@heressomestuffifound
Who knew that a toxic work culture, high cost of living, and bleak outlook for the future would make people not want to have kids? Shocking!
@mraaronhd
I really hate how our children are just seen as potential productive workers for both governments, and corporations.
@DonCDXX
There's nothing someone working 60 hours a week wants to do more than marry someone else working 60 hours per week and raise 2.1 kids in their closet sized apartment.
@lilpwnige
When 88% of the average Tokyo residents income is going to cost of living, somehow I doubt $107.00 per month is going to make that much of a difference.
@albertoteshiba316
Japan: I'm gonna over-exploit my youth, make them feel inferior than their seniors, blame them for everything, pressure them constantly, and expect that they fix the current economy. Japan youth: Literally can't start thinking about starting a family because they are struggling surviving, and feeling so overwhelmed that suicide rates increase. Japan: Surprise Pikachu face
@NoFuqinIdea
It blows my mind how this country rather dies out instead of making laws allowing for a better work-life-ballance. If you're at work 12 hours a day of course you don't have to time and energy to go on dates, let a alone to start a family. Japan would fix almost half of it's problems over night if it was to give it's people more free time. (Or vacation - Yes, most companies don't even let you take a week off)
@markcreamer6179
I forgot to mention the ridiculous work schedules. They should pass (and enforce) a maximum work week. Any company that works its employees to exhaustion needs to be publicly shamed and fined.
@noname-dk7ri
I am a Japanese resident in Japan who is not familiar with the economic field. In my layman's opinion, rather than worrying about Japan's decline, I expect the characteristic Japanese employment system of "lifetime employment", "seniority system" and "lump-sum recruitment of new graduates" to collapse. After their collapse, it will take a certain period of time for structural reforms to take place. The decline means that the previous generation's system will collapse, which I personally welcome because it is natural. My generation will not be rewarded, though.
@georgecaplin9075
15-64 year olds are young people? Thanks, TLDR, you’ve made my day.
@Patryk128pl
I can already tell that this program won't solve Japans demographic issue. Similar program has been implemented in Poland called "Rodzina 500 plus" (Family 500 plus), commonly just called 500+. It's 500 PLN (Currently around 112,49€) per month per kid under 18 years old if you have at least 2 kids that are under 18 years old (Or one disabled kid under 18.). Ever since it's introduction the population growth continues to decline as it was before. No such program will ever solve the population decline as money is just one of the reasons for it. I think the main reasons are: 1. Time Having just one child is a huge time investment and it's very hard to find time when you're constantly overworked. In Asia, especially in Japan and Korea it seems that everyone ever since they go to school are constantly overworked and having huge overtime commitment. How are you supposed to meet your partner, or have a kid with them if you go to work in the morning, return exhausted in the evening having only enough energy left to watch some TV and go to sleep? Yeah, there's weekends, but house chores exist and you want to have time for yourself and your hobbies. Have one stay-at-home parent? Great idea! The other will be even more overworked and will see their family less and less becoming an alien to them. What's the point of having a child if you won't get to know them and once you do, they might be a completely alien person to you. 2. Housing You have found time somehow? Great! Enjoy having 3 kids in one-bedroom apartment! Both parents and their children require some private space and time, we're all human after all. But using housing as "investment" lead to ridiculously priced houses which lead to people living in smaller and smaller homes. Which of course leads to not having enough physical space for a hamster, let alone a kid. 3. Safety The safer the city is, the easier it is to make children more independent earlier. Which allows parents to regain some of their free time. Like for example, in Dutch cities it's normal to see kids aged 5 to go by themselves to schools, because those cites try to remove dangerous car traffic from main roads in favour of pedestrians and bike commuters. While in the USA/Canada if your 8 year old kid plays by themselves in your very own backyard a police might be called on you for not providing sufficient supervision... And the car centric design of the cities requires one of the parents to become the stereotypical "soccer mom" until the kid grows 16 and gets their own car licence. 