think about work rather than raising a family are stuck in cramped homes in the big cities. We need more incentives from the government (and the companies employing potential parents) to spread out into other more rural parts of the country. There's a reason so many old rural homes become abandoned in Japan, too. Lack of support for the aging population mixed with the lack of support for a continues family unit, spells disaster for the future generations of Japan and for other countries in similar situations.
@@ToyokaX I can also sympathise with the issue mentioned in the video about there being social pressure from old, traditional views where they go "You're still not married and you're X years old? Isn't time getting on? What's the matter with you?" or some varying form of that. It's just sad. Hopefully things will start improving there though.
@Shammon5 That’s wonderful to read! Sounds like Kosai is trying to nurture its new citizens and encourage families. It sounds amazing.
For Americans this good care has to be a huge shock, since in the USA sometimes women might get sent home the same day as the birth with nothing but the baby and a bill that could be as high as a college education. Glad to read about your positive experience in Japan!
@@galespressos Kosai also has a great foreigner population. Mainly Brazilians but we also have many Filipinos, Venezuelans, Peruvians, Mexicans too. There are many factories in this area that sponsor foreigners and their families. I actually met my Brazilian husband here in Japan and his family has been here since he was a child. It's nice to have so much diversity and has made it easier for example at my son's preschool because the teachers are familiar with children who's first language may not be Japanese. With how expensive child care is in the United States, not to mention medical care, I feel really grateful to have settled here. There are many things about Japan that need to change, and Japan is aggravatingly slow at changing, but there are many positive aspects too and so many kind people to meet.
@@ToyokaX We recently saw a really sweet news cast about a very rural village, Ichinono, that saw its first newborn baby in 20 years. The whole village was celebrating. Can you imagine how many unofficial grandmas and grandpas that kid has? :)
Japan is a very competitive work environment and this is not going to change overnight. In Nagi, however, women are having 3-4 children thanks to strong government incentives that started about 20 years ago. I hope that other parts of Japan can replicate this success.
In a developed countries, the low birthrate tend to be the trend as people don't have budget to take care of another due to competition in jobs and not a lot of government support as money tend to go to the riches.
Developed countries with good places to live, such as Finland and Singapore, have lower birth rates than Japan.
@@lll-cf7vv The wihte majority populations of U.S. and Canada and most of Western Europe are crashing as well, as is China. Certainly this phenomenon is not isolated to Japan. I would think however that each country will approach the problem slightly differently. The U.S. solves it simply by importing more immigrants. That's not as easy for the Asians, who are not immigrant-friendly societies. Although, Japan today does have a couple million immigrants, mostly from China, Philippines & Vietnam. They tend to blend in ethnically which makes it easier to be accepted (though of course they are not truly accepted).
The elder woman at the end of the video about the dyed shirts was so wholesome with her enthusiasm
It's interesting to know that some smaller cities and rural areas of Japan are trying to find different solutions to give better quality of life to parents anc children in order to revert the birthrate crisis.
I find culture with strong family ties helping to raise a child tend to have a steady birth rate. You will see this in SE Asia where grand parents, siblings, Aunts, Uncles or even cousins look after the child as mom do household chores, buy food or go to work.
Japan has super strong family ties.
i can tell you that japan has super strong family ties
Cost of living, long work hours, stagnant wages. No one should be living in Tokyo, also.
@@user-uq7tp9yi9j Looks like Tokyo is going to be Mega City 1, if this keeps up.
I had a Japanese friend who jokingly said to me “Obstetricians in Japan are soon going to need to find a new line of work.”
They might be able to lure more women in if they offered pain medication during childbirth. ;) I had 2 unmedicated inductions (pitocin) that lasted 3 days each, and let me tell you after the second one I won't even let my husband sneeze in my direction. The baby factory is closed!
😂😂😂😂😂 So true!!!
Something to keep in mind when comparing Japans birth rate to other countries, especially western ones, is the lack of migration in Japan.
Many western countries have an even lower birth rate than Japan. It just gets masked by non native citizens who have multiple children.
At least there's some people who see that the lack of community and family is the biggest issue when it comes to child raising. Day cares are only a thing because barely anyone lives with or close to their parents anymore.
Moving out of the city fixes multiple issues (birthrate, mental health & stress, rural depopulation) so that's what the government has to incentivize not just monetarily by handing out money but by getting companies to move out of big cities.
As for how that's to be done is up to the people who get paid to find solutions for these issues.
Get people out of the cities, and do away with the internet.
Marriages and birthrates will return to healthy normal levels.
The cause and solution are very simple, but nobody is willing to make it happen.
Low birth rates are a global issue. Finland, my home country, is at the top of the best countries to be a mother yet the birth rate is so low. I think the issue is that now we're slaves to companies and live in small cages we call apartments. No one really has much freedom (time) to raise children. It was a different thing during old days when family mattered more and people lived in communities which had multiple caretakers for the children. These days you barely have your so with you.
Same in Sweden, having children is a low priority.
are you truly slaves in companies in Finland? Or maybe see that no matter how great your governmental support, it's always that one factor that can never be satisfied.
Nah. It's the problem for developed countries. Developing countries have no problem.
