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Kishida unveils plan to tackle birthrate crisis

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So what is he gonna do, is he gonna sabotage condoms? What they should really do is stop giving money to other countries and focus on home.

10 ( +21 / -11 )

Larger direct subsidies

At Thursday's meeting, Kishida said he wanted to budget roughly 3.5 trillion yen over the next three years for the policies.

Current government approach to any problem, just use more money and subsidy.

Whether the program is working that another issue but budget will be allocated for things that not necessarily solve the problem.

-1 ( +11 / -12 )

That’s his (and any government’s) only idea. Throw money at the problem. What a waste.

5 ( +14 / -9 )

Education costs (especially higher education) is the main reason why people are not wanting to have kids. Stop the entrance exam madness with cram schools and universities milking as much as they can from the population.

25 ( +28 / -3 )

He's going to personally raise that birth rate, isn't he?

6 ( +10 / -4 )

These brainiacs just don't get it! Couples need to have both parents working to be able to afford to have children. However, they can only do with adequate and affordable day care facilities. No daycare facilities equals no babies!

6 ( +14 / -8 )

These pollies have convince me that all come from privileged families and have never experienced what the real world is like to survive if of the low class, A super competitive and time starved middle class bordering on survival if they decide to have children. There is advantages set in law to help out a bit but no way enough ( benefits and Parent leave ) which are givens in all other western economies. But due the to competitive middle class any male taken parent leave is harassed and shamed. Now you have to generation which grow up with night school and remembering all the pressure/ competition associated with such a childhood are no going to start having children in the same environment soon. It going to take much more reform from the state and a generation before birthrate of the Japanese population improve. What are they going to do in that time span of 20/30 years? Immigration in big number will never happen.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

Let's take care of the children who are being raised by single mothers who get very little or nothing from fathers and these children are many times being raised in poverty.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

Education costs (especially higher education) is the main reason why people are not wanting to have kids. 

The biggest reason is women not wanting to follow the role of mother... Quit job, stay home, 24 hour child carer.

Kishida cannot fix the low birthrate problem without "fixing" Japanese society.

0 ( +14 / -14 )

easy plan to make more babies:

STOP RAISING FING TAXES! so we can afford to raise a family

stop forcing people to work unpaid overtime so we have time to raise a family

done

17 ( +19 / -2 )

Larger direct subsidies for those with children and more financial help for education and prenatal care are on the cards,

Well, one thing they can do is pay for those insanely expensive school bags. When we bought one for my son 2 years ago it was 30,000 yen. Now with the inflation, it's around 50,000.

along with the promotion of flexible work styles and paternity leave.

the promotion of flexible work styles might actually work. Getting workplaces to allow fathers to work more from home and making it mandatory to take PAID paternity leave might help a bit.

Another thing they can do is ask the cities to take municipal taxes and fix up the empty homes in their constituency and give them to couples with young children for free with a plot of land for a garden. Giving young families the SPACE to raise kids is important. As a father of 2 young children I know that buying our house which has a garden made a huge positive difference in our lives.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

3.5 trillion. Reminds me of the 35% divorce rate. People, especially men aren't going to invest in marriage or children if they don't have legal access to their kids after the marriage fails. Whats Kishida going to do about that problem?

8 ( +10 / -2 )

Free Child care, Free health care, Free Education, Free meals at care centers and school, Free Books and uniforms ETC. all these imposed rules on the young couples to comply with certain rules and dress code for the kids should be either REMOVED or paid for by those who demand them.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

Japan's population was 72m just after WWII. 125m is way too many people, particularly when you consider 70% of Japan is mountainous and over 90% of the population confine themselves to the dense urban cityscapes.

Many quality of life improvements could be realised if the government just manage the changing demographics (falling and aging population) with sensible long-term policies rather than knee-jerk, vote-motivated policies.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

In an already grossly over -populated country and indeed world, a decreasing birthrate is an excellent result.

-12 ( +6 / -18 )

Another thing they can do is ask the cities to take municipal taxes and fix up the empty homes in their constituency and give them to couples with young children for free with a plot of land for a garden. Giving young families the SPACE to raise kids is important. As a father of 2 young children I know that buying our house which has a garden made a huge positive difference in our lives.

I like the creative and originality of this idea. Something needs to be done with empty homes and falling birthrate with more and more land being wasted and people being crammed in smaller areas. Giving them away for free is a bit of a concern though as I can see something like this being abused by many. Perhaps a super low rental fee for X amount of years and the house is yours might suffice? This way you can take back some of the municipal tax fees that went towards renovation costs. Also, there should be some guidelines on who can apply.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Show me an industrially developed country that has solved the falling birth rate problem by increasing spending (on anything from free diapers, male maternity leave, free education etc).

Better still, just show me an industrially developed country that has solved the falling birth rate problem.

