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Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

cnn.com

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Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#121

Post by RestlessMind »

admissionsguy wrote: post #10

How unhinged is it to call the lack of exponential population growth a crisis? There are enough (way too many in fact) people already. The social and economic mechanisms just have to adapt to the steady-state or even decreasing population levels. We should be grateful it is happening spontaneously, instead of having to think of instituting invasive policies to limit growth.

> "just have to adapt"

If I had "just a billion dollars", I'd be so happy /s.

Seriously though, do you have any tangible proposal of how to adapt? Because otherwise we are looking at a terrible situation where kinless elders are dying off lonely in poorly maintained facilities due to a lack of funding and a lack of caregivers.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#122

Post by Turskarama »

defrost wrote: post #97
Turskarama wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look into Simpson's paradox. The fall in birthrates is caused by countries going from undeveloped to developed, but within developed countries the birthrate is higher when the economy is stronger.

> within developed countries the birthrate is higher when the economy is stronger. So ... you're implying that the USofA saw peak economic strength in 1825 and it's been down hill ever since? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037156/crude-birth-rate...

No, I would say that the USA was still a developing country in 1825, and switched to a developed country after that point.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#123

Post by defrost »

Turskarama wrote: post #122
defrost wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> within developed countries the birthrate is higher when the economy is stronger. So ... you're implying that the USofA saw peak economic strength in 1825 and it's been down hill ever since? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037156/crude-birth-rate...

No, I would say that the USA was still a developing country in 1825, and switched to a developed country after that point.

At which point did it become a developed country then?

With respect to both the data above and cherry picking to best fit a specious argument, of course.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#124

Post by bpodgursky »

FpUser wrote: post #41
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got rich before their population started declining. I guess demographics is china’s biggest challenge in making it from a middle income economy to a high income one. However, if they follow Japan’s lead, they will invest in higher productivity via automation.

China might be more open to immigration than Japan and there is a big pool the could draw from.

There are not a lot of places that are big when compared to China...

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#125

Post by fomine3 »

jalapenos wrote: post #54
ar9av wrote: post #42

For anyone asking why this is a problem, our social system is setup that the younger working generations help the elderly and retired. Ideally you want a generational pyramid to sustain retirement and insurance funds, with the youngest being the base. However if the pyramid gets flipped where you have way more elderly and retired who need to be sustained financially and need care the system starts to collapse. What e…

One thing that I think would help (and is probably already helping) is remote work. The ability to cut out commutes and move out to cheaper places and bigger homes that are aligned with child raising is a huge help, as well as improving many people's lives generally. The government should really be leaning hard into this, and attacking meeting culture (especially in-person meetings) head-on.

Low marriage rate is a one of the root cause of low birth rate. It was common that people met at office and then be married. So remote work could make it worse. (regardless of which life is better for individuals)

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#126

Post by fomine3 »

RestlessMind wrote: post #119
jalapenos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I think would help (and is probably already helping) is remote work. The ability to cut out commutes and move out to cheaper places and bigger homes that are aligned with child raising is a huge help, as well as improving many people's lives generally. The government should really be leaning hard into this, and attacking meeting culture (especially in-person meetings) head-on.

Remote work is a double edged sword. If an American can do it from a cheaper place and a bigger home, the job will stay like that for a very short time before being shipped to Canada or Colombia for 1/3rd to 1/5th the cost. Why? Because execs and big shareholders always want greater returns for themselves and beyond a tiny fraction of truly high-skilled jobs, most of the jobs are pretty run-of-the-mill simple ones wi…

As for Japan, language barrier is big and salary is far lower than SV, so not much a big concern like your workplace.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#127

Post by Turskarama »

defrost wrote: post #123
Turskarama wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I would say that the USA was still a developing country in 1825, and switched to a developed country after that point.

At which point did it become a developed country then? With respect to both the data above and cherry picking to best fit a specious argument, of course.

It's a very fuzzy line isn't it? There are quite a few axes you could measure to decide what is developed vs undeveloped, and even the richest countries of the early 20th century would look undeveloped in the modern world.

But in the context of birth rates, I would say the three factors that matter the most is the infant mortality rate, the state of retirement, and the existence of child labour laws.

High infant mortality increases birth rates because parents have more "backup" children in case some die. A good retirement system reduces the number of children because people are less likely to have children just to look after them in old age, and child labour laws reduce birth rates because it turns children from an economic benefit to an economic burden.

Alternatively you could consider a country "more developed" if it has better support for parents through parental leave and baby bonuses.

So ultimately more developed = less children is a bit of a simplification, but I think it's _less_ of a simplification than more money = less children which is what I was arguing against.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#128

Post by jalapenos »

RestlessMind wrote: post #119
jalapenos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I think would help (and is probably already helping) is remote work. The ability to cut out commutes and move out to cheaper places and bigger homes that are aligned with child raising is a huge help, as well as improving many people's lives generally. The government should really be leaning hard into this, and attacking meeting culture (especially in-person meetings) head-on.

Remote work is a double edged sword. If an American can do it from a cheaper place and a bigger home, the job will stay like that for a very short time before being shipped to Canada or Colombia for 1/3rd to 1/5th the cost. Why? Because execs and big shareholders always want greater returns for themselves and beyond a tiny fraction of truly high-skilled jobs, most of the jobs are pretty run-of-the-mill simple ones wi…

Not really. Offshoring has been around for decades now, and it's all already baked in.

Japan would be uniquely immune, since the main barrier to an offshore dev working for 1st world companies is the language barrier, and they're all learning English, not niche languages like Japanese. The next barrier is the cultural one, which is even more extreme in the Japanese case.

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#129

Post by returnInfinity »

RestlessMind wrote: post #119
jalapenos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I think would help (and is probably already helping) is remote work. The ability to cut out commutes and move out to cheaper places and bigger homes that are aligned with child raising is a huge help, as well as improving many people's lives generally. The government should really be leaning hard into this, and attacking meeting culture (especially in-person meetings) head-on.

Remote work is a double edged sword. If an American can do it from a cheaper place and a bigger home, the job will stay like that for a very short time before being shipped to Canada or Colombia for 1/3rd to 1/5th the cost. Why? Because execs and big shareholders always want greater returns for themselves and beyond a tiny fraction of truly high-skilled jobs, most of the jobs are pretty run-of-the-mill simple ones wi…

Time zones matter, not everything will move to EU or South Asia

Re: Community’s 25yrs without a newborn shows scale of Japan’s population crisis

#130

Post by qwytw »

Brybry wrote: post #60
shjake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to lack some nuance. As demands for those goods on services increases while supply remains stagnant if not decreasing they’ll cost will grow. Making it hard for most Japanese people to sustain the QoL they are used to/expect without increasing the burden on the working age population. The Japanese economy has already been close to stagnant for the last 20 years or so.

But we also seriously increased our paid labor pool with women in the 20th century (and there are also certainly people who don't work who probably could work given the right stimulus). I think we'd need some research/math to see at what working population to non-working population ratio this is actually a problem (and what fertility rate is safe to avoid this if it is indeed a problem).

True but some of the jobs women who were not technically in the labor force did are now provided by others .e.g cooking, childcare, washing (well automatic washing machines, which is obviously a magnitude or more efficient than washing by hand and a bunch of other housework which used to require way more labor.

> working population to non-working population ratio this is actually a problem

True. Overall I find it a bit (well huge understatement...) disappointing that while productive has increased tremendously that has not been reflected so well in compensation (for most people for a privileged minority it's the complete opposite) or working hours.

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