So if everyone only had 1 kid or 2 kids, then population might stabilize and start shrinking. Then we just gotta keep it small enough to maintain a good standard of living. Of course all of us old fucks have to die.
We made everything super expensive and created a toxic work culture that weighs on your every waking moment while cutting salaries so that both people in a relationship need to work full time… why is no one having kids?
When did everyone collectively stop freaking out about overpopulation?
Ohhh “replacement” in this context means “replacement minimum wage workers for the factories”.Might be worth noting that this is a huge swing from a bygone era of high infant and child death, such that women were expected to have children early and often in hopes that they could outperform the mortality rate. Population rates in Japan had been low and relatively flat for centuries. Then the industrial revolution and modern medicine dramatically reduced mortality rates, causing populations to climb rapidly for around a century.
Now we’re settling into a new normal of sub-replacement rate births (not no births by any stretch, just births slower than the post-40s boom years) and everyone’s freaking out like Japan won’t exist in another generation.
The Japanese people could likely support a higher population via socialist public policy. But they could also just have a smaller population going into the 21st century. It’s not like 123M is a magic number the nation needs to persist. If Japan’s population fell into the 80M mark, what’s the horrible thing that could happen? Koreans and Philippinos and Italians and Egyptians might be legally allowed to immigrate at last? Oh no!!! Death of a nation!!!
Philippinos
Filipinos. We’re not a cucumber.
They wouldn’t be able to afford retirement payments for their elderly population. That is the risk
How big of an issue is that in Japan? I know that older people there tend to like being employed even into their senior years. I don’t know how much is out of necessity.
It’s a big issue. The problem is there are a large amount of elderly people and not enough young people to care for them and keep the economy going.
Population age graphs used to be a triangle. Lots of kids some adults and a few elderly. So there were a lot of people to care for a small number of the elderly and a big group to care for you when you became elderly.
These countries age graphs look like upside down pears. Lots of elderly some working and few children. So more work by the young to care for the elderly.
Caring for them is entirely a different matter, but yes.
I agree that immigration is a big part of fixing this.
I think if the population (replacement rate )declines too swiftly, you have a lot of old people and few young people. At some point it become exponentially harder to even keep your last generation’s replacement rate, and you have spiraling population decline. See South Korea for the Speedrun.
If Japan steadily declines to 80M it could be fine. If Japan goes to 80M in a generation, that’s very very bad for the chances of there being any Japanese people left in a few more generations
See South Korea for the Speedrun.
S. Korea has some of the highest populations per sqkm on the planet. One of the problems they’re facing is the lack of real estate.
If Japan goes to 80M in a generation, that’s very very bad for the chances of there being any Japanese people left in a few more generations
A generation ago, people were talking about the perils of overpopulation, particularly in highly dense countries like Japan and Korea.
It’s so bizarre to see a marginal shift in trends lead people to extrapolate an extinction level event.
I agree that immigration is a big part of fixing this.
It isn’t. Not for long at least, as the last large countries are currently finishing their own demographic transition and starting to shrink themselves.
Is the world’s population still growing? Yes. But the growth rate peaked in the 60s, it’s cratering just as fast as it spiked, and by 2100 thereabouts there will be overall shrinkage.
Also before we get at the question whether Japan wants to have lots of immigration, what about the question whether those people wouldn’t rather build their own countries.
There’s nothing wrong with the world’s population shrinking – and also not with it growing, the earth is far from its carrying capacity. What’s frightening is very quick population growth or shrinkage because it’s an absolute breeding ground for all kinds of inequalities and societal unrest.
We need to rethink the whole global economy. This “problem” is only an issue in a society that demands forever growth. And shocker alert, the only way to mitigate the short term effects of population decline is immigration!
It is not only an issue due to forever growth. Birthrates are so low in some places (like Japan), that the new generations will just be crushed by the (economic) burden of the older ones.
Older people don’t contribute much to the economy, but they spend a lot. It’s just how it is. Older people are usually less healthy, and less healthy people eventually consume more resources than they can provide. This burden means that the younger generations will demand change to the government, and that will make retirement either worse or harder to achieve. Which will lead to the old days of working until you drop dead. Or distopian-like situations where old people willingly die to not be a burden, or even worse, they are killed by the government.
And as you say, immigration just fixes the short-term effects. That future is inevitable with birthrates so low. Inmigrants usually adopt to the birthrate of the country very fast.
