Japan's Birth Rate Falls To a Record Low (go.com) 249
Japan's birth rate fell to a new low for the eighth straight year in 2023, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday. A government official described the situation as critical and urged authorities to do everything they can to reverse the trend. From a report: The data underscores Japan's long-standing issues of a rapidly aging and shrinking population, which has serious implications for the country's economy and national security -- especially against the backdrop of China's increasingly assertive presence in the region.
According to the latest statistics, Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime -- stood at 1.2 last year. The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said -- the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate. In the predominantly traditional Japanese society, out-of-wedlock births are rare as people prize family values.
According to the latest statistics, Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime -- stood at 1.2 last year. The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said -- the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate. In the predominantly traditional Japanese society, out-of-wedlock births are rare as people prize family values.
China has a similar problem (Score:3)
Japan has a strong lead in depopulation, but China's posted birth rates are also crashing.
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Its not that similar. China is undergoing a demographic transition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
in the absolutely classical sociology sense.
Japans issue is a fundamentally different issue that doesn't have such a clear cause.
Re:China has a similar problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan is just one or two generations ahead of the curve. Most of the developed world is going into inverted population pyramid territory.
Some are currently mitigating it through migration, but that has its own issues, and can't go on forever.
China will go through a population crash in the coming decades... As will Europe.
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And even better, where are you gonna source these migrants when their own countries start having lower and lower birthrates?
They're just kicking the can down the road.
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As people come to the country, they typically pick up the customs and culture of their new country - whilst bringing a little of their old home in as well.
You do want to generally allow immigration from a diverse set of source countries to ensure that all the immigrants aren't just replacing the culture rather than intermixing, but in general its not a big issue.
If you don't like it then have more babies.
Re:China has a similar problem (Score:5, Insightful)
but we're having SO many come in, and not learning the language (yes, for now the US is still an English speaking country, although, unfortunately, not officially)
People make a bigger deal out of this than it really is. It doesn't really matter all that much if a first generation immigrant does or doesn't learn English (and most will pickup at least basic words). The reality is that when their kids go to school, THEY will. Do we have a big issue of second or third generation children of immigrants not being able to speak English? No. Its not an issue.
Its not as if we have some shortage of English speakers in the world (its literally the most spoken language on the planet. Not in native speakers, but in just people that CAN speak it its #1).
Re:China has a similar problem (Score:4, Interesting)
but we're having SO many come in, and not learning the language (yes, for now the US is still an English speaking country, although, unfortunately, not officially)
People make a bigger deal out of this than it really is. It doesn't really matter all that much if a first generation immigrant does or doesn't learn English (and most will pickup at least basic words). The reality is that when their kids go to school, THEY will. Do we have a big issue of second or third generation children of immigrants not being able to speak English? No. Its not an issue.
Its not as if we have some shortage of English speakers in the world (its literally the most spoken language on the planet. Not in native speakers, but in just people that CAN speak it its #1).
Lets call it what it is... Casual racism.
It's the same as "I want to see a real doctor" (or British doctor), which really means a white doctor.
I grew up in a very working class (poor) neighbourhood, you're shocked, I can tell, and the local racist brigade used to try to bend the ear of any kid they could about how the Asians were coming over, how there'd be no jobs for "real" Australians when I grew up. This kind of thing instilled a strong BS filter in me from an early age.
Long story short, I knew people like that had lost the day I got some new wheels for my Nissan 200sx (S15, for the car fans out there). Spoke to the guy on the phone. He sounded like any other Aussie arranged to get the new wheels. Showed up at the shop, looking around and the same voice as the phone asked "can I help you". I turned around to see someone who could have been a stock photo of a 20 yr old Vietnamese lad... Guy probably spoke Vietnamese and likely had a very Viet family but went to the same schools as me and millions of other Aussies. Point is, like the parent poster said, he integrated and the brilliant thing is, in a permissive society like Australia (US and UK) people can integrate and still have their own culture and over time, those cultures bring their own benefits into our own as they become part of the rich tapestry of a free and fair society.
"Real" Australians still got jobs, me, the bloke who worked at the wheel shop and loads of others... and I bet those same racists are still sitting around those same shithole suburbs preaching the same tired bull, maybe they've moved on from Asians to Muslims but it's the same old BS, in my Dad's time they were complaining about the Italians and Greeks coming over, taking jobs and their funny smelling foods.
