Japan’s demographic crisis is deepening faster than expected, with the number of births this year on track to fall below even the government’s most pessimistic projections.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20251228215131/https://slguardian.org/japans-birth-rate-set-to-break-even-the-bleakest-forecasts/
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
There are three solutions to adjusting the so-called ‘replacement rate:’
- Reduce death rate (ie improve health outcomes for elderly to extend lifespan).
- Make more babies.
- Allow immigration.
Options 1 and 2 haven’t worked too well, and option 3 can cause a lot of political issues.
Not sure there’s a good way to avert the end-game.
Edit: actually there are two other solutions: cloning, and senecide (killing the elderly). It’s dystopian SciFi and totally unethical, but they’re there.
3 leads to more than just “political issues”, you are replacing your country’s people and culture with others that will in all likelihood have far higher birth rates
Not “replacing” unless you bring in like 50k+ immigrants per year and give them disproportionate power over everything. Immigrants bring their culture, but they’re always the ones who have to adapt.
Currently Japan brings in 153k in the last year, and 175k in the year before - and these are net stats
And? Where does this xenophobic train of go?
I’d argue that Japan has historically done pretty well at the first. I don’t find the healthcare system here perfect, but I have many elderly in-laws who get great care. There’s probably going to be a decline in quality and/or availability as the issues persist, though.
Dropping dead on the factory floor only to be replaced hours later isn’t very motivating I’d imagine
japan has a socially forced drinking after work hours problem,.
Another stupid article assuming that a population reduction is a bad thing.
No, no, of course, just keep increasing the human population until it crashes. Then it’ll be an actual problem.
The numbers look bad because increasing population increases the GDP, and GDP has become the archetypal example of what happens when you turn a metric into a goal.
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Japan does not get enough hate for being a racist anti-immigrant conservative hell hole.
The only way for Japan to survive is to shut down all immigration.
I’m assuming there are sarcasm tags here, as immigration proportional to the US would basically solve Japan’s birth rate issues. It’s a rate the rest of the world envies.
And somehow we decided to throw away that gift as quickly as possible. Hence a birthrate disaster is coming for the US, next.
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Malthusian myth. Might as well argue for eugenics while you’re at it.
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Trust me, a growing elderly population with a shrinking working-age workforce to sustain them is very much not a good thing.
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not good for a countries, culture, and people, and this also devestate the economy eventually
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long term health of the earth and her inhabitants it’s a necessity.
No. This has been brought up and debunked by experts. Despite the rapidly falling birth rate, it will take centuries to overcome population inertia. Changes will not happen anywhere close to fast enough to save us from the environmental crisis we are facing. If anything, it may make things worse as an aging elderly population means the young generation is preoccupied trying to take care of them instead of dealing with the shit they left behind.
Our ideal birth rate would be between neutral to very gradual decline, not the cliff jump we’re currently facing.
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It’s hard to say what the actual carrying capacity of earth is, if we were trying to optimise for sustainability and not profit or special interests. Would we be sustainable today, if we were full on renewables and batteries, vat grown meat, no plastic waste, etc? There’s so many things that could be done for major impact but aren’t, for all we know we aren’t even anywhere close to earth’s carrying capacity with current or near future tech.
Not sure if ‘brought up and debunked by experts’ is the best argument out there. For example, ‘population inertia’ would cover only one lifespan, not centuries. That is to say, whatever the population is now, it could be 10 people to 100 billion people within 100 years. This is not discounting cultural and psychological factors, but if we’re talking human behaviour, that’s literally everything.
Secondly, the population decline is hardly a cliff. It is decreasing in some countries like Japan, but when added into the global picture, we’re not even at neutral. We’re still growing.
You are absolutely right that a larger aging population is something that must be addressed. However, if increased population pressure leads to a tipping point, like a shift in the AMOC or immigration pressure from hotter areas to cooler areas, our current treatment of old people doesn’t fill me with confidence. I think in a crisis, we would sacrifice them anyway. We would write some sympathetic think pieces about it though.
population decline is hardly a cliff.
Population decline in Japan and similar countries is absolutely a cliff right now, hence the article.