I read somewhere Korea has a worst birthrate than japan
1.15 in Japan 0.72 in Korea. so yeah.
Both countries have high cost of living and expect women to drop everything and become full time moms and care for their parents and inlaws.
Women for some reason don’t find that appealing and decide to not have kids. Many refuse to get married if there partner wants kids.
Even men often don’t want children as they are expected to work long hours to support the family.
HCOL is the main reason, china is having that problem now, so they are trying to “fix” it right now, but more like half assing that attempt. the work culture of the asian countries is what did them in, so they are unlikely want to fix that part of it.
some -> a lot
“For some reason” is a common expression indicating the reason is obvious but not stated.
We’ve tried everything but moving away from a capitalist system or allowing immigrants into our country and we’re all out of ideas
We tried something? They barely tried anything
thatsthejoke.jpg
We definitely do let in immigrants. My wife, for example, is one. But I have to say, it’s really difficult to integrate into the culture, especially for work unless you’re very well versed in Japanese or don’t mind working in low wage positions.
Ban anime.
Surely the solution to Japan’s population crisis is to introduce American style prudish protestantism.
As always, this is only a problem for capitalism and billionaires needing more workers to exploit. I see no issues here.
You’re 100% correct. And capitalism is going to fight tooth and nail to come up with capitalist explanations and capitalist solutions, whatever those may be.
At the end of the day, the masses go to jobs for long hours that they hate, even if they “followed their passion”. Capitalist hustle adds overwork, and takes from the joy of some work you may have potentially enjoyed. Not to mention jobs that are very necessary, yet very unenjoyable like construction or factory work or whatever. The pay is only enough to cover costs, so you have to keep working and can never escape.
All of this to prop up the billionaire class so they can enjoy giant mansions, Lamborghinis, yachts, and whatever.
Have a kid? I don’t have the money, nor do I want an innocent child living this life.
It’s an issue in any economic system. No economy built with any current or near future technology functions without human labor, which people can no longer supply once they get old enough for their health to decline, regardless of who owns what.
Its not as if there’s a lack of humans.
If they don’t want their population to collapse they can accept immigration and change their culture to be more welcoming to outsiders. Or don’t and keep on the same path.
Noone is putting a gun to politicians heads and making them do any of this. Nothing they can do will naturally increase the birthrate.
I think there is something they can do, or more to the point, there’s a reason the birthrate is so low there. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the most overworked countries on the planet have such low birthrates. Taking care of children is labor, unpaid labor at that, that has a lot of other expenses associated with it. What I think they could do, is compensate people for it, not some pittance that doesn’t cover a fraction of the costs of raising a child, but an amount that would actually be sufficient to make having a kid or not, with a parent (either parent) home at any given point for them, a financially neutral decision for a family (to include the opportunity costs of not working) rather than a very expensive one.
Evolution being what it is, it would seem implausible for the average number of kids people actually would want to have, if it wasn’t a burden on them, to be lower than replacement, else the human species wouldn’t have come to exist in the first place. For individual people, sure, everyone has their own feelings on the matter, but averaged across society, one would expect most people to desire kids enough if they could manage it to keep the population at least stable.
It would be incredibly expensive, yes, and so the tax burden it would create would probably be unpopular, especially among people that didn’t personally gain from it, but continuing the status quo is nothing less than extracting the abstract resource that human labor can be thought of as, at an unsustainable rate. That situation will either end willingly or it will end in collapse.
Damn you’re smart! To let the rest of us know how smart you are, I have a few questions you can answer for us:
Explain how fewer young workers can produce enough in taxes to run the country.
Explain how a dwindling tax base will support the elderly.
Explain how to avoid an economic collapse as fewer and fewer people require fewer and fewer goods and services.
Some of y’all have the economic understanding of an angry 15-yo.
So these are resolved by:
Increase taxes for the rich people.
Stop demanding infinite growth out of economy, so that stopping that growth isn’t labeled “collapse”
Explain how fewer young workers can produce enough in taxes to run the country.
Our knowledge and craftsmanship improves continuously. Fewer people are needed today to produce and administer things than were needed years ago, we just decided to produce more. That is not necessary.
Explain how a dwindling tax base will support the elderly.
What do the elderly need? Essentially medical assistance. That’s what we should focus on improving right now.