Immigration fills a void but it is not solving the falling birth rate problem.

We can't even find an across the board consensus on the cause of the problem.

Lots of opinions though.

gary

1 ( +2 / -1 )

1) Give men access to their children. Family law here is awful for the men.

2) Reduce all these taxes. Get out of the office and go to some supermarkets. Look at the prices.

3) Stop focusing on Tokyo. Develop areas outside Tokyo where families can live and work, with parks and recreation centers.

4) Stop giving an ear to all these Rogai who are complaining about children playing.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

I think Japan's birthrate will keep on falling because Japanese politicians are focused on addressing the needs of the old people who form the majority of the VOTING PUBLIC. The needs of young people are secondary or tertiary. Young people who have the urge to raise a family will never get the support that they deserve. They will never ever experience the friendly environment of raising a happy family, because the priority is to make old people happy and live longer.

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

Japan's prime minister unveiled a 3.5 trillion plan on Thursday to expand support for young people and families in a bid to help raise the country's plummeting birthrate.

Nobody is having kids in Japan! They'd prefer to have an expensive toy dog than deal with the responsibilities of child raising.(though its similar)

Since we all know it would be a waste of money, why not put that money to help with the soon to be expensive electricity bills that would be the cause of many deaths in summer and winter because people would be afraid to use their AC or heaters. Priorities, Japan! PRIORITIES!

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

So where are the actual details of the plan?

3 ( +5 / -2 )

He's going to personally raise that birth rate, isn't he?

Ladies, get in line!

3 ( +7 / -4 )

well so where is that PLAN?

I have asked same question yesterday-what EXACTLY LDP gov wants to do?

3 ( +6 / -3 )

I like the creative and originality of this idea. Something needs to be done with empty homes and falling birthrate with more and more land being wasted and people being crammed in smaller areas. Giving them away for free is a bit of a concern though as I can see something like this being abused by many. Perhaps a super low rental fee for X amount of years and the house is yours might suffice? This way you can take back some of the municipal tax fees that went towards renovation costs. Also, there should be some guidelines on who can apply.

This is awesome, more rent-to-own plans like this please!

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Aly RustomToday  08:41 am JST

Another thing they can do is ask the cities to take municipal taxes and fix up the empty homes in their constituency and give them to couples with young children for free with a plot of land for a garden. Giving young families the SPACE to raise kids is important. As a father of 2 young children I know that buying our house which has a garden made a huge positive difference in our lives.

The growing number of abandoned properties is a disgrace. There are various things governments could and should do with them, that's as good an idea as any.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Let's take care of the children who are being raised by single mothers who get very little or nothing from fathers and these children are many times being raised in poverty.

Or stop the single custody madness and introduce joint custody so that fathers can also participate in raising their children instead of treating them as walking ATMs

2 ( +4 / -2 )

First of all, more people should vote in elections, and they should stop casting votes for wealthy, career politicians, especially those of the LDP variety. Then perhaps the government will do things like initiate progressive taxation, make childcare cheaper and more available, and make public university education free (like in France).

5 ( +6 / -1 )

In rich countries we seem to be an a new era, "The Meaningless Era" in which anxiety, depression and a general malaise seems to have settled in across societies as people struggle to find some meaning in their lives as the blind pursuit of "more stuff" has fallen out of fashion and so many people in urbanized countries struggle to make maintain and keep close human connection with other people.

Not many people struggling for a meaning to their lives will ever want to have kids.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

All the downvotes to people who say Japan is overpopulated is peak hipocrisy. Every other article is about human impact to the world and it's the global population that is totally unsustainable. It's the awkward truth but hey, drive it all over the edge as you want.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

Get the married men out of the soaplands and into the bedroom at home, where they should be, would be more of a plan.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

There will always be couples who cannot have or do not want children. That is not the issue. The problem is the number who only want one child. The main reasons have been stated already. Education costs a fortune, mums who quit jobs are often not able to return to the same roles, houses are small in major population areas, childcare is inadequate, and prices are flying up all the time, with little or no wage increases. The richest generation in history, Japan's elderly, has to be pandered to by the government because they elect the governments. Kishida will look after them first. Japan needs the politicization of its youth and young families to have any hope of real change.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

People who are well-off have children. Make people better off and watch as the population explodes. People don't think "I'd like to have a child but diapers are so expensive these days." Or "If only they gave me two weeks off when my child was born, then I'd definitely have a kid".

How about "My economic situation is barely enough to see me through to the end of the month, what would I want with having a kid around?".

Give me lower taxes and a higher salary, I'd happily have another couple.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

@Daninthepan

You can't pay people to have kids, it hasn't worked anywhere in the world.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

What is the small man proposing? Exactly what kind of subsidies, as usual nothing concrete is being said by that pitiful politicians. Just make the jidou teate monthly instead of quarterly, easy fix.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Useless and feckless LDP!

