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Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#111

Post by prewett »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #94
rich_sasha wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and fair enough. It is also true that societies are brutally darwinian. The ones that prevail are the ones that can produce the most offspring, and bring it to economic maturity. This is the story behind the enormous success of China and India, per capita they are relatively poor but punch well above that weight since they have enormous populations. If they can sustain that population dynamic (which seems…

You realize China is having its own demographic crash, yeah? And India's birth rate is at or below replacement? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India Bluntly, whether you meant to or not, this comment is full of coded bigotry. It invokes images of a foreign hoard, bang at the walls of the west, threatening to dilute or destroy "our" way of life.

> full of coded bigotry

Baloney. The comment might rely on some outdated information, or if you want to be uncharitable, outdated stereotypes, but that isn't bigotry. There's no need to moralize.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#112

Post by xyzzy4747 »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #108
xyzzy4747 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious: have you ever considered going to a therapist about this? It's not psychologically normal to never want children. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also co-morbid with other psychological issues.

https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2023/childfree-study-confirmed... Apparently it's very normal. On top of that “abnormal” does not mean “unhealthy”, but then again, that's something psychologists very often don't understand either. Having an I.Q. above 145 is certainly not “normal”, but not a cause for concern either.

Perhaps it's culturally "normal", but it goes against evolutionary psychology, and it's probably unhealthy as well.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#113

Post by salmonfamine »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #106
salmonfamine wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The comment you're replying to explicitly acknowledges this fact in an aside. 2. It is not full of "coded bigotry." These are simple fact that almost everyone agrees on. India has explicitly made it a goal to reduce their fertility rate over the past few decades because of the problems of overpopulation. China's economy absolutely benefits from a high population. And yet I doubt you would characterize their humans…

> Even if it was, that isn't a critique of the comment's argument. Yes, it is. The core of their comment is "oh noes western values will be lost!" (Or as they put it: "the global West has values worth preserving for the future"). My point is, no, they won't, because fertility is dropping everywhere. We're not that special. And that this purported fear is simply rooted in age-old racist tropes of a loss of cultural id…

You're drawing connections, but you're not making concrete arguments.

Perhaps China and the West will both face population collapse. The argument still stands that Western values (and Chinese values) will be lost.

But humanity won't just vanish in a puff of smoke. It just means that societies that do not share "our" values will live on.

Do you believe in human rights? Feminism? Racial equality? Well too bad, because, at the current going rate, very few people in the 22nd century will.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#114

Post by kyleee »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #99
javajosh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had kids relatively late in life (42) and it's been amazing. I love being a dad, far more than I thought I would. It wasn't really about wanting kids or not wanting kids, it felt more like...puberty in that for most of human history you don't really get to choose to do it or not, it happens pretty naturally. I guess that's unfashionable to say. Perhaps some would say it's irresponsible. But the opening montage in I…

> I believe thinking too much about kids is a trap. Basically you should have them if you can. I cannot think of worse advice. Congratulations to you that you found a life that works for you. But the idea that people should just stop thinking and start procreating is absurd. Kids are a gigantic decision, the biggest one a person will ever make in their life. To not carefully consider that decision is utterly irrespon…

Poster did not say to “stop thinking” entirely but to avoid over thinking / over rationalizing about the reasons not to have kids.

You are on a tear in this thread, you may want to get some fresh air

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#115

Post by salmonfamine »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #99
javajosh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had kids relatively late in life (42) and it's been amazing. I love being a dad, far more than I thought I would. It wasn't really about wanting kids or not wanting kids, it felt more like...puberty in that for most of human history you don't really get to choose to do it or not, it happens pretty naturally. I guess that's unfashionable to say. Perhaps some would say it's irresponsible. But the opening montage in I…

> I believe thinking too much about kids is a trap. Basically you should have them if you can. I cannot think of worse advice. Congratulations to you that you found a life that works for you. But the idea that people should just stop thinking and start procreating is absurd. Kids are a gigantic decision, the biggest one a person will ever make in their life. To not carefully consider that decision is utterly irrespon…

Having kids was, effectively, not really a decision until the mid-20th century.

Would you say that all of your ancestors, prior to your parents, were utterly irresponsible?

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#116

Post by stephc_int13 »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #109
stephc_int13 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a huge population is extremely beneficial for leaders and for the so-called elite that profit from the pyramidal effect. But at the average individual level, I am not so sure.

You need a large population to support big industries and it helps tech innovation as well.

Taiwan population is not that large (23M), and yet they can support a pretty convincing semiconductor industry.

