Submitted 10 hours ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to globalnews@lemmy.zip
https://slguardian.org/japans-birth-rate-set-to-break-even-the-bleakest-forecasts/
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: archive.is/…/japans-birth-rate-set-to-break-even-…
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.
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.
Wow, we’re lucky this whole AI thing will fix everything if we just give some tech bros a few more trillion dollars
It’s wild how much pearl clutching goes on about birth rates, and how it isn’t common knowledge that this shit is a cyclical pattern. People get antsy about birth rates any time there’s economic contraction happening.
The Japanese are not going to die out and Japanese society is not going to collapse.
korea is actually worst off than japan.
Italy’s not doing great either but it never comes up in the “look at japan” discussions
The birth rate discussion is mostly centered around “can we continue making money?”
Japan and Korea have low immigration rates, so the population falls and capital is unhappy about the prospect of a shrinking and more elderly workforce and domestic market to sell things to. Italy on the other hand has subsaharan and arabic immigration (and the actually larger eastern European and Chinese immigration - but they’re not as fantasy inducing for the far-right), so the population decline isn’t as fast. There are more workers to replace the dying ones, and capital is happy. Plus, you can use this fact to fuel chud paranoia about “the great replacement”
Immigrants are seen as a tool everywhere. Right wingers want us, only as long as we become loyal servants with 0 political power and living in fear of the state and society’s iron fist. Liberals want us, because “who will clean the toilets?”.
And the fact that something is happening to cause people to consider reproducing as outright harmful to their well-being among people who would otherwise have wanted offspring is a crisis of bourgeois society that few people actually want to talk about.
Low birth rates are a fantastic thing. There are too many people in the world, we will decrease to equilibrium.
Trust me, a growing elderly population with a shrinking working-age workforce to sustain them is very much not a good thing.
In the short run maybe not, but for the long term health of the earth and her inhabitants it’s a necessity. Capitalism is built on a myth of infinite growth, we produce more than enough for everyone to live a good life.
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?
not for 1 country though, thier culture could become extinct. they need immigration, plus countries are even trying to solve thier underlying problems, HCOL, and job prospects.
It’s not 1 country though. Most western and developed countries are stagnating or declining in population, it’s a natural part of the cycle of equilibrium with their environment. Maybe it’s sped up or exacerbated by human caused factors but it was inevitable
Surely more austerity and social alienation will solve it
MORE WORK HOURS!!!
There are three solutions to adjusting the so-called 'replacement rate:'
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.
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.
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.
Most intelligent race huh? hitler-detector beeeeeeeep
Really on that Lovecraft shit, like Japanese people specifically are a race with their own unique characteristics
::: cw war crimes
Throwing babies on pikes was the peak of humanity didn’t you know :::
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 4 hours ago
VUqmAS3plTPNtBe.png
Kefla@hexbear.net 3 hours ago
40 hours a week is 160 hours in a month, which the male average seems to dip below regularly and the female average is always below. That doesn’t seem worse than my situation in the US.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 2 hours ago
1) This is the official working time, which does not include the obligatory overtime where bosses require their employees to accompany them going drinking and stuff
2) They want japanese babies, and no immigrants - so their working time MUST get below other western countries or it will never happen.