An estimated 687,080 Japanese children were or will be born in 2024, falling below 700,000 for the first time and marking the lowest level on record, according to Asahi Shimbun calculations.
For comparison, Japan births in the past:
- 1935: 2.19 Million
- 1955: 1.73 Million
- 1985: 1.43 Million
- 2005: 1.06 Million
Your close. The issue was families could be funded on 40 hours or so of labor a week and that switched to over 80 hours. There is no time for children. If work hours were decreased as women entered the workfore it would not be much of an issue. Two people each working three days a week were one spouse can watch the children and work on the house in various ways while the other is working would result in more people having kids. Of course they would need to make enough to buy a house suitable for a family and cover other necessary expenses. In addition they should start working as teenagers to get used to the work world so high school should be 3 days a week to accommodate.
This is not true. People don’t want kids. How many kids does Rihanna have? Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Anderson Lee, Jim Carey, and so on? Not that many compared to the amount of money they made, and it varies. Some people like kids, other people don’t. You are free to choose how many kids you want or don’t want. With contraceptives, and abortion, you can achieve that easily. Because women can choose a different lifestyle other than being a wife, who cares for the house, they can focus on other things, besides kids, because they have the opportunity, and expectation to do so. The role of the woman has changed from the rural lifestyle that took care of the home, and kids, to that of independent woman who supports herself. Other than inheritance, there is no economic reason to get married. It isn’t necessary to get married to thrive in an urbanized setting with job opportunity. This is exactly what happened to Chinese women, as China is the latest country to transition from a rural lifestyle to an urban one due to economic changes. Children were needed to operate the farms, so having many children, is like having more workers. Since individuals can be much more productive by investing into themselves, children are not necessary. They are in fact considered a hindrance, and to a free person, even a nuisance. No free daycare will fix that. Germany has subsidized daycare, and it is completely free for Germans with low incomes. Germany has ultra-low birth rates. Not just low, but ultra-low. Most children are accidents, not planned pregnancies. It makes no economic sense to say you need to pay someone else to take care of your family, when people did it for free. Mormons with polygamous lifestyles do it for free. It is a matter of priorities.
Extreme wealth is a completely different condition and performing artists yet another one. Women whos careers are dependent on how their body looks often use surregates if they want kids. If folks don’t want kids they won’t have them but if they want kids but can’t see providing for them such that they will have at least as much success as they had. They will not. Everyone I personally know with children intentionally had them. Stopping birth control. Many people will have children if they are financially secure and see a future for those children.