@@arcrival3801 Developing countries have their own unique problems. The fact that they're developing is evidence itself.
Yep, even here in Canada the birth rate is getting almost as horribly low (1.4 births per woman compared to Japan's 1.34)
All the women friends that I have all have expressed _wanting_ to have a kid, but just that they can't because they don't feel like it'd be financially responsible with how expensive living costs are already even without kids, ESPECIALLY for people making minimum wage just barely scraping by the insane rent and food prices here now.
Japan is not the only one with a Birth rate problem. Almost All First World Countries have that problem.
Elephant in the room --> late stage capitalism
@@sammckenzie6760 In capitalism you pay for what you want. If goods produced outside of the country are as good as the own oney but cheaper, they get imported.
1. Think it is a little the same with population. It is much cheaper having completly educated young migrants come to your country instead of raising and educating them yourselfes.
2. Many countries say that they want the babies to be born to their own citizen, but babies are a huge disadvantage in our society.
Some countries give some benifits to parents, but most of the times this is just lessing the burden. This is just not cutting it.
If you would truely want to convince capitalists , you would need to give them an advantage.
More relevant elephants in the room ---> feminism and the internet.
Do away with those two and I guarantee things go back to normal.
@@blablup1214 capitalism isn't the same as a market. You're describing a market.
There aren’t absolutely no reason in this world for women to have children, in reality society humiliate mothers, we need to protect ourselves
Not specific for this video, but I really like all the hard work you put into all of your videos. You do a lot of research, interview many different kinds people to get a broader view and structure your videos in a way that it's easy to follow.
Thank you for your hard work, I really enjoy learning about Japan and it's not-so-beautiful but real sides. 😊❤
same rohan-sensei
This is a serious matter, and I am glad to see you bringing this forward. I do feel for the Japanese people and hope this all turns around. It might be time to look at moving out of the massive large cities and returning to small rural cities so you can see families grow, and it may take that to turn this matter around.
Won’t work….cant have it both ways….either they go extinct by going backwards…as China advances or continue to go forward and have technological advancement…..there is always something you have to give up to get everything you want…the first world gave up having children…to modernize for commerce…it is what it is….
It was a little funny to me that she spoke of Wakayama a town with over 300k citizen as if it was some small village in the countryside.
Japan has recognized the problem and that is an important first step. It will probably take a lot of different actions to reverse this trend. The city listed with the highest birthrate was 1.7 children still below 2 which would just keep the population steady. The biggest problem is that most women are unable to have children after the age of 40. It is going to be very difficult for Japan to correct this birthrate crisis unless there is a drastic increase in the number of children born to each women. The math of this birthrate crisis is already known however human beings are very bad working on crisis that are slow developing.
Actually there is already a massive decline in fertility in women from the age of 30 onwards. My sister was recently trying IVF to fall pregnant so have learn alot about female fertility rates and the harsh truth is for the vast majority of women they only have until the age of 28 or 30 to fall pregnant and produce healthy children. By 35 years or even as low as 33 years many women will find it hard to conceive a child without help. And even then the success rate is low. Nature is cruel to women and I have now met many many involuntary childless women because they left things too long. Ideally as a woman if you want a child you should do it by the age of 25 years.
They have not recognized the problem.
And neither have you if you think one of the main problems is older women unable to conceive.
Everything is expensive everywhere. Soon it will be all over the world 😢
Hello I always enjoy seeing your uploads as I’m starting to see some of these same issues in my home of the United States.
Wow, great interviews and stories from different lifestyles.
Thank you sharing!
-From California
What can convince women? Same thing that convince men. Change most of the overbearing, unproductive business practices of Japan, for starters.
Which isn't the primary cause, given that this practice has literally existed for decades (although it is still an issue overall).
It's women having incompatible desires and putting priorities in the wrong order.
@@GameFuMaster Actually it's due to global economic inflation. You can't buy a home now like you could 50 years ago off of one job in a household. Everything with a cost has shot up so drastically that we cannot keep up with the amount of people versus the supply and demand of work and necessities.
@@ToyokaX inflation has to do with demand.
You used to be able to support a family off one income.
Then women started working.
Now with basic economics, we know that increased supply means lower demand, which means wages can be lower because more people compete with jobs.
Now this wouldn't be a problem if women basically replaced men proportionally. But then this become a dual problem. Women generally don't want to support a stay at home husband, and quite a few men don't like the idea of not being the breadwinner.
Of course immigration also makes a negative impact, though I don't know how much it has.
Now it’s hard to get by just with one salary, unless it’s a veeery good one and in the countryside it’s not easy to find a job like that. So then women also need to work to support family. You still have small children that will likely get sick often? I guess you can work only the lowest paying part time, since a regular job is not nearly flexible enough for you to run to the kindergarten to pick up the kid. So even if you work, your wage is really small.
@@GameFuMaster Such is life in an occupied country
Theres no BR issue in the forest. Peeps used to own/buy land, private properties, work on farms/ranchs, hunt, gather, fish, etc. More BR = more manpower to help with work.
It's a city issue.
