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Give them some days off.

I live and work in Japan, and it definitely is not a very condusive environment for younger Japanese people to have children. My wife and I are both foreigners, and we are in out late 30's and just had our first. The country has some really great benefits and support services for having children, but we definitely would not be able to do this if we worked for Japanese companies, and with the Japanese work mentality.

While it IS getting better, work being the central pillar of life and the expectations from the older generations are still very much a thing. The long hours of paper pushing, the culture of promotion based on age and time served rather than innovation and hard work takes a toll on people. If you are not living in the office in your 20s to show your dedication, you are looked down upon, at least accoridng to my Japanese friends.

Immigration could help fix some of this. Japan is a desireable, largely affordable country, that is safe when it comes to raising children. Living here as a foreigner though has specific challenges, and your job prospects are pretty poor unless you are lucky, and access to housing and just general living can be challenging, even if you can speak Japanese.

I just got a new job in Kyoto, and I currently live in Tokyo. I would say around 40% of the houses we applied to look at would not even let us see the properties because we are foreigners. That's 100% legal and totally ok to say here, and I take that in stride. In Australia (where I am from), they would either just tell you to piss off, or show you the property knowing you don't have a chance, so at least they are upfront about it here I guess. Getting a credit card is a massive ordeal, which you kinda need here because debit cards are increasingly hard to find, and they don't even work for all bills and systems, and getting a bank account ... it all just snowballs.

Also anything outside of the major cities is kinda dead. I love it, but living and thriving there in places that have more space that would probably promote having big families, is nearly impossible, or at least impossibly boring. This is not unique to Japan, Australia is largely the same outside of the main cities.

Not sure what the fix is. But annecdotally I see these articles all the time, and yet there are kids and younger families always around, so not sure if it is as serious as they are saying, or more media hype?

I believe Japan has less inequality than the US. Not sure on that, but I think it's true. I think in this case we see work culture playing a role. The only country in the world with a worse work culture than the US is Japan. No one has time to even think about having kids when you are a company man there. It's similar in the US.

This problem is not isolated to Japan. Countries all across the world are facing the same issue and have been for a number of years.

Create a shitty, miserable, society with no rights or support, and people do not want to bring children into it.... who'd guess?

The flannel has been wrung dry to the detriment of the working class; there is no where to go, no more water to squeeze from them. This is global society / capitalism falling apart.

nothing about the idea of having children appeals to me in the slightest

Oh no, not our out of control population growth fueled by resources running out as I type this comment and causing unspeakable damage to the biosphere of the planet.

Whatever will we do if our numbers fall below 7 billion.

fear of decline