We made everything super expensive and created a toxic work culture that weighs on your every waking moment while cutting salaries so that both people in a relationship need to work full time... why is no one having kids?
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Might be worth noting that this is a huge swing from a bygone era of high infant and child death, such that women were expected to have children early and often in hopes that they could outperform the mortality rate. Population rates in Japan had been low and relatively flat for centuries. Then the industrial revolution and modern medicine dramatically reduced mortality rates, causing populations to climb rapidly for around a century.
Now we're settling into a new normal of sub-replacement rate births (not no births by any stretch, just births slower than the post-40s boom years) and everyone's freaking out like Japan won't exist in another generation.
The Japanese people could likely support a higher population via socialist public policy. But they could also just have a smaller population going into the 21st century. It's not like 123M is a magic number the nation needs to persist. If Japan's population fell into the 80M mark, what's the horrible thing that could happen? Koreans and Philippinos and Italians and Egyptians might be legally allowed to immigrate at last? Oh no!!!! Death of a nation!!!
They wouldn’t be able to afford retirement payments for their elderly population. That is the risk
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When did everyone collectively stop freaking out about overpopulation?
Ohhh "replacement" in this context means "replacement minimum wage workers for the factories".
We've tried everything but moving away from a capitalist system or allowing immigrants into our country and we're all out of ideas
I'm really interested on how you think they should move away from a capitalist system, what the actual steps are. If you're saying that they should treat their employees better and make the work culture more accommodating for families, I get your point.
Yeah their whole shtick has been mimicking American corporatism et al since before the 80s. Aint working out for them.
Actual steps? We have books about that since the 1800s. Usually involves overthrowing the bourgeoisie, arming the proletariat, and dismantling their networks of propaganda
They haven't been mimicking American corporatism, they were set up that way after the war. You could almost call them a commonwealth since we have military bases there and protect them.
Edit: Compare them to Puerto Rico except the part about being an American citizen that can't vote, and you'll see that they're very similar.
Key aspects of American influence on Japanese capitalism:
Post-WWII Occupation and Reconstruction:
The US occupation, led by General Douglas MacArthur, introduced significant changes to Japan's economic system. This included:
Land Reform: Breaking up large landholdings to benefit farmers and reduce the power of wealthy landowners.
Breaking up Zaibatsu: Attempting to dismantle the large, powerful business conglomerates (Zaibatsu) to promote free market competition. Promoting Free Market Capitalism: Shifting the Japanese economy towards a more free market model, inspired by American ideals.
And they're not a commonwealth of ours. If you think the US would defend Japan or Taiwan in the next few years, you're as big of a fool as those that doubted a lying populist like Trump would win.
I won't be arguing any further. You do you chief. Sorry that the facts dont add up and you wanna squabble over things neither of us can change. You seem to have found a good home on shitjustworks, the vibe suits you
Key aspects of American influence on Japanese capitalism:
Post-WWII Occupation and Reconstruction: The US occupation, led by General Douglas MacArthur, introduced significant changes to Japan's economic system. This included: Land Reform: Breaking up large landholdings to benefit farmers and reduce the power of wealthy landowners. Breaking up Zaibatsu: Attempting to dismantle the large, powerful business conglomerates (Zaibatsu) to promote free market competition. Promoting Free Market Capitalism: Shifting the Japanese economy towards a more free market model, inspired by American ideals.
I think we're agreeing, we set up the Japanese markets. Not sure why you're getting so antsy about this.
And they're not a commonwealth of ours. If you think the US would defend Japan or Taiwan in the next few years, you're as big of a fool as those that doubted a lying populist like Trump would win.
I didn't say they were one, I said they're almost like one. Do you think the trump administration would defend Puerto Rico? He threw paper towels at them when they had a disaster. Again, not saying Japan is a commonwealth, but trump sticking up for them isn't a guide either.
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Finally looked it up recently. Et al is for names of people. Etc for everything else.
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We tried something? They barely tried anything
thatsthejoke.jpg
We definitely do let in immigrants. My wife, for example, is one. But I have to say, it's really difficult to integrate into the culture, especially for work unless you're very well versed in Japanese or don't mind working in low wage positions.
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We need to rethink the whole global economy. This "problem" is only an issue in a society that demands forever growth. And shocker alert, the only way to mitigate the short term effects of population decline is immigration!
It is not only an issue due to forever growth. Birthrates are so low in some places (like Japan), that the new generations will just be crushed by the (economic) burden of the older ones.
Older people don't contribute much to the economy, but they spend a lot. It's just how it is. Older people are usually less healthy, and less healthy people eventually consume more resources than they can provide. This burden means that the younger generations will demand change to the government, and that will make retirement either worse or harder to achieve. Which will lead to the old days of working until you drop dead. Or distopian-like situations where old people willingly die to not be a burden, or even worse, they are killed by the government.
