Fighting a Losing Baby Battle
Do your duty, little soldiers!
Great translation/summarization by Shinsaku today; feel free to check out his post for lots more detail than I will go into.
The problem: Not many new Japanese people are being born. The other problem: Foreigners are unseemly to the conservative wing of the political spectrum*. The solution: Make more babies, citizens!
Oh wait, we’ve heard that solution before. Well, Nishio Kanji has some thoughts on how to put the buns in the proverbial ovens:
No supplementary payments and paid leave for parents. [The immigrants take advantage of them and make more babies!]
Criminalizing abortion.
Eliminating ambition and higher education for women.
Repeal the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society.
You may recall that we reported the other day that 1 out of every 30 babies born in Japan has a foreign parent. Mr. Nisho’s ideas are not only laughable, but near impossible to set in motion. Look to the future, Japan, not the past (no the future does not have robots doing all the work for you)!
*:and perhaps many more otherwise unpolitical Japanese than we would like to think about feel the same way. One hopes such is not the case…
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these thoughts are sick and demented. i am one of those that has a child in the japanese/non-japanese category. i know he will grow up to be a fine man and contribute to this society and will most likely have a wife who is not only well-educated but ambitious. it is really any wonder why japanese women don`t want to get married and have children in this country with thoughts like these.
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It’s disheartening to know that Japan has been aware of this population issue for a number of years yet the few meager attempts to prevent it have either been completely laughable (such as the ones in this article) or address the surface symptoms while remaining oblivious to the underlying causes. It often reminds me of how we are dealing with social security and racial issues here in the United States.
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Do you think these right-wing nutjobs could be persuaded to approve more immigration from the standpoint of getting more people paying into the pension system, and saying many of them will never get all the money back, meaning a net “profit” for Japan’s already-doomed pension system?
But right-wing nuts don’t listen to logic, even cynical logic. [But then, left-wing nutjobs don't listen, either.]
Even if there were a doubling of the birth-rate, we wouldn’t see them hit the labor market for another 20 years. Far too late.
I’m just surprised he doesn’t propose further genetic research so that the DNA of half-foreign embryos can have their “undesireable” non-Nihonjin traits removed. >:(
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I guess every country has its share of people presenting absolutelly crazy suggestions to resolve a national problem. Not to be taken too seriously, but to still keep on the radar scope, especially if the guy is a good public speaker.
I think he missed the “radical & final solution for those citizens who are sterile”
Reminds me a little of the Dihydrogen Monoxid story. DHMO, is responsible for so many death and is so dangerous.. That several very serious law makers where thinking of forbidding its usage..
For those who don’t know DHMO is .. H2O, pure, simple water given a scary little acronym.
Never too careful with weird suggestions handled by good & convincing public speakers.
P-A
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Nice one. Well, water has killed countless people in the past…
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Countries with gender equality like Sweden or France have a much rather fertility rate than culturally conservative countries like Italy and Japan.
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Which would make sense, if you think about it.
One wonders how many of the working women in Japan would like to have children, but realize the moment they do their careers are over.
Surprised that no one mentions that women (and men) are getting married later. In many jobs, once you get married you are expected to “retire”. A young school teacher who spends four years at university might get to work all of 4-5 years before being pushed out.
Why would you want to?
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My apologies if I am wrong, but I’ve read that France and most of western europe is facing the same problem. Indiginous populations are not marrying and are not having children. Immigrants from eastern europe and from middle eastern nations have a considerably higher number of children in western european nations than those nations’ non-immigrant populations.
France especially is coming to grips with its cultural identity problem: the people having the most babies in France aren’t French and don’t act like the French people do. France, perhaps more than even Japan, is very protective of its national culture and traditions, and is having difficulty with this situation.
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What does “rather” mean in this context? “Lower”? In which case, there’s a problem with your argument, because Italy and Japan actually have lower birth rates than Sweden and France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_birth_rate
While it’s not unusual that there’d be a few right-wing extremists such as this in any country, what’s unexpected is how many people agree with him. I confess myself disappointed.
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The solution to the problem of a declining birthrate is so simple, but it goes against the grains of what the current government is striving for and promoting.
People don’t want to have babies because it isn’t convenient to do so financially, temporally, or socially. The government is trying to coerce the population to make babies through a message of civil duty, but it should be looking for better methods of support instead. In this I think JFK was wrong – Ask not what you can do for your government, but what your government can do for you. “Civil servant” very much describes what they should be, but in Japan’s case that is definitely not what they are.
Here’s one idea for the government, free of my consulatation service fees: Promote free nursery services provided by companies as perks for working mothers, mandatory maternity leave for at least 3 months post-labor, and laws prohibiting companies from dismissing new mothers because of maternity leave. Also, the 300,000 yen they give to new parents after childbirth is good (We got our check!), but why not allocate funds from civil construction projects and invest in medical-fee support for pregnant women?
One problem with the Japanese government is that it’s an old-boys club, and politicians are so far removed from “normal society” that they have no idea of what citizens want.
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“mandatory maternity leave for at least 3 months post-labor”
Japan already has 8-week mandatory post labor maternity leave. The question is how can mothers earn money while they are on leave?
“laws prohibiting companies from dismissing new mothers because of maternity leave.”
Japan already has such laws.
“the 300,000 yen they give to new parents after childbirth is good”
Right now, mothers can get 300,000 yen regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy (childbirth, miscarriage or abortion).