I agree that we need a reasonable amount of people to build and maintain large projects, millions, not billions.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#117

Post by jaclaz »

blamazon wrote: post #29
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #12

These threads pop up here just about every other day. It's not just Japan, though the media seems fixated on Japan to an unusual extent. Here are some 2023 TFR estimates, source: CIA. Japan: 1.39. Poland: 1.41. Spain: 1.29. South Korea: 1.1. Taiwan: 1.09. China: 1.45. Canada: 1.57. Germany: 1.58. UK: 1.63. Cuba: 1.71. USA: 1.85. Italy: 1.24. This is noteworthy as Italy has been under replacement TFR for nearly 50 yea…

> Why all of the articles [in the mainstream media?] about Japan, when the situation in Italy is more dire? Go figure. Japan is further along in the process I think? Compare [1,2]. Plus, they have cool robots, that gets the people clicking. [3] I have seen a lot of articles about Italy's 'dollar homes' which is a symptom of the same problem. [4] Maybe the promise of cool robots or extremely cheap homes or something s…

>I have seen a lot of articles about Italy's 'dollar homes' which is a symptom of the same problem.

If I may, as an Italian, those are symptoms of a different problem, there are a number of (small) villages that are simply inconvenient (because they are difficult to reach, offer no "entertainment" nor jobs, often miss a number of services, etc.).

I.e. there are reasons why they were largely abandoned in the last few decades.

If you are (Italian or foreigner) retired or working from home and interested into living a life outside the chaos of modern life those places are just fine (and are often beautiful), but you need to take into account the drawbacks.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#118

Post by PaulHoule »

teg4n_ wrote: post #48
orangepurple wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect many more are blisfully unaware of what will happen to them when they inevitably end up in a nursing home. I'm not sure what you mean by generational traumas but if you mean what I think you mean they can be overcome. My grandparents vehemently hated certain specific ethnicities till the end because their brothers and sisters and parents were executed ("disappeared") by their soldiers and secret police. My…

I don’t think having children is protection against ending up in a nursing home.

There is a friend of our family who had his father die of Alzheimer's disease.

For a long time lived with his wife: she was of sound mind, he was of sound body, and together they did very well. She died recently and he got a lot of help from him adult children.

He was fortunate in that he had worked as an English professor for a lifetime and had a lot of retirement funds and had bought long-term care insurance.

He moved into a long-term care facility once his wife died and had all sorts of misadventures in the COVID-19 period (went to the hospital, the care home wouldn't take him back, he moved back in with his son who was driven nuts by his father getting up in the night to pee, getting lost and urinating in the waste basket, eventually ended up at another care home, ...)

His son was able to get him a lot of extra help, hire a bunch of aides like my wife who would come around and make sure he still got some socialization. It really helped that he was not anxious at all and never got belligerent despite being confused all the time.

So far as getting support this is about the best case you can image: having the financial resources to pay for care, and having family members that supplement it and make the most of it. He spent his last few months in a real nursing home and in a place like that the staff is always making mistakes (sometimes serious, often not so serious) and if you have family members watching out for you you will get much better care than someone who isn't.

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#119

Post by cvhashim04 »

automatic6131 wrote: post #60
throwawaysleep wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ponder this question myself on the edge of Gen Z and my life is simplified tremendously if I just essentially pause it in high earning young person mode. Money is abundant for travel and anything I want. I don't need to figure out dating. Means I don't need to figure out everything from conflict resolution to clothing. I don't need to struggle to buy a ton of housing. I have friends/a sister who will have kids I ca…

It's strange that other people will pay the burden of raising children that support your retirement. You might think that your earning and savings supports your retirement, but no. It will be the next generation of workers that actualize it. Money is just unit of account, it by itself does not give you a retirement. Only working age, working people. We've found ourselves in a very strange moral hazard. You spend your…

Immigrants are carrying the child rearing burden

Re: Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

#120

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

taylodl wrote: post #105
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To your point, oftentimes the marriage wasn't considered valid if there were no children, after all, what evidence was there that the marriage had been consummated? No, I don't know what culture or religion you're referring to, but this is absolutely backwards to what the Catholic Churches (and, by extension, other Christians) believe and teach. First of all, every marriage that is going to be valid, is valid witho…

I was painting with a broad brush

Well, no, you seemingly invented something out of whole cloth, because I can't really find any evidence that non-consummation makes a marriage invalid, in a secular sense: obviously I've proven the religious aspect of it.

So [citation needed] for your broad brush: if you can prove otherwise then I'll stand corrected. The history of marriage, and the diversity of jurisdictions and regulation for it, is certainly a large haystack to search.

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