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Skywalkre

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Japan is still struggling (and the rest of the developed world will be right behind them).

 

 

Japan's Births Decline To Lowest Number On Record

 

December 24, 20191:55 PM ET

Laurel Wamsley

 

Japan has been trying to increase its birth rate for years, hoping that a youthful boost could offset an otherwise rapidly aging population. It's not working.

 

The country's health ministry announced Tuesday that the number of babies born in 2019 fell by an estimated 5.9% this year, to 864,000. It's the first time since 1899, when the government began tracking the data, that the number has dipped below 900,000, according to The Asahi Shimbun.

 

The decline in the absolute number of births is especially stark given that Japan's population in 1899 was about one-third of its approximately 126 million people today.

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/24/791132555/japans-births-decline-to-lowest-number-on-record

 

Not a good sign, but I am guardedly optimistic that first-world problems like this one will ultimately command the attention of first-world resources to solve.

 

What I am not optimistic about is the role the entrenched Japanese porn industry will play in this effort. It may end up as the parasite to be cleansed in various ways.

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There's been a turn around in Japan though, so it leaves me a little optimistic for a stronger turn around. The lowest years were between 2000 and 2010. Here's a handy graph showing the difference between 2006 and 2016 among the prefectures, coming with its own English.

fertility0616.jpg

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81-1a2.pdf

 

For just raw numbers, the next link has all the recent years including 2017 and 2018 and past years back to 1960. There's been a slight fall from 2016 (1.44) to 2017 (1.43) and again to 2018 (1.42). 2019 is not looking good, might be a 1.40 for the national rate.

 

Although a few prefectures see 2018 as their highest and so still a little better over 2016 such as Fukui at 1.67, Kumamoto at 1.69, and Kagoshima at 1.70. Okinawa fell to 1.89 but still the highest. Tokyo fell to 1.20.

https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/file-download?statInfId=000031881308&fileKind=1

Edited by JasonJ
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Has anyone considered the insane working hours as a contributing factor for low fertility?

Psst, it is easier to blame it on anime.

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There's been a turn around in Japan though, so it leaves me a little optimistic for a stronger turn around. The lowest years were between 2000 and 2010. Here's a handy graph showing the difference between 2006 and 2016 among the prefectures, coming with its own English.

fertility0616.jpg

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81-1a2.pdf

 

For just raw numbers, the next link has all the recent years including 2017 and 2018 and past years back to 1960. There's been a slight fall from 2016 (1.44) to 2017 (1.43) and again to 2018 (1.42). 2019 is not looking good, might be a 1.40 for the national rate.

 

Although a few prefectures see 2018 as their highest and so still a little better over 2016 such as Fukui at 1.67, Kumamoto at 1.69, and Kagoshima at 1.70. Okinawa fell to 1.89 but still the highest. Tokyo fell to 1.20.

https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/file-download?statInfId=000031881308&fileKind=1

 

The problem is you need a rate around 2.1 just to maintain your population. The book mentioned at the start of this thread highlighted that so far when nations hit 1.5 or lower they're never able to climb back up over that figure. Japan seems to be no exception.

Edited by Skywalkre
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There's been a turn around in Japan though, so it leaves me a little optimistic for a stronger turn around. The lowest years were between 2000 and 2010. Here's a handy graph showing the difference between 2006 and 2016 among the prefectures, coming with its own English.

[image]

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81-1a2.pdf

 

For just raw numbers, the next link has all the recent years including 2017 and 2018 and past years back to 1960. There's been a slight fall from 2016 (1.44) to 2017 (1.43) and again to 2018 (1.42). 2019 is not looking good, might be a 1.40 for the national rate.

 

Although a few prefectures see 2018 as their highest and so still a little better over 2016 such as Fukui at 1.67, Kumamoto at 1.69, and Kagoshima at 1.70. Okinawa fell to 1.89 but still the highest. Tokyo fell to 1.20.

https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/file-download?statInfId=000031881308&fileKind=1

 

The problem is you need a rate around 2.1 just to maintain your population. The book mentioned at the start of this thread highlighted that so far when nations hit 1.5 or lower they're never able to climb back up over that figure. Japan seems to be no exception.