いろんな立場の方々のお話を伺えて、勉強になりました！
私自身、出産子育てを経験して、人としての幸せをたくさん感じています。
子育ては大変な部分もありますが、それ以上に子どもからたくさんの愛情と幸せをもらっています。
地域みんなで子育てができる社会になると良いなと常々思っています。
Why this is the case: (perspective of an american who has never been to jpn)
Regular school followed by cram school, working yourselves to death, no time to have a personal life, low wages, no overtime, poor work conditions, expeceted to work late into the night AND go drinking with your boss after, with long work hours when do the parents hang out with their kids or have time for hobbies or with their spouse or simply downtime to do nothing?
The "for the good of society" attitude removes too much personal freedom and individuality so people dont have a strong sense of soverignty over their own lifepath, mental health issues are basically ignored so they only get worse, people are taught to not express themselves directly and instead "read the air" which places too much responsibility on everyone else to "do something abt it" instead of you just directly saying "i want this / i dont like that" this requires other people to act on a best guess but this is a paradox with "dont make waves" and "dont decide for other people what they should do", cheating seems to be seen as "expected / normal"; no reasonable person can say "i want to bring kids into this system"
Most developed countries have low birth rates. The West also has low birth rates, but they are just being replaced by immigrants.
Conversely, countries where women do not receive education, such as Africa or India, have high birth rates because the only thing they can do is have children.
Lastly, the white birth rate in the U.S. is not much different from Japan, so the white population in the U.S. is decreasing.
Even if you have a kid, you have to work so much you almost never get to see them. I try to finish work as early as I can here, I'm usually one of the first to go home and I don't give a shit what my co-workers think because I'm going home to spend time with my son.
that's so heartwarming to hear, surely your son will have this time spent with you engrave in his heart, that's the most precious gift for a child
This was a good episode.
So... Why doesn't the government act on child care?
They do but they are starting at the wrong end
Sure, nice to be in the countryside WITH Tokyo salary. If you also work here locally then obviously you will most probably worry quite a lot about money anyway.
Countries all over the world are seeing declining birth rates. Declining birth-rates are not a problem as such. World population took hundreds of thousands of years to get to 1.2 billion by the 1920s. Yet, in the space of a century, the population reached 8+ billion. What we are seeing, is population correction. And, with automation, AI, and robots now about to become the basis of our modern society, this should not be seen as a problem, but as a challenge. The problem lies in the fact that people need meaningful, value-adding, loving relationships in this hectic, globalised world.
Another great presentation, about a looming disaster.
The problem is not simply work/jobs, but income. Now with internet, work from home has become viable, and cottage industry, something worth considering. And in a village, grandparents could volunteer to supervise a play group, once or twice a week.
Home schooling, is also an option, that the government should make easier (for those isolated villages).
So, this has unintentionally created a Conflict of Interest.
Between the expectations from society, and personal limitations (health).
I'd be glad to have children with my husband if only childcare costs are lower 😢 plus I wish more wfh opportunities for moms too because it is needed in today's society to have double income, especially living in Japan. I'm really sad even my country, Philippines have become more expensive to even consider having a child and giving him/her a great life. Finances and the drive to give children better quality of life than what we had has become harder for us these days.
Plus both of us live and are natives of major cities inn Japan and Philippines so we dont have a more relaxed hometown to go.
lower childcare costs, which probably means more government support, which means higher taxes, which means lower income, which means you're back to square one.
Or do it how it's always worked... have one parent raise the children, and just work part time when they're at school. The first few years will definitely be the hardest.
Why are you married and don't have children? Raising children is incredibly simple and inexpensive if you stop overthinking. No one owes you anything, but you owe your husband and yourself children. What da
Don't worry about providing a rich, perfect life for a child. Children can live well and enjoy life with very very little.
Have parents that pay attention to them, and let them run around outside and play. It's that's simple.
no lol@@GameFuMaster
Remote work from home is a solution, a complete revolution of work ethics needs to take place around the world. The system is failing people.
Tokyo is such a overrated city. I disliked living there. Everything was expensive and most people are cold, rude, or fake. I live in a rural area now, yes jobs are harder to come by but people are nicer, things are cheaper, and stress is low. Need more people to leave the big cities and repopulate the country to its former self. I just can’t see the appeal of people wanting to move to Tokyo and live off miserable salaries and work conditions.
I love your videos dude
Overall a really good series. And what the parents and other actors in this field observe holds true for my domestic region as well. You need infrastructure, a cultural mindset and ofc money, but only in the beginning a lot. Ofc getting a recognition by the state is nice -really, I mean it. It is a bonus-, but not essential. We're currently seeing a huge shift in work culture over here towards a more family friendly environment and suddenly a lot of young women talk about getting kids at work - and actually get them. But it was a long way and it will be a long way still.
Japan can do it too.
As always, very interesting documentary. You are journalistic unwraping the multifactorial reasons why birthrate have decreased so much, Nobita. Most of my female friends doesn't want to have children because they are more focused on their professional careers and they don't see possible to achieve professional goals with having children. Also, most companies do not help to conciliate personal and professional lives and even some tend to not hire women that may want to have kids.