We’re still growing.
That’s largely due to said population inertia. The current best estimates of actual worldwide fertility rate has us anywhere from 2.0 to 2.2. There’s a possibility we’ve already dropped below replacement rate worldwide.
Not sure if ‘brought up and debunked by experts’ is the best argument out there.
Unless actual scientific data showing otherwise is brought to a discussion, ‘appeal to authority’ is NOT a fallacy.
Appeal to authority is neither a fallacy nor proof. It is rhetoric. It proves nothing, and disproves nothing.
For example, your authorities debunk “long term health of the earth and her inhabitants it’s (sic) a necessity.” My authorities, like William Catton or Meadows, et. al. would say otherwise. Invoking them doesn’t prove my perspective. It does prove there is much debate about the subject.
In such instances, defining metrics and showing your work, as the math teachers say, is the best way forward.
The article in question, for example, relies on hype like ‘670,000, a level never previously recorded since national statistics began in 1899.’ Level of what? Percentage of population? Actual number of people? Compared to how many? With the priviso, for example that ‘The expected figure, … excludes children born to foreign residents”. How many of those? I suspect not many, but it’s necessary to know.
What the article could have stated are actual metrics such as replacement rate, which in Japan is 1.20. South Korean is considerably lower, at 0.72-0.74. We could use words like ‘cliff’ I guess, but I prefer numbers, and I would encourage their use in articles such as this.
But AI told me AI can solve that.
That’s only if they keep their current system though. Why would they do that if they can see it won’t work out going forward? Their economic system will need to evolve and that’s ok.
Why should people change their behaviors to suit the economy instead of just changing the economy?
Can you define what sustainability looks like? One farmer has never been able to produce more. Maybe a country makes less widgets, but I don’t all the doom and gloom when taking care of the basics has never been more attainable for all.
not for 1 country though, thier culture could become extinct. they need immigration, plus countries are not even trying to solve thier underlying problems, HCOL, and job prospects, they are doing adjacent.
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Didn’t they have a program a few years ago inviting foreigners to come and have (effectively) anchor babies?
That doesn’t seem right. Japan is very conservative of its “genealogy” and would treat “halfus” very differently than people who look Japanese regardless of mastery of the language. They also have strict immigration laws because, they don’t view immigration as a positive. It would be a threat to their homogeneous culture and society.
they do love westerners though, at least the well off ones.
Yeah, I was looking around and I couldn’t find anything about an actual program which makes me think it may have been just a comment someone made suggesting something like that. I do remember thinking at the time that Japan is rather unwelcoming to immigration by non-Japanese people so there would have to be a major shift in culture to allow that kind of thing.
Also, it wouldn’t help much: birth rates in immigrant families drop to the national average within 2 or 3 generations.
The “economy” can go fuck itself.
What matters is the resources available per person, and naturally you would expect that to go up when there’s fewer children.
Anyone obsessed with birthrates is an asshole until proven otherwise.
We went straight from ‘there’s too many people!’ to ‘there’s not enough people!’ on a dime. Even rates drastically below replacement aren’t Children Of Men. There’s just fewer kids and more old farts. So… Florida?
Oh god, maybe we should be worried.
You clearly don’t understand the situation. 125 million down to … 60 million, less, in half a century, maybe less… How to manage that is a serious question. Infrastructure is a huge question.
Less power, less traffic, less consumption… what part of infrastructure isn’t suddenly overengineered? For a value of “suddenly” that means in fifty years.
And as others note, this isn’t because the Japanese are suddenly averse to fucking. They’re overworked to the point of self-parody. This trend is eminently reversible, if the people addicted to the wiggly line can look further into the future than next quarter.
i think south korea has a worst rate than japan, they are declining faster.
Why do you assume it’s worse?
This new generation of child-free people better be damn well aware that when they get old they are absolutely fucked. The state isn’t going to be there for them and IF they have a SO great but even then shit happens.
The future is going to be bleak.
The state isn’t going to be there for them
Good thing I got a vasectomy so my unborn children will never have to suffer such neglect.