4. Money In rural areas the population growth is usually higher than in the cites, as on farms kids are free labour, while in cities they are more like very expensive and time consuming pet. And city dwellers cannot afford those "pets" due to late stage capitalism which makes wealth gather for smaller and smaller number of people, because the goal of the capitalism is gathering as much of your own wealth as possible and the main virtue for it is greed. The government subsidies won't solve this underlying issue as it might be seen by employers as a justification to lower wagers or increase prices. 5. Society How are you supposed to find a life partner if from the very beginning i.e. the school everything is focused on competition!? In the school you compete for better grades instead of cooperating for knowledge acquirement. In your workplace you compete for promotions and better pay and to not get fired when THE BOARD wants to show to the investors that the line is still going up and firing some workers is the easiest way to do it quickly. Heck, even in social life we compete for attention all the time and dating already become "a market" where you try to be the best "value". Folks trying to find their perfect partner that has the best "value" instead of looking for their soulmate. Our biggest strength as a species is cooperation and yet we've decided to compete all the time. And no government subsidy nor constant complaining that "those youngsters have it so easy today and are just lazy" will solve those issues. The subsidy is like an band-aid for a freshly cut off leg... Those issues are deeply rooted and aren't and won't be easy to solve. It could take decades to change those fundamentals but it seems like we prefer to stick to the sinking ship. What also doesn't help is the growing number of elderly that fulfilled their social contract and now expect their payout, so they don't want any big changes. I hope we'll be able to find some compromise, but as of now things doesn't look good as we're willing to destroy our own and only planet for the line to go up and not take care of it for the humans that live on it.
@mikerude5073
Their government is doing the bare minimum to be able to save face and justify that they "are doing something." Sadly, the problem will persist until major changes are made. They need to talk to young people and find out exactly why they are not having kids, as in what hurdles prevent it. The absurdly long work grind and the marriage of employees to their work is the first place to look. They would need to make huge sweeping changes to how business is done and how the society functions at large, and which values are celebrated, and so on. Basically, they would need to seriously rock the boat to turn it around.
@AlesAlitis
No one mention that pregnancy and childbirth aren't cover by healthcare. And it's not cheap either. It was cheaper for me and my wife to fly back to EU, pay a year of healthcare and live there for 2 months than to have our child deliver in somewhat rural part of Japan. On top of that, the service you're getting for the money is abysmal. I quote a friend who had here child there: "The ob-gyn in Japan is medieval"
@deaththekid3998
The Japanese government would do literally anything but allow it’s people to work a little less
@MrPossomtail
My Japanese wife's contract was ended pretty much immediately after she told work she was pregnant. I can't take paternity leave because when my child is born I will have been working for only 10 months at my company instead of the required 12 months. There's also a shortage of kindergarten places (despite the decline in birthrate even!) because of the low early childhood teacher salaries and horribly long hours. Another factor among many making Japanese couples reluctant to have kids. Seriously considering moving back to my home country at this point.
@_comrade9163
If "maintaining societal functions" includes continuing to exploit the young , then it deserves to fail.
@nopants4259
This problem will affect the whole world eventually , they are just 30 + years ahead. The med countries in Europe are going the same way.
@roboticzamat
One other thing I've noticed with this living in Japan since 2015, is that not only is the workforce shrinking, but the remaining workforce is more and more centered around keeping the aging population comfortable. For example, a LOT of young people decide to have a career in elderly care, tech is focused on easing the lives of thr elderly instead of developing tech of the next generation, etc. Of course, these are all good things....within measure.. but I rather think it's too much compared to how much emphasis is on the future of the country. It's out of balance. At least, that's my hot take based on what I've seen.
@cyrilio
You don’t need more workers if productivity increases. Since the WWII we seen an exponential growth of productivity. Wages however haven’t grown as much. Having children has become unaffordable.
@ddwkc
This is concerning for businesses, but they are one of the root causes of that decline and refuse to address it.
@unggoyfarmer