The 1.8 would be a step towards the right direction before reaching 2.1. It really shouldn't be hravily government backed though. If the population itself doesn't recognize that life style changes are the onlh way to change course, then yeah, your book will be correct. There are things the government can do such as provide financial incentives, but it won't be enough alone. Heavy work hours is a factor but I'm pretty sure long work hours have existed in the 1960s and 1970s yet national fertility rate was around 2.1 in those years. Kt started to nose dive upon entering the 80s. I think what happened is that attention drawing power of all the new dazzling entertainment has exceeded the attention drawing power of finding a mate out of the average Joe-san and average Sakura-san. Need sex satisfaction, the porn is right there. Why bother experimenting with potentially hazardess relationship making? Or the other way, there are girls in their 20s that still have not had entered into a relationship. Yet when they have the "I want a boy friend" desire, it goes in competition with the ideal boy friend role models found in boy band groups. Average Joe-san can't compete with that manufactured role model. I think a realization that all this stuff is just entertainment and is not real life. The fake life in the entertainment distracts for too long and exceeds in attention drawing power the naturally existing energy in finding a mate. It is of course not a call to ban it or anything like that. But recognition of the trend and a desire to see the trend change and how to do it is the only way. Not easy, hence the conclusion of your book. Also of course there is still individual differences. Some people have naturally lower energy to find a mate then others because of higher energy towards other things, but I'm just speaking in terms of average.

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What Feminism will achieve is paradoxically the end of women. Women in Western world risk today being defined exclusively by historical male characteristics, not their historical own. It is no surprise in that context that complementary characteristics between the sexes start to disappears and also sexual drive goes with it.

Behind the neo-Marxism that ape, exploit and rotten many fair causes including Feminism is obviously the totalitarian idea of supposed total equality. That implies the end of sexes. If a progressive God would be designing sexual act would ever be the penetration of one sex into another ?

 

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There is the hope that technology will provide a solution in the future. In the interim, avoiding the hard questions in favor of seeking answers to more face-friendly problems is a habit Japan and Japanese are going to have difficulty breaking with regard to this particular issue, unfortunately.

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There's always mass immigration, legal or otherwise. :unsure:

That will bring a whole new set of issues for Japan and Japanese to come to terms with.

 

Mass immigration wouldn't fix low fertility rate anyway. Would still be low, and would just increase dependency on immigration more and more, resulting in mass "multi-culture" with shallow or no pervading national culture.

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Oh, I completely agree!

However, from the aging population point of view, it is a solution. And pensions would be stable. Also, lots of cheap workers.

 

Europe has benefited from immigration over the millennia, starting with the Romans, followed by all the waves of people from the East. Hurt short-term, but benefited in the long run.

And the US has also had immigration waves, such as the Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. which have positively affected the culture.

 

And from the Devil's Advocate: is national culture a good thing?

Why not let people kill women for getting raped? Slaughter their goats in the bathtub? Torch businesses form "insulting" God? :angry:

 

--

Leo

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Oh, I completely agree!

However, from the aging population point of view, it is a solution. And pensions would be stable. Also, lots of cheap workers.

 

Europe has benefited from immigration over the millennia, starting with the Romans, followed by all the waves of people from the East. Hurt short-term, but benefited in the long run.

And the US has also had immigration waves, such as the Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. which have positively affected the culture.

 

And from the Devil's Advocate: is national culture a good thing?

Why not let people kill women for getting raped? Slaughter their goats in the bathtub? Torch businesses form "insulting" God? :angry:

 

--

Leo

Well, this post goes into the qjick raise of foreign workers in Japan.

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43943&p=1426843

 

So that has been happening with work visas.

 

When I said national culture, well didn't mean it in a nationalistic way. Universal culture if you will. But multi-culture is cumbersome. Natural immigration is fine and naturalization into becoming Japanese citizen rather than just foreign resident on permanant residence does happen.

 

If there's any country that has a culture of your devil advocates description, I don't think they could achieve mass immigration even if they tried :)

 

It is up to Japanese themsevles to have more baby making families, that's all there is to it really. Anything else is just kicking the can down the road.

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Oh, I completely agree!

However, from the aging population point of view, it is a solution. And pensions would be stable. Also, lots of cheap workers.

 

Europe has benefited from immigration over the millennia, starting with the Romans, followed by all the waves of people from the East. Hurt short-term, but benefited in the long run.

And the US has also had immigration waves, such as the Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. which have positively affected the culture.

 

And from the Devil's Advocate: is national culture a good thing?

Why not let people kill women for getting raped? Slaughter their goats in the bathtub? Torch businesses form "insulting" God? :angry:

 

--

Leo

 

It is indeed a solution, but not one that Japan and Japanese have decided to adopt as The Solution just yet.

 

The reasons for not doing so are, as you have pointed out, not based on economic utility.

