41–50 of 367 posts
I wish these stories would say if the hours are changing or not. 32 hours, 4 days a week seems better to me. But if all you do is take 40 hours and make it 10 hour days I’m not that much happier.
It was so much easier since then.
its got to help, but the main thing Japan needs to do is de-Toykoify the country. Urban density is probably the main causes for decline in fertility, and Tokyo is the worst example globally of runaway urban agglomeration.
When you live in a city, you have more opportunities to do anything else other than having children. Also, Japan’s fertility rate isn’t that much lower than Canadas. They just got to the problem earlier than anyone else, so trying to resolve it with any possible means. The biggest problem still continues though — there’s no real reason or incentive to have more than 2 children, other than “for the good of the society”. And women are less likely to sacrifice bare minimum of 6 years of their lives to give birth to 3 children. Especially when they can do… literally anything else.
Every educated girl friend of mine thinks exactly the same way as well. Some had a child or two, but more than that it’s just a burden to the couple. I’m obviously simplifying things, and once the third child is born, they’re loved and etc. But it’s going to be a very hard sell for anyone.
Too little too late. It may have an impact on the next generation, in 10-20 years, if at all. Also, for government employees only...
The best time to plant a tree, and all… Surely your argument isn’t, “at this point, why bother to do anything?”
Surely if the effort exceeds the value of the outcome, then it shouldn't be done?
I feel like it's been a long time fretting over falling birth rates and this is the first time I've seen anyone float the idea that making life better for people might make them a bit more inclined to make more people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially for something like Social Security safety nets, which relies on a larger younger population paying into it. I'm not sure if Japan has an equivalent but I think they do.
This is a great argument for individual retirement accounts rather than using the young to pay for the elderly. In the United States, if everyone's social security tax were put in an index fund, then everyone would be millionaires upon retirement. There are solutions other than pleading with people to have more kids.
It's the US government saying "since we are a wealthy nation, we will not let you spend your elderly years destitute."
That's it. That's literally all it is. It was meant to keep grandpa from being a burden on his family when he was too old to work, which in the 1930s meant when you were too old to do actual physical labor.
Since then the American public has seen it as a nice little bonus they get for living past 65 and has started stealing from younger generations in the form of sovereign debt in order to maintain that instead of treating it like the insurance policy it actually is.
Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending. Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-how...
The problem isn't that companies are "afraid of not growing", or governments are "afraid to cut spending", it's that they've already signed off on paying back loans over the span of decades and were expecting to be able to pay off those loans with the value created by a growing population. It's less about fear and more about economic realities.
If they are looking at a large aged population (lots of retirement savings) and lots of debt, inflation seems like an obvious solution, right? People not working will take a QoL hit due to their savings being worth less. But that is… what it is, I guess.
I feel like it's been a long time fretting over falling birth rates and this is the first time I've seen anyone float the idea that making life better for people might make them a bit more inclined to make more people.
I feel like it's been a long time fretting over falling birth rates and this is the first time I've seen anyone float the idea that making life better for people might make them a bit more inclined to make more people.
I am not sure about this one. In the past, quality of life was terrible compared to modern life but fertility was not an issue.
That sounds....huge. I know many working couples where one would probably take that in a heartbeat. You lose some money, but gain more family time and sanity. Having Friday to finish chores and being able to enjoy the weekend unstressed is huge, not to mention clocking out early each day to be able to pick up your kid and not have to get back to work or whatever.