Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is Japan's Population Declining?
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Every dictator wants to increase the population to increase the workforce and future military-- It was the same problem in Romania, and as the authors of "Freakonomics" theorized, a state-enforced rise in population may have led to Romania's spiked increase in crime fifteen to twenty years later, as more lower-income families who couldn't support and provide for children were leaned upon by the government to have them. The authors' controversial theory was that the US's legalization of abortion in the 70's may have led to a sudden downturn in crime in the late 80's and early 90's, which all the sociologists were trying to find political explanations for (Reagan? Giuliani?). It's not so much the amount of population, as the balance that can provide education and employment for it. |
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Eri94
Posts: 220 |
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This is happening the world over but in Japan it is much accelerated. |
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Mr.Shonen
Posts: 269 Location: Brooklyn, NY |
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Why should Japan go through a European style change? Real life ain't that decades old Coca Cola commercial. I live in NYC, it's not the Diversity Utopia people like you claim it is. Most of it is pockets filled different ethnicities where English is not their first language, rather stick to their own kind and pretend their street is the place they came from. Also, don't act like every non native European that lives in a Sweden or England is accepting of their host nations customs and traditions. Back to Japan. They literally had no problem taking over other Asian countries 80 years ago. You really think every Japanese person is gonna except those people with open arms automatically foregoing their biases and prejudices. Again please let me have what you're smoking. |
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Gender interaction has changed on both sides of the Pacific, but for different reasons. American problems have been *strongly* sped up by the 2008 recession and the general Millennial "malaise", while Western Europe has been more strongly affected by rapid secularization and simply papering over it more and more with the immigration that's now the source of so much instability. Japan's causes are a bit more unique, with its cultural pressures, the Asian financial crisis of the late '90s, and Hikikomori phenomena which grew in the 2000's long before we were seeing much of that in the US. Nevertheless, the end result becomes the same. Few children, fewer marriages, fewer demands on people to grow up and live in the real world instead of a fantasy one, and an economy that struggles to a) fund social services with fewer workers, and b) squeezes more productivity out of the existing ones or automates their job away as a way to reduce operating risk. But yes, men and women need to get together and have babies. Societies which de-emphasize this do so at their own mortal risk. |
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helln00
Posts: 106 |
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To the people that noted that part of the reason for the lower birthrate is due to greater economic independence of the women and therefore them foregoing marriage in favour of a career, there is a very interesting insight into this phenomenon that people should note.
I cant remmember the name of the study off the top of my head since i only heard about it in a lecture but there is also another relation that has been found with regards to marriage and labour, so it may and probably does indirectly affect birthrate The relation is that a marriage tends to be more successful if the men has a more substantial share of the unpaid-labour (housekeeping, childcare probably the most expensive thing on the list, house maintenance) then say the average couple. The point of the insight is to note that the mechanism of of decreasing marriage isnt the economic opportunity of the women in and of itself, but that a marriage is maintained to a strong extent by the unpaid work and now that both people have access to paid opportunities, the unpaid labour that maintains the marriage becomes less of an action that is taken. For marriages to survive therefore, its more likely that couples with more equal share of work contribution, paid or otherwise will have the more successful marriage. So policies that may deal with the marriage problem purely through financial incentives such as taxes maynot be as affective as providing services that makes the unpaid labour less intensive like childcare or even something more complex like changing work hours so family maintainance can be more manageable. tbh though this is a cultural thing and arguably even harder to change then most of the economic incentives and structural incentives out there, i wont put my money on whether or not the cultural institution of marriage survives in it current form in the next few decades. if that is the case we may need a better system of making kids, may its finally time for real test tube humans. |
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FloozyGod
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That's messed up! |
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NGK
Posts: 244 |
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Japan usually likes to be compared and want to be ranked with western Europe countries. Both have similar annual growth rate GDP (pretty stagnant by American standards) and both have basically hit the wall. Japan and western Europe are in post-growth. Western Europe thinks the way out of post-growth is to become multi-cultural and import more migrants with dissimilar, if not outright hostile to western liberal society. Japan thinks the way out is to stay on course (demographically) and continue to innovate (high tech, robotics, and artificial intelligence) and brace for the dawning of Singularity. Mark my words. It will be Europeans who wished they followed japan's footsteps in dealing with post growth society and transition to Singularity. Europe will be saddled with bunch of deadweights, chaos, strife and natives feeling like they lost their own country. The western European situation is perfectly summed up here: " Multikultistan: A house of horrors for ordinary Germans " https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/295 The above is a sobering intel memo the Hillary Clinton campaign chairman received earlier this year when the Hillary camp staunchly advocated for increasing middle east refugee settlement in the US in that same timeframe. It contains all the ails the ordinary Europeans (not just Germans, and Sweden is in for a more sorry disgraceful state it's finding itself into) have to put up with (it was something that need not forced to them), and if a Japanese reads this (or at least read translated version) it would encourage most Japanese to keep their current course and just continue to keep innovating technologically in order to be prepared for potential disruptive (if not destructive) nature of Singularity while also thriving. |
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FloozyGod
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Justin said 1/3 of Japan's population is over 60, and I believe this nationalistic ideal is held by them the most. So as the old guard dies out, the younger generation with an open mind will change the policies and let more immigrants move in, and let women have more flexibility between work and raising a child. |