On a closing note, it can be quite difficult to learn a new language as an adult. I've been learning Spanish on and off for 10 years and still struggle, Spanish isn't that different from English either. I try to be patient with people who's first language isn't English.
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Yes, it does. The perennially overworked Japanese are foregoing having kids. It's that simple. Combine that with women finally getting out from the male-dominated society and taking control of their own lives, they are either putting off having kids until later, or not having them at all. And finally, the younglings who fully admit they'd rather watch hentai and play games than meet someone.
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And finally, the younglings who fully admit they'd rather watch hentai and play games than meet someone.
I could be totally off the mark here; but your comment prompts me to wonder if the Web has anything to do with the failure of young people in developed countries to get together and have kids.
There are probably lots of factors, including income uncertainty - which itself may be increased by the Web and by technology it enables. Also by social media - I think possibly a lot of younger people are handicapped in their in-person interactions because Facebook and Twitter set such shitty examples and expectations
Re:China has a similar problem (Score:4, Interesting)
people decide to not have children because of how shitty it seems
The problem with this hypothesis is the shittier the situation, the more kids people have.
Niger is the world's poorest country, has the lowest literacy rate, and is currently having both a civil war and a famine. It also has the world's highest birth rate, at 6.8 babies per woman.
It is prosperous countries with growing economies where birth rates are dropping fastest.
Congratulations! (Score:4, Interesting)
You just managed to conflate and confuse rape and infant mortality [worldbank.org] (that civil war and a famine thing) with precariousness of existence under capitalism (that prosperous countries with growing economies thing.)
And still, even Niger's birth rate has been declining for decades now. [worldbank.org]
Thing is, we were always capable of procreating like fuckin cats - and we've always been practicing some kind of birth control to reign that in. Mainly, cause there was never enough food.
Until we hit the industrial revolution. [worldometers.info]
And what a koinkidink - Japan's boost in population [statista.com] just so happens to coincide with them being dragged into said industrial revolution by Chandler from Friends. [wikipedia.org] RIP King, taken too soon.
We've been reaping the benefits of increased food supply, healthcare advances, general increase in quality of life, fucking science, etc. for centuries now - without a cultural or other kind of limitation to our breeding.
It is slowly dawning on our primitive reptile brains that we don't need to act like cats.
All it took was a general negative outlook of the future through over-exploitation of limited natural resources without equitable benefits of said exploitation, AS we near the collapse of the planetary ecosystem - thanks to said exploitation.
And people wonder why depression is in our genes. [nih.gov] Might have something to do with not ending up eating the branch the entire species is sitting on.
Not that it means we shouldn't hunt the rich... (Score:2)
Not that it means we shouldn't hunt the rich for sport and/or sustenance. We absolutely should.
And it is morally perfectly fine to hunt down a Musk or Gates with a bow and arrow, spear or even a gun if you're into that kind of thing.
They made a personal choice to be rich and exploit all those resources WHILE not arming themselves with an army or two, hiding behind a giant wall and a moat.
You know... Just as the founding fathers intended.
That tree of liberty needs watering. And I hear it prefers that RICH bl
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Exactly, that is a compleletly at odds with the data. This is something else.
Sociology, for all it's silly misapplications and overstatements, is a legitimate field of study with logically and rationally justifiable conclusions. I would suggest everybody start with "demographic transition" if they want to really understand these sorts of large-scale trends
BTW, the current developed world is as safe, wealthy, comfortable, equitable, and convenient as
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Indeed. To a large degree children are born out of 1) boredom and 2) lack of birth control.
The reality is that no matter how poor you are, sex is always available as a distraction, and for some really poor people that's basically all they have.
And realistically, when given the option to artificially limit how often they get pregnant, many women choose to limit their pregnancies to below the minimum needed to maintain the population.
Eventually we've got to solve that problem. While no individual women shou
It's not about how s***** the situation is (Score:3)
As soon as a nation modernizes you drastically reduce the amount of manual labor being done because no matter how little money or food you give to a person they can't really compete with a machine.
And so people stop having kids because they lack the resources and motivation to do so
Re:It's not about how s***** the situation is (Score:4, Insightful)
people stop having kids because they lack the resources
This is the exact opposite of reality.