16:02
I see. So they have to choose between conservative family expectations. Or congestion in the city.
It's too bad that the smaller towns put those expectations on women. In the very least, maybe let them have a remote work opportunity.
And it could bring more money to these smaller towns.
10:26
That helps explain those common tropes in anime. Where a kid from the rural area goes to the city.
A show called "Chobits" is a good example of this.
The Japanese government should pour money into building more preschools and daycare centers and provide a high salary for the workers. Places in communities for mothers and children to gather and get help and information would help a lot. It seems the government is taking the birth issue lightly.
Relying on your partner to help you with your weaknesses is normal for all.
Women should have children in their 20s as complications rapidly ramp up as age increases, especially after 35 years old according to medical studies.
people give cold looks to women with strollers on the train?
yet it's those children who will fund their comfortable retirement.
they should give warm looks instead
Because it's painful, duh
I have children in Japan. I've often thought about what is going on. I think its a mixture of quiet feminist protest, but also a reaction to the fashion to be extremely slim and youthful. Arguably pregnancy destroys that to some extent , or at least you are never the same again. I really do think that's part of it. Other cultures are more forgiving of the larger or curvier woman's shape.
Accurate. Youth obsession, "Peter Pan" syndrome has destroyed the west and spread to entire free world.
Children also used to function as free labor when farming was much more prevalent within society. Since capitalism came to dominate the globe, there is much less economic benefit to having children.
lol Japan has no programmers. Which is why they hired me and don't let me go.
If the country wants women to work the government needs to pay someone to take care of their children. You can not expect women to want children if they need to pay extra for daycare and losing against males at job offers for needing days off for childcare. If you want equal work from women and men then the state needs to take the load off of women to be a housewife and mum still. Because you can’t do both.
While Japanese hesitate, much like in the EU/US and South Asia, others will have 2-3 kids. Many cultures see kids as a blessing and it is, but they also utilize the generous welfare benefits that taxpayers are funding (Germany), Japan/EU/USA citizens all think about finances first. A shame really. The ones who have alot of kids are mostly religious (Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, some Christians)
Guys... this is multfactorial. There is no silver bullet for this. Society will crumble hard just to balance it all over again. And this will take a lot fronts and hard shifts to change the landscape. I hace no idea what will happen, but my money is on do complelty different from what we're doing.
Life is pure suffering now to bring a child into life now is being evil
So it has just been discovered that rage farming doesn't work for people?
Densly populates cities have one thing in common - low child birth rate. For multiple factors - money, time, values, no helps from family, since there is no family around.
So I would say Japanese gov needs to lock the grown of megacities.
I personally think this issue is not just a Japanese problem but a world wide problem. It is happening all over the world. Women don't want kids.
It's because most women are without partner and/ or financially unstable...
And men just say they want them but are not ready to do their part in parenting.
@@mightytaiger3000 most men prefer just fucking around and don't necessarily wanting kids.
There’s a lot of men too who don’t want kids but no ones cares if they prefer to be childfree nor do they get super criticized for it
@@understone86 It's funny how women go after the guys that don't want kids, and wonder why they become a single mom. You get what you deserve.
I’ve said this many times but it’s important to keep bringing it up. In the US, many folks are choosing to not be in relationships or marriages. There’s various reasons for this as one of the main issues is lack of money or lack of interest in wanting to. Also cheating as well.
That’s a problem no matter where you go but in the US there’s this evil fixation on folks advising others to cheat on who they’re with which is despicable in it of itself.
Well yeah, why would you have a child in a city (not only in Japan)? Your quality of life declines, the child is going to have a shitty childhood, it's difficult, expensive and everybody suffers as a result. To be honest I don't think modern cities are good for anyone, you just look at all the health and psychological issues ppl have there and think how often you see smth like that in more rural areas. It's also a result of humans trying to live in a completely artificial environment.
Rural vs city is important as it is true that it takes a village to raise a child, However, it all comes down to the mindset of the people. As an Arab, the middles east never truly looked at children as a burden, even in war time, but more of a test. It would be a lie to say that having children is easy and there is nothing to worry about. However, if you have chosen a good partner, and have the belief that you can be a great mom, then you really don't need to worry about the small stuff. You can have children under any circumstance in your life, but make sure you make the right choices, and you have no regrets. if you're both ready, then go for it, no matter what!
Does anyone know how long should a couple date before they get married in Japan? Because people are so busy with work (0:46), I suspect there is a lengthy dating period before marriage.
Japanese are very selfish with their time and not flexible. You have to plan a date weeks in advance. It's dumb.
JP needs another big reform which should be significant as Meiji Ishin. However, I don't think that will start inside of JP people.
Japan to me is an awsome country. I did see some of your videos, and I like your style. I wish the best to the Japanese families trying to recover the Japanese birthrate! I feel like a world without the absolute politeness and respect of the Japanese would be a sad world to live. besides you are a unique people that I appreciate so I would be sad if something were to happen to the honourable Japanese people.
I knew government talk about mental health issue so people should know.
so if tokyo native had 2 children, like 10 years ago. can we assume that their family is wealty?
