Japan's lower house passes child care aid bill to tackle falling birthrate

To implement the measures, the government plans to cut social security spending and create the fund to secure up to 3.6 trillion yen annually in the next three years.

There's no free lunch, they'll take cut somewhere.

*based on the view that the costs should be shared more broadly and* fairly

Is that a bad joke? The plan is definitely NOT fair. It shovels more more public money to people having kids while raising the tax burden on people not having kids and cutting their social security services, (which they pay for through their health insurance and pension contributions). Double-whammy exploitation.

If you don't have kids or have already raised your kids, then get out of Japan!

 The plan is definitely NOT fair. It shovels more more public money to people having kids while raising the tax burden on people not having kids and cutting their social security services

Not only that, those money just won't go directly to people who have kids but also for national campaigns and national projects that are not necessarily effective for those families but will eat some significant part of budget, whose company will benefit for those campaign and projects? Have anyone heard amakudari.

JeffLeeToday  07:17 am JST

based on the view that the costs should be **shared **more broadly and**** fairly

Is that a bad joke? The plan is definitely NOT fair. It shovels more more public money to people having kids while raising the tax burden on people not having kids and cutting their social security services, (which they pay for through their health insurance and pension contributions). Double-whammy exploitation.

If you don't have kids or have already raised your kids, then get out of Japan!

Ok but without kids who is going to finance your pension?

You will probably say through bonds bought by the BOJ with money printing but looking at the current unstoppable JPY fall we can see that this strategy has reached its limit.

JT really needs a comedy section or does the government really think that this will make any difference at all?

There are no parents holding off having children over ¥15,000 a month. None!

Fewer and fewer people in their 20s and 30s are getting married and that’s the main reason for the falling birth rate. Raising the health insurance burdens on unmarried people will only make it harder for them to get married and start a family.

The minister for child policy, Kato is an air head so that speaks volumes about this legislation. Just more money thrown around to garner votes.

Is that a bad joke? The plan is definitely NOT fair. It shovels more more public money to people having kids while raising the tax burden on people not having kids

It's entirely fair and reasonable in my opinion. Children are a valuable asset for society and raising them is a huge financial burden on parents. It makes perfect sense for the childless to contribute their fair share, so as not to become free-riders.

Not all of them at home anymore. It may not sound like much but an extra couple of man per child does go a long way. It isnt just money though its time. Give me all the money in the world but if my wife and I are already worked to death how can we fit in another kid?

A mere Band-Aid. They are afraid to tackle the major issue: the cost of education. The government needs to provide free education from elementary school through university. That would help most parents-to-be. The government should also standardize health care for children. Those are among the two biggest worries/costs that would-be parents complain about.

"Cuts to social security spending" should be detailed.

As for financial support, the easiest way to increase the birthrate is to help people with children already to have more children. Such people are already in stable (ish) relationships, like kids, already have one or two, and will already have kids stuff in their homes. The decision to have one more will definitely be affected by finances. Many parents I know in inaka mention it. Expanding child benefits for large families in particular will result in more kids being born.

Trying to get folks to marry and then have kids will mostly be money down the drain. You cannot force people into relationships and family formation. Everything in society is working against this.

You can't buy kids. Nowhere in the world has providing more benefits resulted in a higher fertility rate.

One thing I think is overlooked is dealing with the concerns of men and why they don’t want to get married. Amongst my circle of friends two of them were unable to see their children after divorce so I think many many men are aware of this risk and would rather not even consider marriage and deal with the psychological torture of not seeing your children and also the grandparents being unable to see the grandchildren.

Once again we see the J-Gov throwing money at a problem in the hope it will fix it. Child aid payments are very far down the list of reasons why people are not having babies. A lack of daycare facilities, no job security and zero salary growth for over twenty years are the main reasons people are not having kids.

And let's not forget that another way to fund this was to do away with the tax deduction for dependent spouses and children. The amount of the deduction was worth more than the anual amount of the allowance for my two kids. A net loss for me. Do away with the allowance, give me my deduction and let me manage my own money.

Let's praise sex and faitfhfulness perhaps instead of singleness and artificial pleasure ?

No money in the world will really change the falling birthrate, especially in Japan.

Making it with no income limits would just be throwing money away. Increase the allowance for the lower income families.

Ok but without kids who is going to finance your pension?

Kids dont finance people's state pensions. The Japanese govt is able to create its own money when it needs it, which it does on a routine basis. When the govt pays pensioners, bureaucrats press a button that credits their bank accounts. Bingo. Anyway, the GPIF (state pension fund) has a whopping big surplus, at or near a record high, and has seen steady robust growth even as the birthrate has declined.

The fiscal and financial burden of this program on people will outweigh any benefits it produces.

Blah blah blah there are no winners or losers in the aid bill it’s either populate or disappear. If people aren't being born to eventually work and pay into the retirement fund or social security where does the money come from. If no one pays into it eventually it runs out something has to be done. Doing nothing is a joke. Already you read about the population is aging and if people can’t work because of aging out and children aren’t being born to recycle what is dying off or living longer what you will have is the same people complaining that the government didn’t do anything as all the money gets drained out. Yes everyone hates change, but not all change is bad, in this case more taxes will result from it all we can hope for is this change brings something better because the future outcome could be far worse.

@Lindsay what part of the story did you not read. The government proposes to address those concerns “Other features of the bill include providing parents taking child care leave with more benefits and expanding day care services to make children eligible regardless of their parents' employment status”.

Once again we see the J-Gov throwing money at a problem in the hope it will fix it. Child aid payments are very far down the list of reasons why people are not having babies. A lack of daycare facilities, no job security and zero salary growth for over twenty years are the main reasons people are not having kids.

They just don't get it, do they, but frankly, what can Japan expect from the conservative ojisans they continue to put into power, every election? This is the most hard headed group of dogmatic thinkers in the country, who don't see any of this as a symptom of the patriarchal corporate Japan Inc society they strive to protect. Pushing money at the problem shows; 1. A complete lack of creative and divergent thinking, and 2, They refuse to accept that the reason young people, but particularly women are opting out of marriage and childbirth. Yes, they say childrearing is too expensive, but after that they say that too much of the childrearing burden falls on women, and there are too few jobs that are compatible with child rearing - both of which come down to Japan's corporate culture and working conditions.

So, if Japan really wants to slow the birthrate decline, it has to change its corporate culture, which they refuse to do.

They say 'adapt or die', and in a couple of hundred years, this may very well be a university textbook case of how a country refused to adapt, and died by 50% or more.

Why doesn't the government go after all the deadbeat fathers and mothers that take off and leave the other parent holding the bag. Those deadbeat parents are hiding and working and living just fine, all the while the parent raising the kids is holding down jobs, getting help from the government and the list goes on. Why are taxpayers not up in arms about that?

remove the income limit

I wonder who came up with this genius ideas? The impediment stopping high-earners from having kids is clearly not money-related.