People with the fewest resources have the most kids.
The poorest countries have the highest birth rates.
In rich countries, poor people have more kids than prosperous people.
Birth rates don't decline because of a "lack of resources". All the evidence says the opposite. Fewer resources means more kids.
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people decide to not have children because of how shitty it seems
The problem with this hypothesis is the shittier the situation, the more kids people have.
Niger is the world's poorest country, has the lowest literacy rate, and is currently having both a civil war and a famine. It also has the world's highest birth rate, at 6.8 babies per woman.
It is prosperous countries with growing economies where birth rates are dropping fastest.
Yep,
Because in developed countries it's expensive to have kids... It's the opposite in undeveloped countries, it's cheap to have kids and not only that kids are the 401k... There's no state pension, no superannuation nest eggs, not even any saving for your retirement because there's no money to put away. Their kids are going to be the ones who will take care of them in old age so having more means that you'll get better care.
Japan is a bit of special case where the rigid social structures seem to be m
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It's worth considering that the Internet also allows people to find information. Information such as the constant chatter about overpopulation. And some may actually make an informed decision not to have kids just to not be "Part of the problem."
Or the general disgust in humanity altogether. It's like we've hit a point where our entire species is looking at ourselves and going, "What the fuck? Maybe the universe would be better off without us." The information age is glorious. Until it shines a spotlight on
We bought the ticket, now we take the ride. (Score:2)
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Doing this, you also will observe women scorning men....because they generally do not want to date another woman, they want a strong man in many of the traditional roles in a relationship, even if they often state the obvious. They want confident, decisive men, protectors...providers.
The trouble is, with woman being "strong and independent"...you're teaching them now not to offer any
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Re:We bought the ticket, now we take the ride. (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you notice...in the 1950's...and even later, you didn't see the population dropping, we had replacement birth rates, we didn't have women complaining incessantly that they can't find "good men" and that they are lonely and facing life after 30yrs alone with their cats, etc....
You didn't see the suicide rates of men as high as now....
For the faults they had back then...we seemed to have more happier men and women and intact families of all races.
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I could be totally off the mark here; but your comment prompts me to wonder if the Web has anything to do with the failure of young people in developed countries to get together and have kids.
It is television.
Birth rates dropped in the late 1960s and 1970s when television became "wide spread" all over the world.
Regarding developed countries: unless you find kids cute and think it is worth the effort to spent 20 years with one or two: why would any one want to have kids? Seriously? Unless you simply love the
Re:China has a similar problem (Score:4, Interesting)
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Don't get me wrong, none of the above changes the fact that "one child (or else!)" was an oppressive policy. But it was more in line with majority culture than I had a
The one child was by all accounts (Score:2)
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If China had not enacted the one child policy we had now 10 billion Chinese on the planet instead of just 1.5 billion. ... so TV and birth prevention popped up more or less same time as the one child policy in China.
The countries around China are mostly "not communist"
My ex GF is 52. 14th child of a woman, who was over 60 when my GF was born. The mother did not think she could get pregnant again. When my GF was about 12, her mother educated her in birth control. Smiling: I was so old, I di not think I could
Every modern nation has it happen (Score:2, Flamebait)
The added stress of modern life doesn't help matters either. It's pretty well documented that mammals cut back on children. And the way modern life works you're in a 24/7 state of flight or fight. There's zero job security and these days not even much housing and food security
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There's zero job security and these days not even much housing and food security. Animals don't breed under those circumstances and humans are still animals.
^^^ +1 Insightful.
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There's zero job security and these days not even much housing and food security.
The people with the least financial security are having the most children.
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The added stress of modern life doesn't help matters either. It's pretty well documented that mammals cut back on children. And the way modern life works you're in a 24/7 state of flight or fight. There's zero job security and these days not even much housing and food security. Animals don't breed under those circumstances and humans are still animals.
Thank you for putting that message into a succinct summary.
To get things going... (Score:5, Funny)
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I never understood the fascination with school girl outfits in anime.
Then I saw a pair of what had to be high schoolers on the train in Tokyo.
I got it. :-)
"Your Honor, they said they were 18, I swear!"
You never lived in a North American city that had gaggles of Catholic high school girls out and about in their uniforms?