The ruling party have known about the falling birthrate for years yet nothing effective nor decisive has been done, nor will be done…

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

People would easily decide to have kids if the environment around them was stable. Enough money from their jobs that keeps up with the current economic situation, access to education facilities, a social system that doesn’t unfairly burden women to leave the workforce if/when they have a kid! And good old fashioned policy changes like dual surnames that while less than1 percent would do, would be icing on the cake for some.

all these obvious changes that get refused by the ossans in charge, then they ask “why no baby for future!?”

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@proxy

You can't pay people to have kids, it hasn't worked anywhere in the world.

Not sure that's true - the UK has a problem with people having kids just to claim the benefits.

I'm not suggesting a cash-for-kids program, I'm saying make the average Joe's income/stability better and watch the population take care of itself.

(You'd also be surprised what I would do for cash)

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Truth is : no money in the world will make fertility rate go back above 2.1, as France model shows, for developed countries.

It has to do with degree of civilisation.

First, it is not men that decide to bear children. At least not before a long time.

Secondly, women decide nowadays the number they wish at any time.

Third, in a material world dominated spirit where replacing one's car, smartphone, toy dog,etc is more valued than sex life and a large family (or peace!).

No one needs money to reproduce, that is the truth (check fertility rate for Niger ladies)

https://www.google.com/search?q=gdp+per+person.niger&oq=gdp+per+person.niger&aqs=chrome..69i57.8616j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

It is matter of will from the local culture, not planting dollar trees.

With all due respect to ladies and sorry to say that objectively speaking the more rights about bearing life on average you give to ladies the less children. Prove me wrong. Hence the global situation in our modern world wvich is an issue with far more negative consequences to come than climate change by the way.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

AI extinction, war, climate change, nuclear weapons, inflation.

That is how you solve climate change, you tackle the hard problems.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

…then you get people wanting to have kids.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The first thing the gov't should do is treat people with respect they deserve, instead of seeing them as cash cows. Throwing money at the issues is a short term (election incentive) solution. Decentralise industry/businesses into areas away from the concrete jungles. Confiscate (& compensate) unoccupied properties and offer to rent/purchase to needy families to allow a more sustainable lifestyle. Renovating these properties would keep trades people working for years. Fix the school system that embraces an unsustainable workload on students, which only churns out robots that are required to blend into the black suit white shirt brigade of the workforce.

Govt.s have a responsibilty to care for their people, not themselves. Get off your backside Mr. K and visit families (unannounced, not with the hangers on dutifully taking notes. Then and only then, will you and your cohorts have some semblance of the difficulties the general population face.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Give me lower taxes and a higher salary, I'd happily have another couple.

Says a man sure of himself.

He forgot to send us the reply of his lady partner(s), which nowadays would usually be : no change to my perfect body, or one/two is enough or I want time for myself/ourselves or I want to keep on traveling around the world or ...

Love, empathy, time to flirt, badass attitudes may trigger but not often do women get paid to have a baby on demand.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

How about telling kindergartens they can NOT ask us to prove we work every damn weekend?!

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Reform education now for the ten years old and up, make them emotionally intelligent, curious and communicative and we could see the dawn of a new era. By the time they are 20 they will be all about connection in the new world.

Stay on course with what we have and they won’t even realize what life could look like. Educational reform is where at least a trillion of that yen should go. Maybe two!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

In case no one knows, birthrates are lowest in places with the most liberal childcare programs, and highest in places where no such programs exist at all. It is not a lack of childcare or other subsidies which is causing a decline in childbirths, but that people understand basic math. They look at their income, subtract the cost in time and money in raising a child or children, and make their choice based upon the result.

The fact that most Japanese now live in crowded metro areas in small housing is a large part of the problem. City living has positives and negatives, but when it comes to raising families, the higher cost of urban housing, and the lack of room is a serious problem for would-be parents.

Some years ago France tried a "New Cities" program designed to relieve crowding in Paris and other metro areas. If I remember correctly, 9 places were developed with rail and roadway infrastructure, and the government encouraged businesses and developers to relocate. Not all of these were successful, but some were, and are thriving today.

God knows Japan has plenty of room to in the countryside to develop. Creating more opportunities outside the metro areas would create more family-friendly environments, and cost much less than the 3.5 trillion yen currently being earmarked for spending. Such programs could be revenue-neutral if companies and developers were encouraged to move, and some of the regulations which cause businesses to gravitate closer to each other were eased or eliminated.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The problem has no easy solutions, throwing money to people is not going to automatically change society into something that more easily sustain bigger families. As mentioned before other countries have had some limited success with well planned strategies even if they are expensive and time consuming, Japan don't need to invent something completely new, it can just copy and adapt those approaches.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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