The state isn’t going to be there for you either and your parents will be long dead and your siblings if you have them? Grab bag of maybe.
japan like china, and korea are pretty hostile to immigration policies. at least for china its pretty hard, plus you have to denounce your citizenships before living there permanently. might be different for RICH people though.
Florida! Clothing optional restaurants! Yey!
But everyone is 75.
If one of the most intelligent races in the world is going extinct due to not reproducing, it’s a good sign that reproducing in this world is a terrible and selfish idea. Good for them. Just die out and break the cycle of suffering.
“race” has no basis in science or biology and is completely made up, so go ahead and fuck right off with your Nazi shit.
I’m antinatalist. It’s very unpopular.
You can be antinatalist without any of the bad fake Nazi pseudoscience. The Hitler shit will only make you popular with the worst cringy people.
You can recognize someone’s ethnic background while still appreciating their culture. Y’all too serious in here.
Human race
korea is actually worst off than japan.
Italy’s not doing great either but it never comes up in the “look at japan” discussions
Probably because, compared to those 2 countries, Italy is easier to immigrate to.
Japan’s easier than most people think. As long as you have a college degree you can get a shit job pretty easily.
Is that right? Maybe if you look a certain way that’s socially acceptable to them. If you aren’t (white, Asian) you’ll get temporary work that pays like shit, and companies can not hire you because they don’t like that you’re not Japanese with no legal or social protections to aide you. Even shit jobs have social requirements. That’s really the biggest problem.
These days even the white folk are stuck in shit jobs because everyone and their mom wants to live in Japan. You need more than just a bachelor’s in whatever to make it long term.
Granted it’s probably still more difficult for non white or Asian people, but I wasn’t really taliking about long term prospects. Even still, it’s way easier to immigrate if you get married than somewhere like the US.
That’s crazy man
Let me make it simple.
You can’t raise a fucking family if all you’re doing is barely surviving.
Yes you can. People do it all over the world.
“People do it all over the world.” False it should be “Uneducated people do it all over the world” Look into geography and sociology and let me know why it is that uneducated poor people usually get more children :D
Lol uneducated does not mean dumb.
I stand by what I said.
The future lies in those “uneducated” people.
Everything about this whole thread screams privileged white people who haven’t known an ounce of struggle in their lives and all of a sudden things get a little tight that they can’t buy butter instead of margarine and holy hell the sky is falling!
This is why all my friends now are immigrants lol.
immigrants
Oh shit! There’s another solution!
Those uneducated people usually from poorer third world countries get a lot of children cause of environmental factors:
- high infant and child mortality
- shorter life expectancy
- they need their children to work in mines
- No sex education
Educated people usually from first world countries don’t get a lot of children because:
- housing is too expensive
- the country makes work/education and family are hard to combine
- childcare isn’t well organized
- there’s too little security
Countries like France and the Scandinavian nations do better:
- affordable childcare
- parental leave
- flexible work
- stable housing certainty
Result: higher birth rates than Japan, Italy, Spain, and formerly Germany. If you want a “younger” society → invest structurally in good family life.
This is like stuff from geography I was taught in highschool, don’t you have your high school diploma or what? 😂
Go into any rural and/or poor area in America or Canada and you’ll find poor uneducated people and they’re having kids just fine even in wealthy countries with a lot of environmental factors pushing against it.
It’s a matter of want. Own your decision don’t blame it on external factors. If you want to blame external factors for your not having kids you’re weak. My girlfriend is Kenyan. She has a 11 year old son back home she hasn’t seen in a year. She had a kid in a small rural town halfway around the world and moved to Canada to make a better life for her and her family. You know what she’s never done? Push blame outwards.
Yes, structurally we can be doing a lot better to make it easier and more attractive for people to have kids but that was and is not my point. My point is if you want kids just fucking do it. The reward far outweighs the risk and long term you’re going to be much, much better off because you’ve just grown your team.
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 Get this guy a geography class RIGHT NOW “Why dont homeless people just buy a house” “Why dont poor people just work more”
You are sooooo limited in your thinking it’s really a shame. You don’t even know the conditions some people live in even in dense urban areas like Toronto while still having kids.
