I love how in the otherwise highly praised countries Japan and South Korea, where misogyny is deeply ingrained into society, women just stopped having children. Denying new wage slaves and free caregiving is the only way to make patriarchy and capitalism collapse. I applaud these women!
Ain't gonna work. The root of the issue is how women are treated after having kids. They get sacked. And of course, everything is so GD expensive. Sound familiar?! 😒
I love how the gerontocrats who run Japan keep on looking at very obvious causes for low birth rates (workplace misogyny, discrimination against mothers, outdated social norms, high costs of living), and keep desperately pulling on every lever except the things that might actually work.
"I want kids, but my boss will fire me if I give even the slightest indication I might get pregnant in the near future, also most men I meet expect me to be a stay-at-home wife, but I like my career"
"Hmm interesting. I think you should move to the countryside and marrying a farmer"
Also let's not forget to mention the insane racism (legally protected) and xenophobia in Japan, which makes them utterly reject any possibility of welcoming and integrating migrants, even though they literally don't have enough workers to keep their economy going.
Just an addendum to this, I remember reading an article where a foreign journalist, living permanently in Japan, interviewed older people in villages who were despairing at the lack of children/young people.
He suggested moving his young family there from Tokyo and they immediately hated the idea.
"How would you feel if I brought my family to live here?"
The air in the room went still. The men looked at each other in silent embarrassment. The village was on the path to extinction, yet the thought of it being invaded by "outsiders" was somehow worse.
Yes, been saying this.
Japan and most Asian countries are racists and immigration will never be an option, so I believe their fate is rightfully sealed to non existence and decaying economics.
See also Italy, east Germany, many other developed countries, etc.
Good old-fashioned patriarchal, racist, run-by-old-men societies really are demonstrating, before our eyes, how that ideology ultimately leads to self-extinction.
Investing in the future will inevitably involve paying women to have babies. And that payment will not be just some incentive prize, but actual substantial costs.
Its just Tokyo and only government employees. Not sure how they address this problem many there wont even date because of time and money constraints they’re far away from marrying and having 2.1 kids
So if I feel it well in a collectivist society like Japan it is really the move for the government to just make the good decisions and for people to feel safe to have kids, right?
At a wedding on my Irish side some years ago the photographer was startled by the crowded cousins photo. The on point reply to him:
"They didn't have TV back in the day!"
Must admit!
I used to think to myself.
If only I had a day off, I'd give the missus one so that we have another child, forcing me to work more over time.
I don’t get this whole worry about population!! There are what millions of children in orphanages who need homes. We are destroying the earth to make room for more apartment buildings on and on.
I agree and the low population in Japan has been a huge factor in their equality opportunity overall happiness prosperity even low crime. It has a few downsides but it's mostly related to an inability to adjust the culture and put more money in the pension system. Otherwise it's a boon
It’s not JUST about adjusting the pension system (although that needs to happen), it’s about literally not having enough people of working age to do all the things that need doing including the massive increase in elder care. But banging it out is not the only solution to a declining population.
True about elder care! That used to be the villages and families role. However those are the cultural shifts both traditional and new needed to adjust sustainably with real compassion. Luckily for them the eldest are often stronger and healthier than thier children especially on the little islands!
For a challenging adjustment period there is a gap in some work. However that gap is more about young people leaving needed traditional/community support work for unsustainable work. They have enough people of working age to do what needs doing, just not enough to support an insatiable wealthy class
True, but we don't want the kind of debacle and terrible treatment of countries like the United States of their immigrants. Perhaps Japan can lead the way in respectful immigration. Clear and specific paths.
To be fair, in this regard, they've got plenty of affordable housing because the declining birthrate has left thounds of residences empty (you can buy a home just outside of Tokyo for like 20,000 American.)
But this is nuts. We have way too many humans on the planet right now already. About two billion or so, tops, is reasonable. We desperately need less people - and more to the point, why the *hell* is Government involved in the birth rate? this is *our* lives.
When I was young, we were told the world population was heading for 50bn before 2100. 11bn tops now.
S.Korea is going to lose more than half its population before 2100 - it'll be an impoverished nation of old people soon.
If a safe population level is, say, two billion, then the eight we have now, or the eleven we might have, are both extra-ordinarily too high. I note Central Africa remains a massive source of children, and China has recently given up the one-child family policy.
China has abandoned the one-child policy because it can see the future - an ageing population and not enough people to look after them. Even in India the birthrate is declining.
Yes. One-child policy is four-grandparent policy. This is likely why saving rate in China is so high, and also China allows saving only in Chinese banks, which are State owned, and offer very low interest rates - much lower than inflation. Corruption and State abscond with the difference.
'If'. What is your basis for this 2bn limit?
It's not people who are the problem. It's the way a small minority of them lead their lives. The world can produce more than enough food for its current population. We waste about half of what we do produce as it is.
My sense of the impact of humans on the planet. Things such as history of cod, fishery populations in the North Sea, impact of farming on the environment, scale of human impact on the surface of the planet - even that no matter where I cycle, how far I go, there's always a layer of plastic garbage.