I had a girlfriend with that background, and she told me she used to roll up the waistband of her pleated skirt so she could get past the school's skirt length rules. But I was an appreciator of such costu... er, uniforms long before then.
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I'm American born and raised but no, never saw a single catholic school girl skirt in person. Not one, ever. Sure I saw movies n tv but shrug.
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Brittle cultural model (Score:3)
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Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:5, Insightful)
It's difficult to have a family if you're the stereotypical "company man". Spending long hours every day at work and then spending all night getting shit faced with your boss. Working less hours or not participating is seen as disrespectful to the company culture. You definitely won't get promoted if you choose to abstain.
Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:4, Insightful)
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So, company culture is valued higher than family then clearly, if the former is preferred overwhelmingly to the latter
I think that in some circumstances, company effectively becomes family. And since that part of the 'family' provides the resources to clothe, house, and feed your actual blood relatives, it's easy for it to take on what some might see as too high a priority.
I also think there's a decent PhD thesis to be had on the similarities between corporations and cults, which are famous for separating and even alienating family members.
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"Family values" doesn't mean families are valued.
It means that social scorn is heaped on nonconformists.
I don't think any of that is true anymore (Score:2)
When you poll people though the same things keep coming up they can't afford childcare if they even could afford to date enough to get a spouse. An average work week of over 50 hours is just a cherry on that s*** cake. I mean what the hell is the po
Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:5, Informative)
It's like the people in this country who claim to have "family values" while genuflecting to a convicted felon who's on his third marriage, has cheated on all three wives, has raped at least one woman, and assaulted several others.
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Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it was a big day for the Christian law and order crowd when their leader was convicted of multiple felonies for paying hush money to an adult film star with whom he had an affair just after the birth of his fifth child by his third wife.
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Which, in any other court in the US would have been thrown out....thankfully, this likely will be overturned on appeal.
This was at best a misdemeanor.....
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No, you are mistaken.
Falsifying business records alone is a misdemeanor. In New York, falsifying them in aid of another crime is a felony. Trump was found guilty of falsifying the records in service of other crimes.
Which, in any other court in the US would have been thrown out.
So Trump should be immune to breaking New York laws in New Your because laws are different in other states. That's... not how the law works.
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And there is SCOTUS precedent to be observed in that there is a ruling stating that if an activity/payment would be made in a non-election situation, then it cannot be ruled an election contribution....and people pay hush money to others in real life non-election situations.
I'm pretty sure that will come up on appeal.
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Which, in any other court in the US would have been thrown out....
Bullshit. In MOST countries he'd be held in custody for tampering with an election.
Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, not quite right. He didn't cheat in the presidential election. It was about lying to cover up illegal campaign contributions [factcheck.org] and falsifying business records during the commission of that crime.
âoeUnder New York state law, it is a felony to falsify business records with an intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime,â Bragg said in the press conference after the arraignment. âoeThat is exactly what this case is about.â
âoeWhy did Donald Trump repeatedly make these false statements? The evidence will show that he did so to cover up crimes relating to the 2016 election,â Bragg said.
But so much for the "law and order" crowd. Because who doesn't falsify their business records to cover up sleeping with a porn start while you're third wife is pregnant so the public doesn't know about another affair you've had while you're trying to run for president?
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> Anybody can make sense of this?
Bank of Japan has kept a lock on interest rates for, what, 30 years?
It has stifled growth and made people much more poor in real terms creating a jobs scarcity and hypercompetition for extant jobs (10/6+) which sucks for family relations.
Too many Japanese guys are superstressed and become alcoholics to try to cope.
Japan is locked into a positive feedback loop now - same as the US since Greenspan.
They can't unwind it without significant pain so they will let it explode at
Re:Brittle cultural model (Score:4, Insightful)
If they prize family values and they opt not to have families, sounds like, well, they don't prize them *as much* really?
You can respect family values by not having kids outside of marriage and not getting married before you are willing and able to commit the time and effort to having and raising a family. Respect for family values does not mean that you have to have a family.
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"family values" doesn't mean family, it means a particular brand of conservatism. One that's particularly limiting on women's choices. Women it seems when given the choice between a career and independence or children while being completely dependent have on average, chosen independence.
This is not specific to Japan.
