Hold on. Before you condemn my headline, are you aware of how messed up their culture is? Your "society" is supposed to pivot from having human progeny to purchasing canines. That way, folks can fawn over their hound, buy it lavish presents and become emotionally attached without having to bail the "thing" out of a police station during its teen years.
Don't these idiots "get it"?
Incredible Shrinking Japan
The great country’s population has fallen for 12 years in a row.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
April 16, 2023 6:22 pm ET
Remember when global elites worried about overpopulation? Tell it to Japan, where the internal affairs ministry announced last week that the country’s population fell in 2022 for the 12th consecutive year, dropping 556,000 to 124.95 million.
This marks the 16th year in a row in which deaths exceeded births, with a record drop in births of 731,000. All of Japan’s 47 prefectures except Tokyo saw declines.
To maintain a stable population, countries need a fertility rate of at least 2.1. Japan’s is 1.34. The U.S. has a birth rate of 1.64. Twenty-seven percent of Japan’s 50-year old women have never had a live birth, the highest share of childlessness among developed countries. Finland is next at 20.7%.
Japan’s shrinking population is an accelerated version of the trend across the developed world. More women are seeking professional careers rather than motherhood, more men and women are delaying marriage and family decisions, and the overall cultural zeitgeist runs toward individual fulfillment rather than the sacrifices of child-rearing.
A shrinking population has consequences for economic and national vitality. In Japan it is straining the aging workforce, and burdening a shrinking number of young taxpayers with a growing cost of elderly care. Japan’s saving grace is that millions of its seniors are willing to work past retirement age. According to a 2021 Annual Report on the Aging Society from Japan’s Cabinet Office, 40% of seniors in Japan want to continue earning an income, compared to 30% in the U.S.
Japan’s leaders have tried numerous pro-natalist policies to arrest the decline. This includes more money for child care, longer maternity and paternity leave, and paying mothers a lump-sum of 500,000 yen (about $3,700) per baby. Nothing has worked. That’s a warning for American conservatives who think they can fire up a new baby boom by turning the dial on child subsidies. Cultural trends are hard to overcome.
One policy alternative is more immigration, which was once taboo in insular Japan but was increased under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Most migrants to Japan are guest workers from other countries of East Asia who fill openings in the labor market. But Japan has never made it easy for foreigners to assimilate.
Immigration has helped to offset the birth dearth in the U.S., which for 200 years has had a genius for assimilation. But that may be ending as voices on the left preach that American society is corrupt and racist, while many on the right want to stop all immigration.
Japan is a highly stable and successful society that is managing to cope with slower growth and less dynamism caused in part by its declining population. We doubt the U.S., with its cultural diversity and history of seeking new frontiers, would cope as well.
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