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Japan demographic crisis rises up agenda as election nears
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Demographic decline is rising up the nation's agenda ahead of this month's election, as Japan's population is set to fall by 20 percent by 2050.
Hugging babies is not enough -- Japanese politicians fighting for support at elections are vying to suggest solutions to a demographic crisis the island nation has been slow to address.
Demographic decline is rising up the nation's agenda ahead of this month's election, as Japan's population is set to fall by 20 percent by 2050.
In campaigning ahead of the August 30 vote, politicians are discussing everything from child benefit payments to the cost of schooling and providing more creches to help working mums.
The reasons for the falling population range from economic ones to awkwardness about sexual matters, according to experts.
With a fertility rate among the lowest in the world (1.37 children per woman in 2008), Japan is expected to see its population fall from 127 million at present to 100 million in 2050.
"Childcare is really an issue. But the plain truth is that people are marrying later and later or do not marry at all and that definitely lowers the birthrate," said Yuko Kawanishi, a sociologist at the Tokyo Gakugei University.
She points out that in 2007 the average age at which women married for the first time was 28.3, compared to 23 in 1950.
Part of the issue is a continued attachment to traditional values.
The idea of having children outside of marriage remains a virtual taboo -- less than two percent of children are born to unmarried women.
More importantly perhaps, "many modern Japanese women are wary of marriage because they see in it a loss of liberty," said Kawanishi.
Japanese wives, she explains, are still expected to stay in the home. Almost three quarters of working women leave work when they have their first child.
And men are also part of the problem, not least in the difficulties finding stability in their working lives, she says.
Even once the marital knot is tied, the obstacles to procreation are not over.
A study by Nihon University revealed in 2007 that nearly one in four couples had no sexual relations.
One reason cited was the long hours worked by Japanese men -- thought to leave many too exhausted for sex. Another was the awkwardness couples feel when, as is typical in Japan, they share cramped apartments with parents.
Kawanishi also detects a curious lack of communication on the subject between married couples, even as sexual matters are increasingly out in the open in wider society.
"Sex or the sex industry is everywhere in Japan, except among couples. It seems husbands and wives always have other things to do," she said.
Even for sexually active couples, having children comes at a cost some are not prepared to make. Medical consultations for pregnant women, hospitalisation for childbirth and treatment for fertility problems are not paid for under the country's social security system.
A study by the insurer Sumitomo Life found that many Japanese consider inadequacies in the health system a cause of "anguish".
A lack of pediatricians, babysitters and playgrounds are habitual complaints heard from Japanese parents.
"It's very difficult for Japanese women to continue working and be a mother at the same time," said Kawanishi.
"Above all it's the mentality -- there is a very strong myth that being a mother is the most important thing, so you should just give up everything else and be physically around your baby at least for the first three years of their life, otherwise the child is going to be messed up forever.
"For young women, this kind of implicit and prevalent idea that you encounter everywhere makes them feel guilty.... In the end it's too much of a struggle to have kids," she concluded.
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