Scott Ackerman (a Japan RUclipsr) mentioned that his hafu Japanese kids likely won't stay in Japan. They were born with US citizenship (Scott is American) and so they will likely immigrate to America in the comming years for better economic opportunities.
Ozawa’s story got me 🥹
We need more people in this world like her and her husband. Happiness and blessings to them and theirs!
The people at the end explained it well. It's the culture of how women are viewed and treated in general affects they want to have kids.
The companies that hire them and the men that persue them. Childbearing and childcare is hardwork on top of the expectation of minding the house and handling the meals all at the same time with no breaks. Men should be taught to help with these things and both men and women should be given proper wages and time off to take care of themsleves and their family.
I saw what happened during women of Japan having their own #metoo online, reporting things on what how employers and co-workers treat them which only pushes them further away from wanting a family or having a hard time with the family they are starting.
Don't worry about the women who don't want children, don't try to pressure them. Let them live. Instead, help support the women who do want children but can't because of these circumstances of finance, stress and love and continue to support them.
Okay.. I'll let you in on a not-actually-secret, secret... With only a small percentage of exception, women are a net negative tax burden for basically their entire lives. That's a demographic timebomb when they get older if there's no younger people working to take care of them, because they don't have kids to take care of them.
THIS
Pressuring them is exactly how you get through to women as they respond far more to social incentives than logic. I mean have you ever met a woman, it's pretty clear that they just parrot things they've heard (from TV in particular, you often hear appeals to what the neighbours will think when you know them and what they actually think), especially the one's young enough to actually make a change.
@vorynrosethorn903 lol wow this doesn't even deserve a proper respone. 🤣
@@MakeSureYouCleanUp Nor do you really, all this liberalism crap is how we got into this situation in the first place. If people don't acknowledge reality then they will merely be replaced. The main issue is the transition back to a traditional society, a widespread social collapse in nuclear armed countries would not be pretty.
If you let people decide they will go with whatever they are being pressured to do. The origin of the problem was women being propagandised that should become wageslaves and contribute to GDP and short term corporate profits, I'm sure under the exact same circumstances they'll not do exactly the same thing they always have and play prestige games within the current paradigm as it burns to the ground.
History is pretty long and one of its lessons is that women are the most conservative sex by far, they enforce social boundaries and like people in general are exceptionally unoriginal. If you have bad incentives then more freedom will just funnel people into them harder. The male equivalent of this are pick up artists, they see a failing system and try to play into it rather than against it. While there is a new feminist movement against all this (they're behind the case against the sexual revolution and many other recent works on related topics from a female perspective) they most certainly to not present moral freedom and lower standards (so more of the same) as a solution and on top of this many of them are autistic and thus think very distinctly from average men or women. While men will probably get on board, a new structure will already have to be in place for most women to.
If population goes down, might be especially helpful to allow people more healthful life styles and not pressure them to stop their life, their work, in the early 50s for women in some jobs or latest 60s. Women in particular may start work careers later if they do child bearing early on, or even if they don’t start later careers later they may interrupt them for families, so forcing women to end work early cuts work life short. Men seem to get five or ten extra years at least at work, and are not pressured to retire as early. So let women participate more flexibly and healthfully in the work force for a long healthful work life.
You're referencing a symptom of the problem. That isn't going to change it.
@@devon6039 Hi Devon. There are some who do and some don’t, same for men. I knew quite a number of women who were in anguish, very upset, to be pressured to stop working due to hitting around 50. Many are not independently wealthy and the family can use the income or need the income. So even if they’d rather not work so much, having to give up their job may force them to work at other jobs (toilet cleaning, fast food, etc) at lower pay and in conditions that are different to their jobs (office) and harder for older persons. Having kids makes situations more complicated, so people who saw the generation before struggle in this way, women in particular but men also, opt out of having a family.
@@decwow Regardless, valuing people and being flexibly supportive can help make the overall situation better. There are people who say the birth rate crisis is not that the birth rate is too low, but that we have too many people. I guess if people are forced to be idle and there are too few young people to support them, it’s quite serious. One way to resolve that is to make use of the people we have and help support a healthful life. Eventually when the situation is more steady and healthful, women will hesitate less to give birth. It’s not only women but the whole family that is hesitant about having children. Sounds like the country side has a better situation though.
Population decline is an inverted pyramid, the decline isn't steady but exponential. This will destroy the welfare state and pensions and a lot of childless old people will either strangle the society to sustain themselves, import their own demographic replacement by an alien and largely hostile people or die of starvation because people look after their own. This is the biggest crisis since the dark ages at least and if things go bad the bronze age collapse.
Solution:-
1. Workplace Reform
2. Make it easier to buy homes for young people
3. Government should fund almost entire Childcare cost
4. Childcare should become a Social service not a Commercial service
5. Give 500000 Yen per kid per annum
6. Bring back Social Values
7. Marriage in the 20s should be encouraged
The future of societies with problems like this which is sadly the entire world aside from just a few nations is ultimately demographic collapse where the population reduces over decades from old age and age related illnesses. By or around 2050 imagine the world losing what Europe had lost during the black death every couple of years or so for decades till the age demographics revert back to their historical norm leaving the world with less than a billion people left from our current totals. Really do feel sorry for the young people of those decades never mind us millennials and zoomers to watch the world empty like that. Those trillion dollar cities the world over are likely to end up like Detroit with large parts left to rot.
