Fighting a Losing Baby Battle

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.