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Japan's Fertility Crisis is Creating Economic and Social Woes Never Seen Before

posted by n1 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @03:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the lack-of-future-taxpayers dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Onuki, a 31-year-old salesman, is headed to the train station to catch the 12:24 a.m. train, the last one of the night, back to his home in Yokohama. The train will quickly fill up with other professional working men.

At about 1:30 a.m., after having made a pit stop at a convenience store to grab a sandwich, Onuki arrives home. When he opens the bedroom door, he accidentally wakes his wife, Yoshiko, who just recently fell asleep after working an 11-hour day. She chides him for making too much noise and he apologizes.

Then, with his food still digesting and his alarm set for 7 a.m., he creeps into bed, ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Over the past two decades, stories like the Onukis' have become commonplace in Japan. Young couples are fighting to make relationships work amid a traditional work culture that expects men to be breadwinners and women to be homemakers. It's a losing battle. Many newlyweds are forced to watch their free time disappear, surrendering everything from the occasional date night to starting a family.

The daily constraints have made for a worrisome trend. Japan has entered a vicious cycle of low fertility and low spending that has led to trillions in lost GDP and a population decline of 1 million people, all within just the past five years. If left unabated, experts forecast severe economic downturn and a breakdown in the fabric of social life.

"Adult diapers have outsold baby diapers in Japan for the last six years."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:43PM (#514452)

    There's a lot blatantly wrong with your post, so I don't blame you for posting as an AC. I'll try to go point by point with you.

    Says the guy posting drivel on a pseudo-anonymous Internet handle.

    The USA has had giant numbers of migration in the past and its demographics have not shifted in any negative way.

    So, you admit GP's point then, there is a so called "demographic replacement" going on.

    Apparently you missed the whole Trump-being-elected thing recently? Still lots of Rethuglicans hiding in the 'burbs and boonies.

    Apparently, you missed all the bitching and moaning about how he lost the popular vote. And "Rethuglicans"? How classy.

    Post-Roman Western Europe was a constant ebb and flow of migrations; countries are, at best, fleeting entities.

    Fake history much? While migration has always been a factor, it has never been the kind of mass migration we see in modern times.

    Notice how rural areas are undeveloped and educationally and socially backward? Migration is needed to keep people and ideas fresh so as not to atrophy

    Bullshit. Underdevelopment is the direct and obvious consequence of poor education and social development. If you don't have smart well-trained people to improve your economy, you don't get economic growth.

    See: USA. Still English speaking. Still racist and Christian as ever.

    White racists don't elect black presidents.

    Who said anything about Muslims, and who said anything about Wahhabism?

    The person you are responding to. There is nothing wrong with raising additional points in a conversation.

    My Bigotmeter is giving high readings here.

    Why I'm absolutely shocked! A social justice fundamentalist finding bigots to judge is like a religious fundamentalist finding sinners for much the same purpose. But I repeat myself.

    You're making huge assumptions. You'd be okay with them bringing in millions of Westboro Baptists, I'm assuming?

    Are you fucking kidding me? You just criticized GP for making assumptions and then you go ahead and make a sweeping assumption about him in the very next sentence.

    Why are kids riding the subway alone in the first place?

    Why not? This might come as a surprise to you, but kids grow up. Are we not allowed to worry about our teenage/adult children?

    Assuming migrants == dirt/childsnatchers is plain xenophobia. You don't know people you've never met before.

    But not Chinese migrants for some strange reason. Funny how all these "xenophobes" never have any objections to East Asians who happen to be less prone to criminality than the native population, yet go all up in arms about Middle Easterners who top the crime charts. I'm sure there is no connection there.