Why do so many Japanese men prefer not to earnestly seek marriage and fatherhood/parenting as a pattern of living(?) - is a much better question. Laying fault for Japan's ultra-low birthrate principally on "unwilling women" is misdirected and simpleminded. Woman have to cope with this modern society which discourages them (in many ways) from traditional roles. Saying/claiming "I don't think I want to have children of my own" is a way of dealing with the fact that bearing children isn't just a matter of personal choice.
I'm not from Japan, but I suspect it's the collision of classical Asian culture with modernity. Men could work, or go off to war, or even screw around with other women, and the wife was expected to live with his parents, raise children, clean the house, do the laundry etc., like a slave. In the premodern days there were lots of serving girls as well, commoners who were indentured to work in a household until they, themselves, were lucky enough to be married. Nowadays, men are doing basically the same thing as always, and women are no longer putting up with their traditional role. Plus, it's too expensive to have a kid these days; Japan's economy is no longer as prosperous as it was during the go-go 1980s and earlier.
Why would a man get married when there’s a 50% chance he could lose all his assets/children? Until those court laws change, nothing will change
@@ChickensAndGardening "modernity" is the wrong. Just look at how broken western families are. Families have always needed a bread winner and stay home person. Men just happen to be the bread winner more often because Woman marry up not down.
@gilgy4714the feminist movements that gave women more work opportunities and allowed them to serve in the military would disagree with you.
I mean this is a whole series and he has done episodes on all sorts of topics such as men's unwillingness to try to get into a relationship
Learn from Philippines. The country is not reliant on Immigrants to stable the population.
They are a family oriented people and marriage is encouraged. You could say arranged marriages help, too.
In fact, Immigrants only add more elders in the next 50 years, outnumbering newborns.
More kids is needed, approximately around 900K to 1M babies per year
by having more marry and live somewhere else like in Akashi, who has free medical care
free lunches for kids, diapers delivered to their houses.
Urban areas are not a good place for raising kids.
Phillipines sounds better and better the more I hear about it.
Philippines literally banned abortions lol
So it's true women are not given epidural unless they go to a top tier hospital and ask for it. But also it's a cultural thing?
Just got back from Japan, there were plenty of kids in Sapporo and Fukuoka Regions - its a simple case of can't afford Tokyo move to an area they can which is also less crowded.
#1 Thin, not living in intergenerational house like Japan did for 2 thousands years. Grand parents could take care of the kids'
#2 Judging parent in public transportation for taking place, and restaurants if the baby cries.
#3 Tons of problems for women at work and to many working hours.
btw for your thumbnail, in english 'burden' is a noun and a verb, but 'burdensome' is the adjective. why? i have no idea, english is super dumb
this might fit better as a thumnbnail since the correct word is like twice as long though lol
(such a burden is what we'd naturally say)
Some things Japan could do to fix the issue.
1-Remove taxes on anything essential for childcare like diapers or formula so it's a bit more affordable to buy.
2-Give tax breaks to parents.
3-Make it easier for companies to build more daycares.
4-Build family trains i.e trains meant for pregnant mothers and children, especially in strollers.
They are the barometers of bad times a-coming..
As a woman who does not have children, I can definitely understand why. Women are tired of a lot of thing (and I don't deny that men too, specially in Japan). It reflects just that our society is sick, really sick, in all levels. We are in an unlogical, unhealthy society and positive thing is that some people are really starting to ask themselves a lot of question about a lot of things. Life, purpose, humanity etc...
The thing is, for me, it can't be better if we continue following this crazy path. Things must change drastically. Are humans ready for that ?
Honestly I don't know. After millenials, humans do always the same mistakes. Power, enslavement, violence are still here. We didn't learn anything of our previous existence, so I must admit I have huge doubt on a positive issue.
But who knows, as we say in France : who will live will see :)
One of the main purposes of life is to have children.
That's a higher purpose than any other, except food/water/shelter.
Stop whining and make babies with a God loving man. Or don't, because your mentality is definitely 'off'. Your long spiel proved your point. Ha
@@rokko_hates_japan I advise you : go get pregnant girl and asap ! :) 👍
@@EpsteinIsSeaEyeAyy I advise you : go get pregnant girl and asap ! :) 👍
@@rokko_hates_japan really? Who says that?
Its good that the community raise all the children. Its like some of the American Indians tribe used to do before being dispersed by the government back in the 1800's. We had neighbors that did that when I grew up on our street. Good ole days
That's nice, but children only need their parents. It's not that complicated
It is delusional to expect the government or someone outside the family take care of one's children. Historically grandparents and multigenerational homes provided certain level of help but ultimately it was the mother that provided care and the father provided labor. A system where both parents work either due to high living cost or the rejection of maternity to pursue a career will fail to keep healthy birthrate.
There is. Look up Omori, Shimane Perfecture. A population of 400.
A place where people work together to raise/watch over children.
Women provide labor and care.
