Childhood is in crisis. History is not repeating itself. This has never happened before. In Japan and worldwide – but in Japan especially – the strongest terminology applies.
Children in Japan are an endangered species. Fewer and fewer children are being born. The 799,278 births recorded in 2022 represent a 5.1-percent decline from 2021. It’s the seventh consecutive record low – down from a 1973 peak of 2.09 million. Elderly Japanese 65 or over constituted as of 2020 28.6 percent of the population – the highest in the world; children 15 or under: 11.8 percent – the world’s lowest. In purely numerical terms, children are being swamped. There are 13 million fewer children in Japan today than in 1950. That’s the state of affairs the government’s new Families and Children Agency, born April 1, confronts. Its head, gender affairs minister Masanobu Ogura, has vowed to create “a child-centered society.”
Spa (April 11-18) broadens the context. China and South Korea are in similar straits. China last year saw its population decline for the first time in 61 years. South Korea leads the 37 advanced nations of the OECD in an unenviable category: its death rate surpasses its birth rate by the widest margin.
Common to all three countries is a phenomenon that will weigh heavily on Ogura as he proceeds: marriage aversion. “Lifetime singles” – people aged 50 and up who have never married – comprise 23 percent of Japan’s population today, versus 5 percent in 1970. Various causes have been identified – economic, social and psychological. It costs vast sums nowadays to raise a child – let alone two or three. Children must be educated – as never before; high technology and related employment tend to leave the inexpensively-educated far behind. Great sacrifices are required. A minimum prerequisite is a stable job – increasingly elusive as part-time hiring spread. Wanted, children are an unaffordable luxury; unwanted, an avoidable burden. Why have children at all? Why marry?
There’s so much else to do. Liberated, economically independent women can live without husbands; a growing number prefer to. They can live without kids too. Why tie oneself down to drab motherhood and homemaking when careers and after-hours entertainment offer such exciting alternatives? China in 2016, its population aging, relaxed its one-child policy, introduced in 1980 to counter overpopulation – only to find that young Chinese were focused elsewhere. Making babies was a low priority. The regime’s invitation went unanswered. Some things even a dictatorship cannot command. Demographic aging speeds on.
How do children feel about all this? Their voices are seldom heard; when heard, imperfectly understood – naturally. Their psychology is different, their vocabulary limited. An adult word that seems to fit is “helpless;” or if that’s too strong, “vulnerable.” UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, in 2020 ranked Japan 37th among 38 countries in terms of “children’s happiness. Japan’s government-affiliated child consultation centers report more child abuse than ever, more child suicides than ever, more and worse bullying than ever. It’s a jungle out there.
Things were bad, and then came COVID-19. UNICEF says children worldwide lost 2 trillion hours’ worth of education as schools closed against the pandemic. That’s serious in developed countries, catastrophic in poorer ones, where education has at best a precarious foothold. Japan is relatively fortunate; still, a 2021 joint survey of Japanese children’s lifestyles by the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Tokyo and Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, found 40 percent of elementary school children and 60 percent of junior and senior high students answering “no” to the question “Do you feel motivated to study?” – a 10-percent rise from the last year before COVID, 2019.
Barring brutality, children probably take the world they see around them for granted; they know no other. A dwindling minority today, they’d probably be surprised to be shown the streets, parks and playgrounds of earlier times, swarming with laughing, shouting, crying little people. How it would buoy up their spirits! Then a child lived in a child’s world – a happiness few know today. Everyone agrees on the need – economic, social, psychological – for more children. What’s the recipe? “Ninety percent full-time employment,” journalist Miho Kobayashi tells Spa.
Japan’s part-time work force is swollen. The economic bubble of the 1970s and ’80s burst in the ’90s and corporations went frugal. Successive governments cooperated, annulling – in the name of “freedom to work as one pleased” – restrictions on part-time hiring. Employers found they could squeeze full-time work out of part-time staff paid part-time wages. Corollary to “freedom to work” was freedom to fire – redundant part-timers are simply told their services are no longer required, and that’s the end of them. There are no benefits and no job security. In 1990 Japan’s part-time work force was 20 percent of the total; now it’s 36.7 percent.
Childbirth declined in proportion to the rise of part-time work. Kobayashi hopes it will revive in proportion to the restoration of a full-time work. If it’s not too late.
Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.”
© Japan Today
22 Comments
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cleo
I did the ‘single working girl” gig followed by the ‘dinks’ gig followed by the ‘drab motherhood and homemaking’ gig and now the ‘empty nest, do as you please, work or play’ gig.
Yes it’s nice having money and being able to do what I like, when I like, no responsibilities. But I feel the most satisfying thing I’ve done in my life is raise two gorgeous, brilliant healthy kids, give them a happy childhood and instill in them the skills and moral standing they need to make their own lives as adults. And while it may not all have been jolly fun, it was all worthwhile, and a lot more fun than not.
Regrets? Only that we didn’t have maybe one more kid.
Drab motherhood and homemaking beats any kind of ‘work’.
GillislowTier
Such a strange problem. Needs more kids yes, but also refuses to get the ball rolling in ways that will make unmarried couples take the first steps confidently. Stuff like dual surnames are nice little options but if it’s like any other country only a small fraction will even do or consider it and even that is a plus.
then there’s just wanting more kids. One of the best interviews recently was a kid asking why the government keeps saying more babies. Is it just to bolster the workforce or do they actually care about us and our families. If a 9 year old can see through the governments empty words like that what will they try to do to convince us to just have kids with no support
kohakuebisu
I'll have to ask my missus about this.