 

For Japan and Japanese the conversations WRT to culture, identity, race, and the concept of thirdworlder-ism itself that would need to take place for it to become accepted as The Solution are more easily avoided than conducted.

 

I would not necessarily be opposed to them, but would also not be surprised by silent majority resistance to them.

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At a very drunken Christmas party a few years back, the subject of the redundancy of one of the genders due to technological advances was discussed.

 

At the end of it, one of the women there said "don't worry about it, it will never happen... there are far too many of us who just love the c*ck".

 

I was... reassured, I guess.

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At a very drunken Christmas party a few years back, the subject of the redundancy of one of the genders due to technological advances was discussed.

 

At the end of it, one of the women there said "don't worry about it, it will never happen... there are far too many of us who just love the c*ck".

 

I was... reassured, I guess.

 

And then sexbots were invented.

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At a very drunken Christmas party a few years back, the subject of the redundancy of one of the genders due to technological advances was discussed.

 

At the end of it, one of the women there said "don't worry about it, it will never happen... there are far too many of us who just love the c*ck".

 

I was... reassured, I guess.

 

And then sexbots were invented.

Still though, loving the c is still different than loving the prospect of 20 years of raising a person. Even with out the sexbots, the c got around without resulting in commitment for a baby and 20 years. Sexbot adds to deterrance.

Edited by JasonJ
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  • 3 weeks later...

Recently had the chance to catch up with an old friend. He moved away years ago to Silicon Valley and he's been dealing a lot with Automation over the last few years. His observation was that much of the discussion around it is all wrong. Folks seem to think most industries impacted will go from 100% humans to 0%. Instead from his experience it's more like 100% -> 20% (it may not be the same work but you still need people... nothing completely removes the human element).

 

Coupling that to the inevitable population decline we'll be facing down the road it got me wondering if instead of a doomsday scenario... maybe things could work out ok after all? Maybe automation is coming along at the exact right time to merge with a soon-to-be declining population and everything might actually be fine?

 

Seemed too good to be true. Still... an interesting thought experiment.

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  • 4 months later...

There's been a turn around in Japan though, so it leaves me a little optimistic for a stronger turn around. The lowest years were between 2000 and 2010. Here's a handy graph showing the difference between 2006 and 2016 among the prefectures, coming with its own English.

fertility0616.jpg

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81-1a2.pdf

 

For just raw numbers, the next link has all the recent years including 2017 and 2018 and past years back to 1960. There's been a slight fall from 2016 (1.44) to 2017 (1.43) and again to 2018 (1.42). 2019 is not looking good, might be a 1.40 for the national rate.

 

Although a few prefectures see 2018 as their highest and so still a little better over 2016 such as Fukui at 1.67, Kumamoto at 1.69, and Kagoshima at 1.70. Okinawa fell to 1.89 but still the highest. Tokyo fell to 1.20.

https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/file-download?statInfId=000031881308&fileKind=1

Just to follow up on this since 2019s number came in (usually it comes in around June). 2019 was quite worse than I thought, coming in at 1.36.

 

TOKYO -- Japan's fertility rate fell for the fourth straight year, highlighting the grave challenge facing one of the world's most rapidly aging societies.

 

The country's total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman gives birth to, was 1.36, a fall of 0.06 percentage points from the previous year. The figure is the lowest it has been since 2007.

 

The number of births, meanwhile, has decreased to a record low 865,234.

 

The birthrate is declining at a pace faster than the government outlook predicted.

 

Japan's birthrate dropped to 1.26 in 2005, then increased to 1.45 in 2015. After 2016, the number again began declining as many Japanese married later in life while others remain single.

 

The country's birth rate is dropping faster than estimates by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, which in 2017 expected a rate of 1.42 for 2019.

 

In another reverse milestone, the number of births in 2019 fell below 900,000 for the first time. Forecasts had been expecting this to happen in 2021.

 

The number of births fell across all age groups, with the decline being the most significant among women in the 25-39 age bracket.

 

Japan's "baby boomer juniors" are now in their late 40s, and the number of women in their childbearing years is declining.

 

As for deaths, there were 1,381,098 in 2019, the highest number since the war. Natural loss, the number of deaths minus the number of births, reached a record high of 515,864.

 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-fertility-rate-drops-to-the-lowest-level-in-12-years

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Automation in farming seems to have taken the numbers down to 10% or less, but that took perhaps 300 years with a significant acceleration in the first part of the 20 century.

 

The difference is that as farming reduced it's employment needs, industry took them all.

 

Not sure what replaces the work people are doing now - I don't really believe that there will be a globally significant population crunch.

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