If men provided labor and care, that would help the situation. But you think that’s “delusional”.
Someone has to bring home the bacon.
@@cstellaria3000 that increases the probability of sexual abuse, of course family members can be also responsible but the percentage is less
@@mightytaiger3000 You implicitly blame men for foisting labor on women. This is an unnatural and temporary condition. Also, a man that cares about a woman too much is going to be DUMPED.
Mouse Utopia if you ever see one.
Children are sacred but everything cost money.
The core of the problem is in fact the urban/rural divide, so I'm glad this video mainly centers around that, since that's usually ignored in Western analyses which are always completely steeped in queer/black/Islamic supremacist ideology to the point they don't even actually care about their countries committing capitalist/Marxist/materialist/feminist genocide against themselves. Thomas Jefferson and the Axis powers were both big proponents of Agrarianism, which is basically spreading your population out across all your land and having lots of family farms, etc. that will produce lots of big families (and today makes you resilient to WMDs, etc.).
It’s painful thing to do lol. Men can’t understand. It changes the body. It’s expensive!! And future for humanity is not exactly bright!!!
yeah we don't need any more generations of our species messing up the earth further anyway
Perhaps this is how things are suppose to play out. Who says that countries were meant to exist until perpetuity? Other countries will surely follow by the mid to late 2100s.
Fertility rate collapse in asia
source Wikipedia and world bank
Fertility rate Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 2,01 (2022)
Fertility rate Vietnam 🇻🇳2,01 (2022)
Fertility rate India 🇮🇳2,00 (2022)
Fertility rate Nepal🇳🇵 1,90 (2022)
Fertility rate north Korea 🇰🇵 1,80(2022)
Fertility rate Bhutan 🇧🇹1,79 (2022)
Fertility rate Brunai🇧🇳 1,78 (2022)
Fertility rate Malaysia 🇲🇾1,75(2022)
Fertility rate Maldives 🇲🇻 1,71 (2022)
Fertility rate Iran 🇮🇷 1,66 (2023)
Fertility rate Thailand🇹🇭 1,30 (2022)
Fertility rate jepang 🇯🇵1,26 (2022)
Fertility rate China🇨🇳 1,07 (2022)
Fertility rate Singapure 🇸🇬 1,05 (2022)
Fertility rate Taiwan🇹🇼 0,87 (2022)
Fertilityrate south Korea🇰🇷 0,78 (2022)
First things first GET YOUR OFFICE WORKERS TO WORK FROM HOME!
Then government has to improve transportation, France was mentioned so I’ll give an example. There’s special spaces for handicapped, pregnant and strollers.
Last but not least is give ppl who have babies financial support and priority access to health care.
All above is impossible if you have a$$h0l€$ in power. You may be “not interested in politics” but politics are sure interested in you, so unless you change gouvernement nothing will change
Give visas to rich single men to come and marry multiple women and have kids with them all.
Game over, sadly for the Japanese and the West with it's declining birth rates 😅😢
Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China as well.
@@ChickensAndGardening Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, etc etc. But of course the global media only cares about Japan, which actually has the highest birthrate of all these countries.
@@ChickensAndGardening that's heartbreaking 💔 😢
@@MrMartellSincere Each nation seems to have unique problems contributing to the lower birth rate. Taiwan's young generations have become footloose, moving to the U.S. and other Western countries for better economic opportunities and more security. Previous generations of Taiwan people seemed more rooted in the land (or more determined to recover mainland China). Korea (let's just ignore North Korea) was growing so fast in the 1960s that the government started pressuring families to have fewer children. That policy has backfired, along with women's emancipation & desire to have their own careers etc. Mainland China is somewhat similar with their stupid One Child policy that resulted in a couple of generations of children without siblings or cousins, thus greatly weakening the family as a social institution. Plus, the tanking economy is causing young people to give up on families as unattainable. The repressive Communist regime is now panicking and pressuring people to have more children, which is only making them more rebellious and unwilling to get married. A perfect storm.
Japan is the most affordable and most conducive place in Asia for Japanese people to have Japanese kids. (if you are foreign, tough luck). If you can't do it here you can't do it in any other Asian country. Every other Asian country is at least twice or thrice more expensive than Japan. (I'm referring to developed Asian economies not Southeast Asian developing countries) Problem is while Japan is cheap, so are their wages.
Allow me to to summarise what the japanese women trying to say
" I want to sleep around - I want to have more time for myself - Too expesnive "
Not sure how anyone should take what you say on behalf of a group seriously
least misogynistic westerner on jp youtube
I came to Tokyo Japan and children are literally everywhere in my area.
its looks paradoxical what happened in Japan. I means, they love making video about baby making activities, the greatest prawn/AV producer in Asia, but they dont really make baby 😅
At least 1 Generation need to have 2-3 kids to increase Fertility Rate.
"they seem so busy"
I feel this but for the ladies in return. So many cute girls I see walking around Tokyo but they always seem busy or in a rush.
For those that do want to find a partner, how do they plan to do it if they never have any free time to get to know one?
People make time for what they care about/place importance.
All those cute girls are brainwashed into shopping and other nonsense. Occasionally there is a good reason, like studying for exams. otherwise they should be free, but choose not to be.