And as you say, immigration just fixes the short-term effects. That future is inevitable with birthrates so low. Inmigrants usually adopt to the birthrate of the country very fast.
I read somewhere Korea has a worst birthrate than japan
1.15 in Japan 0.72 in Korea. so yeah.
Both countries have high cost of living and expect women to drop everything and become full time moms and care for their parents and inlaws.
Women for some reason don't find that appealing and decide to not have kids. Many refuse to get married if there partner wants kids.
Even men often don't want children as they are expected to work long hours to support the family.
HCOL is the main reason, china is having that problem now, so they are trying to "fix" it right now, but more like half assing that attempt. the work culture of the asian countries is what did them in, so they are unlikely want to fix that part of it.
some -> a lot
"For some reason" is a common expression indicating the reason is obvious but not stated.
As always, this is only a problem for capitalism and billionaires needing more workers to exploit. I see no issues here.
You're 100% correct. And capitalism is going to fight tooth and nail to come up with capitalist explanations and capitalist solutions, whatever those may be.
At the end of the day, the masses go to jobs for long hours that they hate, even if they "followed their passion". Capitalist hustle adds overwork, and takes from the joy of some work you may have potentially enjoyed. Not to mention jobs that are very necessary, yet very unenjoyable like construction or factory work or whatever. The pay is only enough to cover costs, so you have to keep working and can never escape.
All of this to prop up the billionaire class so they can enjoy giant mansions, Lamborghinis, yachts, and whatever.
Have a kid? I don't have the money, nor do I want an innocent child living this life.
It's an issue in any economic system. No economy built with any current or near future technology functions without human labor, which people can no longer supply once they get old enough for their health to decline, regardless of who owns what.
Its not as if there's a lack of humans.
If they don't want their population to collapse they can accept immigration and change their culture to be more welcoming to outsiders. Or don't and keep on the same path.
Noone is putting a gun to politicians heads and making them do any of this. Nothing they can do will naturally increase the birthrate.
I think there is something they can do, or more to the point, there's a reason the birthrate is so low there. I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the most overworked countries on the planet have such low birthrates. Taking care of children is labor, unpaid labor at that, that has a lot of other expenses associated with it. What I think they could do, is compensate people for it, not some pittance that doesn't cover a fraction of the costs of raising a child, but an amount that would actually be sufficient to make having a kid or not, with a parent (either parent) home at any given point for them, a financially neutral decision for a family (to include the opportunity costs of not working) rather than a very expensive one.
Evolution being what it is, it would seem implausible for the average number of kids people actually would want to have, if it wasn't a burden on them, to be lower than replacement, else the human species wouldn't have come to exist in the first place. For individual people, sure, everyone has their own feelings on the matter, but averaged across society, one would expect most people to desire kids enough if they could manage it to keep the population at least stable.
It would be incredibly expensive, yes, and so the tax burden it would create would probably be unpopular, especially among people that didn't personally gain from it, but continuing the status quo is nothing less than extracting the abstract resource that human labor can be thought of as, at an unsustainable rate. That situation will either end willingly or it will end in collapse.
Don't worry, they will find a way to make it our problem
A large elderly population that needs benefits but isn’t producing labor’s requirements are met how in alternate systems if those needs require medicines that Japan must buy from other nations?
Remember in Japan’s case there are not enough workers paying into the system to maintain benefits for the growing elderly population which is expected to increase.
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Give up nationalism, change immigration policy, they will be fine in one year with folks from their Asia neighbors.
You know that their Asian neighbours also have low birth rates, right? Then it's simply shifting the issue to another area.
It's funny all these countries promoting nationalistic policies are actually used a distraction from their lower birth rate problems. Eg, threatening or commiting wars
Low birth rates are only a crisis for the capitalists (and actually not even that, see below). They increase wages and improve living standards for the population.
We're gonna hit an unemployment crisis in 10-15 years, partially due to AI replacing white-collar workers. If we have a lot of unemployed people, capitalists are gonna complain about how much unemployment money costs. It's actually better to have lower birthrates for capitalists as well, they only didn't realize it yet.
Also, it increases wages because wages are determined through supply and demand of human labor. If there's less supply, prices for labor (wages) are higher.
Really depends on the society. South Korea, for example, is definitely genuinely threatened by its way too sharp decline - including culturally. Otherwise I agree that negative effects are generally overexaggerated and that the future will inevitably demand less human labour.
Oh no, more space and resources for one of the most crowded and resource-constrained countries on earth.
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So if everyone only had 1 kid or 2 kids, then population might stabilize and start shrinking. Then we just gotta keep it small enough to maintain a good standard of living. Of course all of us old fucks have to die.
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