Explain how to avoid an economic collapse as fewer and fewer people require fewer and fewer goods and services.
We’ve learned that “the economy” is mostly disconnected from the well-being of the average person. It’s a matter of will and organization, really.
Ok so you have no solution other than hope that one comes along.
Explain
Don’t worry, they will find a way to make it our problem
A large elderly population that needs benefits but isn’t producing labor’s requirements are met how in alternate systems if those needs require medicines that Japan must buy from other nations?
Remember in Japan’s case there are not enough workers paying into the system to maintain benefits for the growing elderly population which is expected to increase.
Give up nationalism, change immigration policy, they will be fine in one year with folks from their Asia neighbors.
You know that their Asian neighbours also have low birth rates, right? Then it’s simply shifting the issue to another area.
It’s funny all these countries promoting nationalistic policies are actually used a distraction from their lower birth rate problems. Eg, threatening or commiting wars
Low birth rates are only a crisis for the capitalists (and actually not even that, see below). They increase wages and improve living standards for the population.
We’re gonna hit an unemployment crisis in 10-15 years, partially due to AI replacing white-collar workers. If we have a lot of unemployed people, capitalists are gonna complain about how much unemployment money costs. It’s actually better to have lower birthrates for capitalists as well, they only didn’t realize it yet.
Also, it increases wages because wages are determined through supply and demand of human labor. If there’s less supply, prices for labor (wages) are higher.
Really depends on the society. South Korea, for example, is definitely genuinely threatened by its way too sharp decline - including culturally. Otherwise I agree that negative effects are generally overexaggerated and that the future will inevitably demand less human labour.
Oh no, more space and resources for one of the most crowded and resource-constrained countries on earth.
They need more workers paying taxes into their system than retirees taking benefits out if the system. As Japan is the oldest nation on average this is a huge problem.
- Money is made up and not real.
- As the population ages it will spend more money.
- Japan has a chronic under- and un-employment problem, and an extremely inefficient economy. An ageing population would increase employment in the healthcare sector.
- The aged will not live forever.
- If Japan has to print money to make the accountants happy, it will be inflationary, which might get them out of their decades-long deflationary funk.
The problem solves itself.
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I’m noticing a pattern here. Not just about Japanese society but many others as well.
It’s never “we want to have a child so we will”
It’s always “this is a series of rules, procedures and conditions to fulfill before you can have a child”It should never be just “we want to have a child so we will”. That’s self centered, short sighted and irresponsible.
Anyone looking to have children should think through at the minimum:
- do we have the money to raise a child?
- who will be able to raise and care for them
- will the child have the ability to grow and succeed in the environment we’re bringing them into?
- will the above to be to the standard we would want for the child?
To bring a child into a bad environment, with no time or money to spend on the child, is to bring the child into this world setup for failure and would only put a drain on the system, the resources, the climate, the relatives, etc.
People are choosing (in Japan and elsewhere around the world) to not have children because of the less than favorable conditions outlined above, and many others.
As a resident of a developing country, having spent time observing different socio-economic classes and lurked in my country’s subreddit, I noticed that the most vocal opponents of natalism are mostly from the younger upper-middle class due to those aforementioned issues plus the fear of losing the ability for self-fulfillment (they would rather choose having a better career and/or excel in their interests/passion projects than traditional domesticity which they see as boring, stressful, and mundane). Unfortunately, some of them also happen to harbor a disdain towards the lower classes they see as “less civilized”, a strain on resources, and purportedly reproduce more than necessary.
Govts around the world think like prolifers, they only want them to be born but have no idea or even care how they will grow up.
That’s true. My argument is that before, when people had more children, they didn’t care about bringing them into a bad world. Even 100 years ago it was expected some of your children will die.
Now, children dying is not a nice thing. Luckily we solved it and these days if you behave like our ancestors you will have too many children for society to be sustainable.
But if you’re in a situation where there are too few children for a sustainable society, encouraging risk would help.
All being said, I actually believe we need to reduce the human population. But we don’t know how to handle a sudden decline, or if we can level it out later. So a gradual decrease would be preferable.
Who is saying the second quote? The government?
They made it up.
Right but I’m trying to understand what exactly it is they made up. Who is the hypothetical speaker here?
How did you notice that pattern? It seems none of the rest of us have ever heard of that before…lol
