LemonCheesecakeFox comments

I see people comment about "not a big deal, she's 17" and "age of consent 16".

It's even worse...the age of consent in Japan is 13y.

It is extremely frustrating to see news outlets abroad and within Japan blame this issue on "aromantic Japanese" or "Japanese don't want sex", it counters completely with what they then say is the issue...."love for 2D characters and excessive sex toys/sex business". So yes, Japanese are interested in sex and love as much as any other nation.

Once you start living in Japan and thinking about children you can identify the proper issues. To list a few;

1) The fudousan companies are sharks. Wanting to move into a bigger place to make room for children requires ridiculous up front costs making it difficult to make a decision on whether you even have a place to raise them.

2) Married couples get absolutely no benefits or tax breaks from being married unless one spouse makes less than 450,000yen/year. Good luck with that!

3) Child support is between 5,000 and 15,000 every month and only given until the child is 15.

4) Education is compulsory until Middle School so child support and school support stops at the age of 15.

5) While yes, you do get a birth lump sum and some coupons to help pay for the birth but it would help a lot if this was just covered by your health insurance by "recognizing" pregnancy as a procedure. From what I have heard, pregnancy and issues relating to prenatal checkups aren't "illnesses" so technically to covered by any hoken. It is up to your municipality to see how they support pregnant women with medical costs.

6) Extremely long working hours that make balancing life and work impossible.

7) The necessity of a family where both mom and dad work to survive in the current economy and low wages in Japan. Especially for baito.

Things Japan can do;

1) Give financial bonuses to married people and another one per child born. Don't let this be a responsibility of the local municipality. The birth lump sum is different as it is meant to cover the medical fees. I mean a form of "starter bonus" for your newborn.

2)Ban the practice of key money, being able to move easily will give people flexibility to start a family in a new place.

3)Start paying more per month as child support from the state.

People want kids but don't have them because once one income falls away and another mouth to feed appears life becomes very hard here in Japan. People need to feel comfortable knowing that having a child will not lead to poverty. Does that mean that we should let parents make a living simply from having children? No. The government should not support an excessive amount of expenses but they will have to pay a lot more if they want that "precious" birth rate up. Or at least not invest the money in useless dating apps.....

Japan's education's costs are based on relations between great salesmen and ignorant schools. The bags, uniforms, sneakers, hats, pen cases, etc are all to be purchased at the same stores. Little shops who rake in money doing nothing but sell to parents.

There's a fancy private school (Doshisha) near my home station and none of the kids wear uniforms. I was surprised as in my home country (Europe) private school = fancy uniforms. My Japanese partner said that expensive schools never have uniforms because they don't need the money from them. "huh?".

"Well, smaller schools make deals with uniform shops and they get a percentage of the profit. That's how it works. Private schools just get donations from parents and demand high tuition fees."