I think if the government wants more children they need to do additional social programs with state paid child care and aid not just help, but serious assistance if it really is that important show them the government is serious. If the excuse isn't money and it is truly a matter of survival prove it make it not only easier to parent children make it financially more stable to have them like guarantied housing if you have children. The instinct to procreate isn't enough anymore and with the ability to avoid unintentional pregnancy the "accidental" children are less common.
That has already been tried in Europe and it has done nothing to solve the problem here.
@@WindupTerminus source: i made it up
why dont the goverment change the work ethics? most dont want children because they dont have time for children because of work.
Don't get me wrong, even developed countries like Finland, which have a perfect work-life balance, are experiencing a low birth rate problem.
The reason women in developed countries don't have children is because they can do what they want. On the other hand, in countries where women do not have human rights, such as Africa or India, all a woman can do is give birth to children.
@@lll-cf7vv havent nordic countries always had low birth rates?
Steady pay is good and invest little online business for extra little income. But they are scared 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought it was men who didn't wanna get married and women wanted it.
Depends on the decade. Women generally don't want that in their 20s and 30s and do want it at 40+ when they're party'd out.
@@haloboz are you women?
All first world countries have birth rate below 2. While afghanistan has 7.
Japan already had to overcome this exact problem in history. Hope they learned something.
Yeh understandable, I wouldn't want to raise a kid in the cities especially how Tokyo is since it's densely populated. For instance, in American specifically in Texas (can't speak for the rest of America), everything is so spread out with residential areas while if you were to live in the city you would have to live in apartments/high rises and commute with transits such as trains and taxi. I feel like more and more Japanese want to live closer to Tokyo or some big city for more opportunities with higher wages or for corporate positions. I feel like companies shouldn't huddle in one area as a business district and open in other prefectures so it can be more spread and people can opt to live in those abandoned country regions to repopulate the area while also maintaining and rebuilding/renovating neighborhoods.
Simply being a Housewife for a woman and the men working for the family, this ideal family worked for many years worldwide.
women don t wanna be housewifes. They are humans with dreams, passions so f that lol. Housewife pfff😂
for 50s in the west
Don't live in big cities. Get support from geandparents. Radically reduce your spending so that the woman does not need to work in the first years. Love for your partner, family and country should be all the motivation anybody should need. But when have you heard that word being used in a nontrivial or nonsarcastic way?
Live far away from your job. Beg relatives for money. Dramatically reduce the quality of life for you and your partner for years. Feel pressured by society to bring children into this world even if you aren't sure you want to.
@@Weatherman4Eva I do not understand that comment. If people do lt want to have kids, they should not have kids. But what does that have to do with long commutes, low quality of life or begging?
@@Navi_xoo alright. Then enjoy being alone from 30/40 yo onwards. Nobody should be pressured into anything, but spciety makes it look like that being childless does not come with risks and downsides, also. It is by no means the safe option. And if anybody is being pressured into anything these days it is young women being pressured to get a university degree and a career. How many of these oh so empowered women are happy slaving away in an office for the rest of their life? Most of them are on meds when they realize around 35 that that was it and life just sucks until they die. Working for lare corporations is advertized to them in their 20s as this magical exciting thing. It is a trap. The machine uses them as food and spits them out. But sure, if they really want to they should go for it.
@@Navi_xoo believe it or not, the population is in fact dwindling because people aren't having kids. It's not morally preferable to make people reproduce, but providing incentives to do so can and likely will avert many of the deaths and catastrophes associated with depopulation. Whether you feel that this is "pressuring them" to have kids or not is beyond the scope of the issue regardless. What we think is irrelevant, the moment the effects of depopulation begin to be felt, governments will stop at nothing short of enslavement to solve them. And honestly, if depopulation is the natural course of total societal autonomy, we don't deserve it anyway. Just hope it doesn't get to that point.
Goverment could do whats right by its people and come up with programs to encourage not only couples, but women thenselves to have kids. Its worked with other countries, just have to get them to care enough to spend money on something that doesnt include there pockets.
I grew up and always lived in a fairly small town ( around 26.000 people ). You could not pay me enough to move to those beehives. It is nice to visit it for a week but then I instantly want to be back in my sleepy small town.
Solutions to improve birthrate:
1. Enforce normal work hours 40-45 hours a week
2. Encourage more women to be housewives and end housewife stigma or societal shame regarding a women not pursuing a career or job (although they can still have the option if they want).
3. Encourage revitalization of small towns and villages including bringing jobs to those towns (people are more likely to start a family in a small town than a large city due to factors such as low cost of living, low societal pressures and slower pace of life).
4. Provide government incentives to having children (government subsidies, lower taxes)
1. End government
2. End corporations
3. Return to nature
4. Live your own life without relying on anyone else
Simple
And 5. Encourage men to be house husbands, and place lesser burdens on women in the name of “traditions and culture”
4. Encourage men to be better people so that women can feel safe enough to trust a man.
@@artofaries1113 And encourage women to choose better men, while also not sleeping around and not divorcing the good man.
@epsteinisseaeyeayy Not enough better men though...