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NGK
Posts: 244 |
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Japan only wants revolving door policy for those with no university degree. So guest worker "intern" "trainee" program is the preferred method. Also, Japanese voters, in two elections 15 months apart, accorded their government a remarkable show of trust, giving Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democrat Party a two-thirds “supermajority” in both houses of the Diet. What policies this trust rewards or seeks to encourage is unclear. It’s an extraordinary gift conferred by a democracy upon an unabashedly illiberal government. Interestingly enough, the strongest support — the deepest trust — came from voters in their teens and 20s, the very segment that used to regard just about any serving government, let alone a conservative one, with cynicism. If cynicism has given way to trust, so much the better (unless it’s blind trust). |
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Cutiebunny
Posts: 1755 |
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That is an overgeneralization. Among latinos, this is not true. Ever gone to a school that is predominantly latino in the US? I have and I can tell you that if you want to be popular with your peers, you don't get As. I know some of you would like to feel that Japan will get more progressive as the elderly die out, but a lot of women don't want these changes to occur either. They realize how difficult it would be to work full time and raise children, so they're not necessarily all up in arms about things remaining as they are. And with professional child care often costing $700-$2000/month (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21880124), why would they want to work full time when most of that money will be spent on childcare? I remember reading another article on the BBC where one of the reporters who was recently posted in Japan complained that there was no space for her child at any of the local daycare centers as many of the women start reserving future spots for their child during pregnancy. |
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Stuart Smith
Posts: 1298 |
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I live in California and I've also never really seen it either. Every city I've lived in was segregated for the most part. During high school and college white people hung out with mostly white people, blacks with blacks, Mexicans with Mexicans. All those shows that have a team full of diverse members never seem very realistic to me due to my experiences I don't really follow European news but diversity in Japan would only be a bad thing. There's already tension between foreigners in Japan and Japanese. One of the biggest conflicts involving US servicemen in places like Okinawa, which are cited as being a major factor in crime rates. A few months ago there was a huge protest about Japanese wanting American servicemen out of Japan since they committed so many crimes like rape and drugs. There's nothing wrong with being a homogeneous society. There's more evidence than not that it's more beneficial than being multicultural. -Stuart Smith |
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Deadwing
Posts: 174 Location: North Augusta, SC |
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Japan has two options:
1) Propose, pass, and enforce natalist policies. Such policies should be pro-active. Tax breaks for having children. Better access to affordable child care and other services to make raising children less of a financial burden. But natalism carries its own dangers, as unchecked population growth creates an ever-greater drain on natural resources. Japan should focus on stabilizing their population by increasing the total fertility rate to right at or only slightly above replacement level. 2) Encourage immigration. This would be the quick-fix solution. More foreign-born people coming to live and work in Japan creates more workers and grows the economy, assuming per capita GDP remains constant or grows. In fact, the only reason the U.S.'s population is continuing to grow is because of immigration, as our total fertility rate is a bit below replacement level. An immigration-focused would have to focus on assimilation of immigrants and on encouraging businesses to hire foreign-born workers and pay them well, as well as tolerate non-Japanese as customers. However, this policy runs into problems of its own. Japan is a racially homogeneous nation with a strong xenophobic undercurrent. An influx of immigrants can help stoke nativist and racist sentiment just as it does in the West (what's Japanese for "They took our jobs!"?), thus resulting in a backlash. But whether it's from increasing the fertility rate or bringing in immigrants, Japan will have to find some way to grow or at least stabilize its population if it doesn't want to continue shrinking. |
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Satoshi Batista
Posts: 13 |
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If it that's the case then it cuts both ways, because I've seen quite a few instances of dudes complaining about modern women being too uppity and not fitting the ideal they have. There are plenty of men who hold very ridiculous, idealized visions of a wife or girlfriend who just shuts up and goes along with whatever they want to do, and then are shocked to find out a lot of women actually have their own desires and opinions in the real world. And if you're the kind of woman who is actually focused on having a career or personal ambitions, that's generally not the sort of future you want for yourself.
There's always going to be initial resistance to change. But if things didn't happen because there was a segment of the population that might get pissed off at it, stuff would literally never get done. You're never gonna have a unanimously popular strategy or social change that everyone is in favor of. |
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NGK
Posts: 244 |
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How about a third option... Like entertaining the option for central & local government to incentivize willing participants currently the cities to live in the countryside that have depopulated and make it productive again? For example: -Tax cuts and other incentives for companies to relocate their headquarters out of the main urban areas of Japan. -Providing people who are considering moving to the countryside the necessary living/job information to do so. -The central government providing funds to localities who have produced concrete and sound plans for their own revivals. -Measures to increase the birthrate, including the setting up of sufficient numbers of childcare facilities. -Active enticing and development of new industries |
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Jonny Mendes
Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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Have you go to Sweden or Norway? Because multiculturalism don't work. Muslim people in those countries live in ghettos were the Police don't go and were crime and sharia law are rampant. They are deporting emigrants, and closed the borders to refugees. That are happening all over Europe. And trying imposing multiculturalism in Japan would only led to absolute fail. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro said that Japan is "one civilization, one language, one culture and one race". |
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