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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

#51

Post by teitoklien »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #28
dyauspitr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only a choice if you live purely for yourself. It’s the job of the state to make short sighted, self absorbed thinking like this unpalatable since people can only think in self absorbed, short term ways.

What a misanthropic world view. How about we make it easier for people who want kids to have them, and we stop vilifying people who don’t want kids? There are many ways to contribute to society. Some of the kindest most selfless people I know don’t want kids. It’s fine, humanity will manage.

If he is misanthropic , then amigo, Nature is the most misanthropic existence in the whole universe, by your logic, lol.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

teitoklien wrote: post #51
yoyohello13 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a misanthropic world view. How about we make it easier for people who want kids to have them, and we stop vilifying people who don’t want kids? There are many ways to contribute to society. Some of the kindest most selfless people I know don’t want kids. It’s fine, humanity will manage.

If he is misanthropic , then amigo, Nature is the most misanthropic existence in the whole universe, by your logic, lol.

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by kalleboo »

ggm wrote: post #27

I suffer from confirmation bias in this, but the Japanese women I know all live outside mainland Japan, and are mostly in mixed marriages with non-Japanese men and to a woman they say childbirth in Japan, and expectations on new mothes in Japan are net-negative compared to the english-speaking west, with some small things the other way. Aspects of family mean they are more likely to have a support network in Japan, a…

I live in Japan and am friends with foreign women who chose to live here, so I guess I have the opposite confirmation bias, but the people I know who gave birth here have been super happy with the help that mothers get here, getting to stay in the maternity ward for a week with 24/7 nurse support to help recover and getting breastfeeding going. Along with the government paying for the procedure making it free and a bunch of other support.

I also have friends who had such bad experiences in the west to the point they ended up going with home birth...

From my experience talking to people, the reason for the low birth rate here is the same as in any other country.

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

#54

Post by latency-guy2 »

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…

Soviet Union's birth rate did not really rebound the way other nations did even provided the award. Granted, immediately after WW2 there was a large boost which is when this award program started, but fell to just above replacement soon after. I would not draw too much on this social standing/admiration aspect.

Funnily enough, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine was reinstated in 2022. Russia's current birthrate is ~1.5. Ukraine has something similar as well, they're doing quite poorly, even before their war at ~1.3.

My radical take on all this birthrate stuff is that the single most effective way to boost the birthrate is to entice boredom in any way you can. The internet was a great invention, but the great cost was our attention. It's likely out of the bag that we can't revert to a minimally networked world though. I would (and do) certainly fight against attempts to ruin the internet myself.

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

#55

Post by colmvp »

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…

Couldn't agree more.

"Kids are hard. People are selfish." - More people than ever before want to live a life free of the responsibilities of having children, which is totally fine but never gets talked about in this discussion about birthrate. I have a lot of financially secure friends who never want kids.

"The dating market is torture." - Expectations of dating, especially online dating are very different from previous generations and kind of wack. I admit to falling into the trap of feeling like someone else out there is better and not giving the person I met online more of a chance past the first date. I'm sure others who I was with had the same reaction. Next thing you know, you're past the age of wanting or even being able to have a child. Either way, it's crazy when you see online discussions about how such and such city has a dearth of good matches which seems statistically improbable.

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

#56

Post by incog_nit0 »

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…

I have 13 cousins. My two kids have 2.

When I ask my cousins and siblings why they don't want to have the kids the opinions range from too much of a restriction to my freedoms, too expensive, too much work, it'll ruin my body.

These area all valid reasons and in fact it was a tough sell for my wife and I to convince ourselves whether even we should have children. I'm glad I did, but I had no idea how much work it takes and I honestly would not judge anyone who opts-out of having them - but...it does mean we face demographic collapse and free child care is just not enough.

Give young families cheaper homes, cheaper college education and have a cultural shift which values having a child as much as a career if not more so and maybe we'll start to see things change.

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

#57

Post by Two4 »

Radical idea: treat mothers as professionals. Train them, certify them, give them resources and support networks, then pay them to raise kids until school age or even beyond. It is a full time job, and should be treated as such if governments want to incentivise childbirth.

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

#58

Post by ggm »

kalleboo wrote: post #53
ggm wrote: post #27

I suffer from confirmation bias in this, but the Japanese women I know all live outside mainland Japan, and are mostly in mixed marriages with non-Japanese men and to a woman they say childbirth in Japan, and expectations on new mothes in Japan are net-negative compared to the english-speaking west, with some small things the other way. Aspects of family mean they are more likely to have a support network in Japan, a…

I live in Japan and am friends with foreign women who chose to live here, so I guess I have the opposite confirmation bias, but the people I know who gave birth here have been super happy with the help that mothers get here, getting to stay in the maternity ward for a week with 24/7 nurse support to help recover and getting breastfeeding going. Along with the government paying for the procedure making it free and a b…

Thank you for reversing my bias. Probably the women who I know left Japan 10-15 years ago, and thats a lifetime in terms of healthcare, social interactions, you-name-it.

Everyone I know who gave birth in the netherlands commented on the low levels of pain relief available!

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

#59

Post by j7ake »

Animats wrote: post #49
j7ake wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eno…

1.85 is actually the highest in Western Europe and higher than Canada and USA.

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

#60

Post by loeg »

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.

There aren't enough babies worldwide -- TFR is rapidly falling even in poor countries. Immigrating our way out of it doesn't scale to the world.
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