I’m a high school dropout and I knew this shit. Dumbass has no excuse.
Cool. Should they?
Yes.
I was watching a YouTube video yesterday with Jimmy Carr and I think he summarized it perfectly.
As humans we are amazing at quantifying all the negatives around having kids (costs, time constraints, behaviour changes) but we struggle at quantifying the positives (purpose, accountability, pride, humility).
My regret is having kids later in life and not in my early 20’s. The little secret we all know is you’re never ready for kids. You either dive in or you don’t. After that? In for a penny, in for a pound.
Cool. I disagree. You want to subject your kids to climate change then go ahead.
And we are allowed to disagree. That doesn’t however make your opinion any more valid. You can’t hold hands when you make fists.
That doesn’t however make your opinion any more valid.
Present and imminent state of the world make my opinion valid.
The world has always been fucked. The question is do you bend over and take it or do you fight for positive change?
Climate change is going to be the least of the next generation’s worries.
At least they won’t freeze to death outside in winter when likely none of them will have houses, jobs or access to healthcare (aside from the ones with inheritance of course).
Climate change alone is an absurd reason to advocate for antinatalism.
Climate change alone is an absurd reason to advocate for antinatalism.
Spoken like someone who has no idea what’s going on. Temps are already above 36°C where I live. Rains have gotten unpredictable as well and that is impacting food
I can only guess how damn hard it will be in the next 20 years.
My regret is having kids later in life and not in my early 20’s.
Reeks of boomer who doesn’t appreciate their kids.
GenX actually (48) and I have 3 kids I tell them I love them daily. 2 are on the spectrum and 1 realistically will never become an independent adult.
Your comment reeks of someone who grew up entitled and has never learned how to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
The downvotes tell a diffeeent story, boomer.
You do realize that upvotes/downvotes are just populism in action and time and time again people have been proven to be dumb? I mean look at America.
I’m sure those kids all come out great and very alive.
Children do not need love attention homes or parents. These luxuries make them weak
So myopic.
Neglect is very healthy for a child.make sure yours gets enough!
Assuming that kids living in poorer parts of the world are neglected. Spoken like someone who has never once faced adversity in life.
No, none, only rainbows and butterflies for me. The world is a kind and warm place and I just believe in spreading that to more people. Is that so wrong?
It shows you lack wisdom and maturity.
Wow, we’re lucky this whole AI thing will fix everything if we just give some tech bros a few more trillion dollars
Where my phone placed the new line was truly a rollercoaster:
Japan’s Birth Rate Set to Break Even
Wow, breaking even? Finally looking up for japan!
… the Bleakest Forecasts
Oh no.
Article claims they expected these numbers but in 16 years. Numerically, its not that far off from the expected number of 750k births. Its 90%. I dont think thats too much of a difference to be alarmed about until you read into it more. Taxes will increase and pensions will be effected if this continues. To make matters worse this is after they already dumped billions into policies like extra free money (63$ per month🤣) until child is in high school proving that current efforts are not enough. Shame they cant address the root cause:
real reason is that they were victims of the ‘ice age generation (job shortage generation)’ and the stagnation of economies that followed, which prevented them from marrying or having children if they wanted to,” she said quoting research data.
Shame they cant address the root cause:
Thw root cause is giving women agency. Careers education etc and mostly free of religious indoctrination (eg Quiverful etc)
If women have a choice, the majority choose 0,1 or 2. For every woman that chooses 0, you need another woman choosing 5 just to tread water. Hungary and Poland are throwing a fortnue at it and gerting no where, as is Russia. Australia, Sweden etc all have less then replacement, the only reason Australia keeps growing it’s population is immigration. You either do that, or you take away womens right to choose, or your population goes backwards. (Or aim for some sort of stasis where deaths = births + immigration)
You can’t grow the population forever, so you have to address the issuie at some stage anyway.
There is actually another way: Make sure that having more children increases your economic security and social standing (not just lip service!). As long as having children results in a setback in any of those 2 categories, nothing will change. Sadly, I do not know of any country that has tried this approach yet, so i do not know if it works.
I was thinking It was capitalism but I do agree your points are a contributor.
