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: https://archive.is/20251228215131/https://slguardian.org/japans-birth-rate-set-to-break-even-the-bleakest-forecasts/
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.
If Japan capped working at 28 hours a week and anything after that required double the pay (for overtime), this problem would taken care of.
Working all the time makes people miserable. It’s an externality that impacts society in all sorts of horrible ways. It would be proper for the government to institute a rule like this.
It would definitely lower GDP of Japan and cause some economic issues, but the alternative (living in a world where people are so miserable that they don’t fall in love as much and want to reproduce) is worse for their economy.
Will they do this? No, because it would require thinking outside of the box too much and would be seen as too extreme.
Here in the USA, employers just avoid overtime and benefits by hiring two people to work 35 hours/week, who each have two jobs.
Yup. It is so weird to me how little the destroyed work-life-balance is mentioned whenever declining birth rates are discussed (not only in Japan).
They don’t even have to pay overtime for work over 28 hours. If they just paid overtime for the actual or time work that is done, that would make an enormous difference. When I worked in Japan (25 years ago, but I have read/heard nothing to suggest that the situation has changed), it was normal for people to work 60 or 70 hours, but not claim any overtime.
That still won’t work. There is no develooed country on the planet eg Sweden, Australia etc thay does not have a less then replacement birthrate. When given agency outside of a patarchial and/or religious society, most women will choose 0,1 or 2 kids, all below replacement.
For every women choosing 0 you need another choosing 5 just to tread water. That Japans and Koreas are less again may be work related but it would still be less then replacement, no matter yours, or any other suggestion.
None of this is a probelm, it’s just differnt.
Growing the population is just kicking the can down the road because you can’t grow it forever anyway… We already have a over strained biosphere; pollution, resource depletion, climate change, accelerated species extinction etc
This entire thing is a nothing burger.
you’re right