So, 3 things:
• societies do in fact get really out of whack if they have fewer young workers than older retired people.
• we could probably handle more people with good tech and planning and actually dealing with climate issues
• focusing on lowering birth rates turns into ecofascism really fast.
1. This is because of how the State has chosen to handle pensions?
2. Maybe, but they have not happened and are on the face of it not happening.
3. I suspect either we lower the birth rate or the planet dies, and that will do it for us.
No. The planet dies if a few rich people don't stop over-consuming. It's not about the numbers of the 90%, it's about the over-consumption of the top 10%.
There’s a Tumblr post out there that I haven’t stopped thinking about but haven’t been able to dig up with a graphic visual demonstration that haunts me of the carbon footprint reductions conscientious individuals can do, vs the carbon footprint reduction of shooting one oil exec.
No. 3 was an argument made back in the 1960s, with predictions of widespread famine taking place in the near future. Then the green Ag revolution rapidly increased the food supplies of the world but those same people still spouted their Malthus and went ecofascist
We also now have predictions suggesting that global population numbers will stagnate in roughly 100 years. Predictions that far out are always wonky so they’re def sus, but we are seeing the rate of increase slowing down.
I'm conscious of the planet currently experiencing mass extinction, as it has done in the geologic past from massive environment disruption, which currently is caused by human impact on environment. Particularly on mind ATM massive drops in insect populations.
Regarding this in particular, I find it a difficult argument to be happy with - Governments messed up how they handle pensions, so you and I must have lots of kids, and also this is killing the planet.
Smith would say it is a factor which encourages the rise of wages, as supply is diminished. There are lots of other factors - including what presumably is an overall decline in population size, which reduces demand in general.
2 + 3: Anything we do to change our energy systems will have a bigger effect than anyone’s personal choices of how to live their lives, including having kids or not. Focusing energy on making 2 happen is going to be more effective, it’s not inevitable that it won’t, and you could help try.
(1) It’s actually a labor issue. There’s a certain amount of work that has to get done for society to run (not even business as usual, just everything that really needs doing) + also manage the elder care and increased medical demands of an aging population.
So, here's the thing. Japanese culture has a 60-year zodiac with a really specific superstition, and their pregnancy rate is just about to plummet starting in about 4 months
Someone needs to update the deep fried Kermit "nobody's gonna boost that birthrate Shinzo Abe" for this post doohickey era, who is the latest fascist Japanese politician worrying about this?
Comments
https://www.humanrightspulse.com/mastercontentblog/japan-takes-gold-for-sexism-and-inequality
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/09/us/4b-movement-trump-south-korea-wellness-cec/index.html
😢
we are gonna suck every ounce of financial freedom from your bones until you're starving and sick and make the cost of a family unbearable
also billionaires:
On Fridays we use nothing
"Hmm interesting. I think you should move to the countryside and marrying a farmer"
He suggested moving his young family there from Tokyo and they immediately hated the idea.
"How would you feel if I brought my family to live here?"
The air in the room went still. The men looked at each other in silent embarrassment. The village was on the path to extinction, yet the thought of it being invaded by "outsiders" was somehow worse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63830490
Japan and most Asian countries are racists and immigration will never be an option, so I believe their fate is rightfully sealed to non existence and decaying economics.
Good old-fashioned patriarchal, racist, run-by-old-men societies really are demonstrating, before our eyes, how that ideology ultimately leads to self-extinction.
Sunday always comes too late.
But Friday...
First time I’ve heard fuck Friday
Love you and I just met you!
Sometimes you just know!
Just get me a resident visa!
When 4 day weeks are implemented, they're usually ~32/hr weeks paid at the same rate as 40 but idk they don't specify
https://fortune.com/2024/12/07/tokyo-japan-4-day-work-week-oldest-population-birth-rate/
And they would build a school next to your house
And the money to purchase the things we need to be alive, as well!
"They didn't have TV back in the day!"
Tuesday, Wednesday, heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday, time for coitus
I used to think to myself.
If only I had a day off, I'd give the missus one so that we have another child, forcing me to work more over time.
https://bsky.app/profile/criminalerin.bsky.social/post/3kxq2olsuyk2y
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2024/12/05/in-china-the-authorities-intrusive-canvassing-to-encourage-women-to-have-children_6735202_114.html#
S.Korea is going to lose more than half its population before 2100 - it'll be an impoverished nation of old people soon.
It's not people who are the problem. It's the way a small minority of them lead their lives. The world can produce more than enough food for its current population. We waste about half of what we do produce as it is.
• societies do in fact get really out of whack if they have fewer young workers than older retired people.
• we could probably handle more people with good tech and planning and actually dealing with climate issues
• focusing on lowering birth rates turns into ecofascism really fast.
1. This is because of how the State has chosen to handle pensions?
2. Maybe, but they have not happened and are on the face of it not happening.
3. I suspect either we lower the birth rate or the planet dies, and that will do it for us.
But immigration is also a solution.
https://bsky.app/profile/criminalerin.bsky.social/post/3l2zgurs5622t
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Horse
it kinda doesn't work that way.