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Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

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Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#41

Post by EZ-E »

space_fountain wrote: post #36
elzbardico wrote: post #33

This won't work and it is fine. Nothing is permanent, world population has fallen considerably in other times in history. Yeah, the GDP will probably drop, but necessarely the per capita GDP. Yeah, a falling GDP is not good news for people who lend money and expect compound interest over a long horizon of time, some defaults will happen, probably we would end up having to forgive some debts and writing off a lot of s…

A large class of people who loan money are people looking to fund a retirement. This will be devastating to them

I'm sure financial engineering will find a way to make it work in the end

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#42

Post by ekianjo »

andrewclunn wrote: post #24

Kids are hard. People are selfish. Birth control works. The dating market is torture. Divorce is rampant. We're constantly bombarded with environmental destruction predictions. Most wealthy nations have leaders that seem content to replace the existing populous with poor immigrants. Even the poor nations that these immigrants are coming from are now seeing their birth rates collapse. Culture and laws requiring consta…

Best comment here.

The "people are selfish" is what drives everything, ultimately. If they find no good reason to have kids, and can have a comfortable and satisfying life in other ways, they will.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#43

Post by neild »

alexpotato wrote: post #9
jopsen wrote: post #5

Falling birth rates is a problem in most wealthy industrialized societies. Being up a 4am to greet my wife who's been up since 1am with a screaming child. I'm not sure exactly what kind of benefits could convince us that he needs siblings :) Just saying, that while I certainly applaud the effort. I don't see any easy ways to fix the issue: kids are hard work, there are many other things you could do with your life.

This has been parenting for the last several thousand years. I say this not to be flippant or sarcastic but rather to ask how our ancestors seemed fine with the above but we seem less so? (To be fair, I have 3 kids and totally get why your scenario might lower the odds. I'll say that even with the 1am wakeups, the "I love you!" from a toddler is one of the best feelings ever.)

> I say this not to be flippant or sarcastic but rather to ask how our ancestors seemed fine with the above but we seem less so?

Because by and large our female ancestors raised the children, were offered no choice in whether to raise the children, and their opinions of the situation were not recorded.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#44

Post by ekianjo »

leidenfrost wrote: post #38
rpcope1 wrote: post #17

It's probably going to take way more than just free daycare to make a dent. If declining birthrates can be swung back to a more neutral rate like 2.1, it probably will mean wide reaching financial, cultural, and general societal changes. I think something like the Order of Maternal Glory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Maternal_Glory ) but for like 3+ kids, where there's additional social standing in additio…

Maybe if they were more open to immigration culturally, a lot of people would happily integrate to their society.

Immigration is just a band aid. It won't make Japanese people have more babies.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#45

Post by cameronh90 »

jopsen wrote: post #5

Falling birth rates is a problem in most wealthy industrialized societies. Being up a 4am to greet my wife who's been up since 1am with a screaming child. I'm not sure exactly what kind of benefits could convince us that he needs siblings :) Just saying, that while I certainly applaud the effort. I don't see any easy ways to fix the issue: kids are hard work, there are many other things you could do with your life.

Not just wealthy industrialised societies any more.

Nowadays it’s basically just sub-Saharan Africa keeping the global birth rate up. Even India may now have just dropped below 2.1 along with nearly all of South East Asia.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#46

Post by ein0p »

Too late, I think. Once not having kids becomes "normal" and socially acceptable, it'll take a lot of heavy handed propaganda and much stronger incentives to convince people otherwise. Raising kids is a civilizationally necessary hard work that needs to be "normalized" and "expected" for people to actually do it.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#47

Post by ekianjo »

space_fountain wrote: post #36
elzbardico wrote: post #33

This won't work and it is fine. Nothing is permanent, world population has fallen considerably in other times in history. Yeah, the GDP will probably drop, but necessarely the per capita GDP. Yeah, a falling GDP is not good news for people who lend money and expect compound interest over a long horizon of time, some defaults will happen, probably we would end up having to forgive some debts and writing off a lot of s…

A large class of people who loan money are people looking to fund a retirement. This will be devastating to them

Retirement will be a thing of the past soon enough so the problem will solve itself.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#48

Post by bdangubic »

jopsen wrote: post #5

Falling birth rates is a problem in most wealthy industrialized societies. Being up a 4am to greet my wife who's been up since 1am with a screaming child. I'm not sure exactly what kind of benefits could convince us that he needs siblings :) Just saying, that while I certainly applaud the effort. I don't see any easy ways to fix the issue: kids are hard work, there are many other things you could do with your life.

having kids connects you to humanity like nothing else… I don’t think you must have kids to have a great life or anything like that but with all the hard work (the 1am will pass soon and you’ll talk to your wife how unfair would be to your son/daughter to deprive her/him of experiencing sibling love :) ) it is worth it for the full connection to human existence.

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#49

Post by Animats »

j7ake wrote: post #19
rpcope1 wrote: post #17

It's probably going to take way more than just free daycare to make a dent. If declining birthrates can be swung back to a more neutral rate like 2.1, it probably will mean wide reaching financial, cultural, and general societal changes. I think something like the Order of Maternal Glory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Maternal_Glory ) but for like 3+ kids, where there's additional social standing in additio…

Free day care is amazing. If that doesn’t make a dent then I am not sure what will. Probably free daycare and relaxing immigration would be best to increase population

> Free day care is amazing. If that doesn’t make a dent then I am not sure what will.

France has a subsidy program for kids. It's not helping much. Current fertility rate is 1.85 (2.1 is breakeven).

The only thing that seems to work is a religion that keeps women home pumping out babies and taking care of them. Islam and Haredi Judaism do that. There's a Christian "quiverfull" movement in the US, but it's not big enough to matter.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull

Re: Japan Offers Free Daycare to Boost Tokyo's Falling Birth Rate

#50

Post by cameronh90 »

leidenfrost wrote: post #38
rpcope1 wrote: post #17

It's probably going to take way more than just free daycare to make a dent. If declining birthrates can be swung back to a more neutral rate like 2.1, it probably will mean wide reaching financial, cultural, and general societal changes. I think something like the Order of Maternal Glory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Maternal_Glory ) but for like 3+ kids, where there's additional social standing in additio…

Maybe if they were more open to immigration culturally, a lot of people would happily integrate to their society.

Immigration won’t save us.

The birth rate is declining faster than expected across the whole world. There aren’t going to be enough young migrants to go around and keep pumping up the numbers.

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