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typical government that just serves the 1%, so it wouldn't be surprising if 99% of the population isn't thriving.
Japan has lower inequality than most developed countries.
The same is true of Germany. Losing a world war tends to be a great wealth leveler.
The highest inequality among developed countries is in Singapore and Hong Kong, which also have birth dearths.
List of countries by income equality [wikipedia.org]
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people who are working 60+ hours per week
Yes, where "working" means hanging out in your cubicle and playing games on your cell phone while waiting for the boss to leave.
urged authorities to do everything they can (Score:3)
I can't get those pictures out of my head now.
It's starting to happen in 1st world countries (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost like traditionally there was a reason cultures and religions focused on having children and prioritizing family / having a family.
Places stopped doing that, corporations are largely responsible for this as they control advertising as well, and turned into 'You want things, you need money, get as much money as you can. Divorce for money? Do it! Not having kids to spend more money on productions and vacation? Do it! Get married? Why do that! You would have more money to spend if you didn't! Saving money as a family? No! You should all work and spend your money.
Spending time at home with family? Don't do that! Work late, work longer, you get more money! Money is what you want. You don't need a husband, you need a career! You don't need a wife, you're a chad, money will get you everything you need, so just work more instead!
Well, people started buying the message, men and woman, and it turned a family into a bad deal for men quickly, and told woman they can everything and be happy without a family...it takes time for these kind of things to shake out and see the true results but..uh...here we are.
When one person could work, can have a house, live reasonably comfortable and support a family, birthrates were up, people were happier. Everyone has been squeezed for profits and maximizing working, and these are the results of that.
Re:It's starting to happen in 1st world countries (Score:5, Informative)
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I agree other factors are applying to it of course. Your example ties into mine, working with your family at a family store, farm or business is still spending time, raising, and taking care of children. Instead, they're considered a hinderance because not only should you work more, you need to pay someone else to take care of your children because they're not part of your work life.
Family was life before, including for work, survival and more. Now it's get in the office, make money, you need money, men and
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I am a skater and one of my modaliti
Dude people aren't being told they need that (Score:2)
We didn't change culture, we stopped paying people enough that somebody could stay home and raise kids. Then we stopped paying them enough they could pay someone else to raise
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As always it's the economy stupid.
Is this personal? Did you just call me stupid when my entire post was about being how to the focus on the economy shifted it and my last line was exactly that point? The economic shift was the cultural impact? Because people were told to sacrifice all that for the economy because it's better?
When one person could work, can have a house, live reasonably comfortable and support a family, birthrates were up, people were happier. Everyone has been squeezed for profits and maximizing working, and these are the results of that.
Don't be a goof, goof.
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There's one trouble here...these things aren't equal, because men don't have the ticking biological clock that women have.
Men can easily wait around, gather wealth and grab younger women.
Women lose their value quickly as they leave their twenties...
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I have personally always thought that the one test that truly matters is the test of time. "Traditional" society showed its resilience by birthing mankind and getting us this far, will "modern" society survive this test? I am rather skeptical.
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It's not a female dominated culture. 90%+ of the workers who build society, run the infrastructure and keep the world rolling are men. If all the men disappeared, the world would halt, construction would stop, electrical grids would go down, production would cease, goods would stop being delivered, gas would run dry. It would be the end of civilization within days, fires would break out as manufacturing plants caught fire and other services from no maintenance and control.
If all the females vanished from th
Encourage Immigration? (Score:3, Interesting)
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That's basically an invasion if it's at scale, because too many immigrants at once slows or stops assimilation. They don't come to japan and become japanese, and adopt japanese culture. They bring their own and replace it.
That's not fixing the birthrate issue, that's replacing your population / country with another one. Immigration is great but it is something that needs to be done at a rate infrastructure and assimilation can keep up with.
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You can barely exist in Japan without assimilation or someone to basically babysit you.
You can live there for a decade and still not understand everything despite trying pretty hard.
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The United States was built on immigration. So many cultures blended together that sometimes people don't remember where certain cultural norms came from.
In countries such as Japan, they are large enough that unless we are talking about entry of 1% of their current population or more, there isn't going to be an invasion.
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I don't know if your numbers add up, if their population is in decline, and they need enough immigration to keep the numbers up, the japanese population will keep declining, and yeah...so.