I guess she might have regret about not travelling as much as she theoretically might have done had she remained single and somehow had lots of funds to travel with. I extremely doubt she will have regret about not having the "exciting alternatives" to homemaking that are going to work every day in a career job at Yasuda Seimei life insurance (for example) and the odd hour at karaoke after work. Note of course that people with career jobs at Japanese companies do not get to go on extended holidays to exciting places. They have short holidays only, usually at expensive peak times.
1glenn
My wife and I cannot imagine not having had a family, but we also don't pretend to know what is best for others. We have friends with no children, and think no less of them for that.
I guess if one is in upper government, this issue is one that has to be thought about. As others have said elsewhere, making it easier for people to have and raise families is always a good idea, at least in my opinion. For instance, mandating paid time off when there is a new-born might increase the birthrate, as well as tax incentives for raising children, and help with medical and education expenses. I know that after school care when the kids were little was a huge help for us. Our relatives in Scandinavia like the one-year period of paid parental leave....either parent can stay home to care for the new baby. It is good for baby, as well as the parents.
At some point, we humans have to think about stopping the population explosion. There were fewer than 2.5 billion people on Earth when I was born, and today there are more than three times that number, over 8 billion. Obviously, sustainability of resources is also an issue to be addressed.
Peter Neil
Agree. Rising costs of living and raising children are lowering birthrates across the world. The highest birthrate continues to be in the poorest countries.
kohakuebisu
Yeah, people are definitely getting poorer. You have to work much harder, typically both husband and wife, to buy the same house, to get your kids to do the same activities and attend the same colleges, go to the same concerts, holidays etc, and retire at the same time with the same living standard etc. compared to the 1970s. No-one needed food banks in the 1970s.
At the same time, thanks to Murdoch and the like, the newspapers just blame young people for own plight, you know, all that nonsense about spending money on coffees or avocado toast.
Tamarama
Recently I saw an art exhibition by a group of 17 year old students from a privileged elite private Tokyo school, and it was striking how dark the thematic ideas in the work were. Alienation, mental health, depression, suicide, cultural disassociation, dystopia, isolation, social anger etc etc. It's probably the darkest exhibition I've ever seen and it was....disturbing. Why do this group of young people who are about to enter what should be one of the best and most enjoyable periods of their life, and who come from absolute first world privilege, view the world so grimly? None of them want to study at a Japanese University, all want to go to international colleges.
Japan's problems are much, much deeper than the education system, as this article alludes to. This government, which only supports and fosters the crippling work culture that squeezes the colour out of life out people in Japan, is responsible. Stop focusing on making Japan a 'child centered' country and start focusing on the well being and prosperity of the adults through their life. When adults are happy, comfortable and prosperous, they'll have the kids. It's really not rocket science.
virusrex
The question is more a consequence of the problem than a cause, there is no reason why this has to be a choice. With proper infrastructure and support parents should be able to have productive careers and fulfilling entertainment with or without children.
kohakuebisu
That's the plot to the "Idiocracy" comedy movie isn't it. All the clever well-to-do folks stop breeding, and the chip off the old block, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, etc. idiots take over and start feeding plants with Pocari Sweat.
I'm the father of three.
kohakuebisu
No, I didn't take it that way at all!
I just a wanted to make a cultural reference to a kind of stoopid but fun movie from the Beavis and Butthead people. It's nearly 20 years old now, so I'll have to rewatch it. It may seem more far-sighted now the way society has gone.
AviBajaj
Almost 800k birth per annum is more than healthy population wise for Japan’s area wise more than enough rest will all come in line with initial glitches
Isubari8
This always seems like one of the strangest conflicts. If rising costs equal lower birthrates in rich countries, why are birthrates higher in poor countries?
Is it because parents in poor countries see having children as an investment in their future? Is it due to a lack of or aversion to birth control? And while there are many stories of poor, desperate people dying on their way to make better lives in rich countries, many more children are raised with love and support in poor countries.
K3PO
LOw birthrates in any countries. Mother Earth smiles.
Moonraker
Maybe, in the final analysis, by multiple means, modern Japan destroys the will to live.
Moonraker
I am fascinated to learn the reasons some may have for this lack of motivation to study. I mean, at university level there is an unfathomable level of incuriosity and apathy, if you have ever taught there, and it gets increasingly shown up by the foreign students. So it is my hypothesis that this is something inherent in the education system that is central to Japan's woes. It's a good one, I think, but I am open to others and not just a quick downvote.
Aly Rustom
Childbirth declined in proportion to the rise of part-time work.
There is your answer right there.
Kobayashi hopes it will revive in proportion to the restoration of a full-time work.
Not gonna happen. To many fat cats making a killing off the exploitation of the part-timers. And Japan is a feudalistic society with people having a feudalistic mentality.
If it’s not too late.
It is. That ship has sailed.
Moonraker
But the education system itself seems designed to curb motivation to study. Kids have been hammered with the idea that all knowledge is instrumental - mostly for the purpose of being spewed out in another pointless test - so that fear is the only thing behind the motivation; not curiosity or love of learning. So, by the time they reach university, it must be even more who answer "no." I could not bear to put my child through such a lifeless system.
Akula
Too many grass eating emasculated men. What do people expect will happen?
Moonraker
I don't believe it. Let's give that a downvote.