Thank you for your creativeness.
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3-months leave for double-income families, 3-months government supported leave for single mothers.
Laws prohibiting pressured resignation and hiring discrimination for married women. (A major issue)
MORE THAN the 350,000 given to mother after child birth. (Read original post once more)
And, most importantly, free daycare services.
Thank you for your constructive criticism.
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The other partial solution to the problem is to raise the retirement age. You instantly increase your workforce and decrease the number of pensioners.
Since the current retirement age of 65 in the USA was basically set back when the average life expectancy was 65, the whole system was based on the fact that half the people paying into the pension system would be DEAD and not get anything.
Now the life expectancy is what 75? 77? and in Japan it’s even worse! The highest life expectancy in the world AND a low retirement age of 60!
Solution that will never happen: Raise the retirement benefits age to the life expectancy age again.
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The other partial solution to the problem is to raise the retirement age. You instantly increase your workforce and decrease the number of pensioners.
Absolutely! At least make it illegal to have mandatory “retirement” ages of 55 or 60 – ie, if you want to work after that you can only do so as a contract worker. These do still exist at many workplaces.
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All these responses with nonsense babble.
What we’re all thinking: GREAT PICTURE POST!
Done and done.
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“and perhaps many more otherwise unpolitical Japanese than we would like to think about feel the same way.”
Boy, lefties sure are open-minded to the possibility that people besides themselves might have valid opinion…
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I’m not a lefty or a righty; ambidexterity is more fun.
How is “foreigners are bad” a valid opinion in this day and age? I am very open-minded to hear your response.
Support would be great, but does potentially allow more non-Japanese to breed. They would have to clamp down on immigration in order to prevent that.
You all know, however, that the real factor in the birth rate is always _women_. Women now effectively decide whether there will be a high or low birth rate.
In the past, the rate was higher because there was no birth control, and because women did not consider having a long career. Those are just facts. It is incontrovertible that if these trends were reversed, the birth rate would be higher. One need only look at the muslim world to see that this is indeed the case.
So the proposed solutions are not laugable, as some of you suggest, but rather, are exactly what we know would work! The only problem is that nobody is willing to tell women that they might need to give up the abortions and contraceptives and careers in order to have more kids.
Fundamentally, who can blame women for not wanting to have many kids? It’s hard baring them and it’s hard raising them. It’s great, if you’re tough, but it’s damn hard. If women, in any society, can choose to do whatever they wish with no social pressures, who can be surprised that they will then choose to have fewer children?
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See, you’ve just given a perfect example of what’s wrong with Japanese society!
“In the past, the rate was higher because there was no birth control, and because women did not consider having a long career.
…
The only problem is that nobody is willing to tell women that they might need to give up the abortions and contraceptives and careers in order to have more kids.”
Why can’t they have a long career and children? If there were systems in place for support, it is entirely possible.
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Are you sure?
I sometimes notice English medias write that way.
Of all of the Japanese people I know of, a man and a woman decide together whether to marry, how many babies they want.
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An interesting topic. There are similar discussions in Germany.
With this trend being stronger in some countries, and weaker in other countries, a decline in birth rate is happening all over the developing world. It seems to be a socioeconomic consequence of the escape from poverty and old-school conservative morals. Contraceptives of course only make this development possible.
I ask: Why is a shrinking population a BAD thing? We are slowly (?) running out of oil and other resources. With that in mind, will 120m Japanese and 300m Europeans be able to have even a similar standard of living in 50 or 100 years? Young Japanese women are much smarter than old Japanese politicians, in my eyes.
I just visited Tokyo last month (I live in the Japanese countryside), and I must say, there are already enough people there for my taste!
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In Japan, about 300,000 fetuses are aborted every year, whereas about 1,000,000 babies are born every year.
http://www.ipss.go.jp/p-info/e/S_D_I/Indip.html#t_10
If a fraction of these 300,000 aborted babies are given chance to live, the population projection will change dramatically.
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Your point boils down to an argument with no solution – Freedom of choice versus natural rights of fetuses. There is no solution to this argument, and the debate just gets out of control in the end.
Providing support to mothers and potential mothers may have a positive impact, though. The women who would have aborted the fetus on the grounds that they feel their careers would suffer might rethink their decision if taking care of the child became relatively easier.
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Yes, the population ends up containing a larger number of kids who weren’t actually wanted. Sounds like a recipe for happiness and productivity in society.
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Let us consider for a moment the facts of the situation:
1. Japan does not currently have a replacement birthrate.
2. Japan does have the longest-lived populace in the world.
3. Roughly a quarter of pregnancies in Japan are terminated.
Now, what if there were a program of heavily subsidized adoption program with big cash incentives for pregnant women who are unwilling mothers AND WITH the age limits for adopting parents raised past 60?
Retirees in Japan are generally well-off and have the time and energy to raise more children. Since the average Japanese lifespan is in the late 70’s and moving toward the 80’s, the child will most likely have his or her parent(s) live through high school or even college, by which time he or she is an independent adult. Culturally, this works well for Japan since the elderly are so well regarded.
This need not have racial restrictions, since it will be the adopting parent(s) who will specify details on the child they want to adopt.
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The big problem with government support for things like this is that it erodes familial obligations even more, and therefore leads to more divorce, more single mothers, and more screwed up kids. Ultimately, it leads to a decline in what the entire society and culture are capable of.
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