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P.S The same problems that caused the birthrate to fall will then impact your immigrants as well. Working too much, focus on money instead of family, all that, the problem will repeat. You need to fix the underlying cause.
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Re:Encourage Immigration? (Score:4, Insightful)
Importing people to fill an economic need as a policy tends not to be very popular with people already living in a location. Equally, it gives political opponents who are happy to seize on those fears something to wield and amplify, giving them a convenient underclass that they can demonize for their benefit.
Case in point: every nation in Europe and North America.
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Importing people to fill an economic need as a policy tends not to be very popular with people already living in a location.
Unless you live here in Ontario, where you're quite happy to see nurses who came here from other countries. If you didn't see them, you might not see any nurse at all for quite a while.
Re: Encourage Immigration? (Score:3)
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If the migrants bring their parents after naturalization it's of limited benefit. Especially after you import enough to get a decent size parallel society going, this is a significant risk for everything but first world migrants and guarantueed for the basket cases.
Short term at best (Score:2)
This is a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Endless growth is impossible
We need steady-state sustainability
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Informative)
This.
It's rediculous to run "global warming planet dying" articles in a newspaper right next to "OMG we need more humans on the planet" ones.
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We need more humans, we don't need more consumers. The problem is that modern society promises the cake and is eating it too.
The planet can handle more people just fine. It's just that everyone won't have access to a pocket AI on an iPhone they will change yearly.
Too many, or possibly not enough tentacles (Score:3)
Just a guess.
As a father of 5 (Score:2)
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they will expect a man as educated
Whut.
You think the woke left has somehow missed that women should have some standards and not have to settle for less just because?
I'd rather say that's precisely our position.
So much so that most young couples, even if they own their own home, won't feel financially secure enough to have more than 1 or 2 children.
You think the left hasn't been banging on about the housing crisis? Or the hoarding of wealth by the few. Or the instability faced by the youth of today? Do you
Saturation causes stagnation, (Score:2)
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Why do people push the notion that population a crash is only harmful due to "capitalism" or "the drive for endless growth"?
Children are literally the future. No children, no future. It's very simple. And in the interim, there isn't an economic system on earth that will allow a few young adults to support a huge number of older ones. Regardless of how many pieces of paper money the old people accumulated during their p
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Most developed countries have low fertility rates (Score:3)
Most developed countries have low fertility rates, rates that are below replacement level. This includes the United States, which at 1.67 to 1.89 (depending on which source you believe) is significantly below the estimated 2.1 threshold for replacement (or a stable population). Population shrinkage would be bad for the US (as it is becoming for Japan and other countries). The one saving grace for the US is immigration, without which the US economy would be significantly smaller.
Impossible to solve (Score:3)
This problem is impossible to solve. Educated women tend to have fewer children. Education enables opportunities doing things besides being a parent, like working full time.
Many Japanese women who work earn enough to sustain themselves and provide for some luxury goods or travel, without needing a partner. They are happy as they are.
Asking them to be a parent means sacrificing all of that in favor of being a mom who stays at home, because daycare and similar childcare is in extremely short supply and there is almost no government support for working moms. Thus an educated and employed woman accustomed to managing her own life is basically asked to surrender everything and take on the wife and mom role and jumper costume that goes with it. It's no wonder few want to do that.
What is in it for her except some sort of duty to country? It's absolutely not enticing. The government offers pathetic incentives to have kids and does nothing to support women who do choose that path.
On the men's side, many of them aren't even particularly interested in starting a family.
The only way this is ever going to be "solved" is to take unprecedented drastic measures like forbidding women from working jobs above menial level, to force them to marry to survive and hope that produces enough children. This is not going to happen. Nobody would stand for it.
There just soon won't be enough people to stand for or against it either way. Japan has very little time left to fix it and a terrible really bad track record of poor attempts to do anything -IF they even take it seriously at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Not a problem (Score:3)
Given that the population density of the country is much higher than that of the UK, a country which seems to be surviving just fine with about half the population of Japan, Japan is in no danger of disappearing.
Given the huge population boom in the latter half of the 20th century, it seems to stand that perhaps this is less of a problem and more of a renormalization. Maybe the people of the country will be happier for it.
Unpopular opinion, but hey, thatâ(TM)s what slashdot is for.
Re: (Score:2)