Why does Japan still have a declining/low birth rate, even though the Japanese goverment has enacted several nation-wide policies to tackle the problem?

Question

Why does Japan still have a declining/low birth rate, even though the Japanese goverment has enacted several nation-wide policies to tackle the problem?

In: 12200

Answer 1

I’ll answer honestly, it’s because they haven’t.

* They’ve cut “allowances” program (about few hundred dollars a month) for couples with newborn children back in 2012, when there was a major change in the government. It has only been recently re-enacted.
– People were complaining that Japan had shortages of childcare centers so there were a long line of people in the waiting list, but the government still hasn’t done anything about it. Childcare center staff are underpaid.
– Traditional gender roles that men go to work and women do household chores are still alive and well, even though nowadays majority of women work. Among OECD countries Japanese men spend one of the least time with chores and child rearing. Japanese women have to work and on top of that do all the chores and child rearing. Hence Japanese women sleep less and are overworked.
– Men getting paid paternity leave is still uncommon.
– Economic uncertainties about the future like whether they will be able to receive pensions. Real wages in Japan remained stagnant and hadn’t grown in 30 years. It has become too expensive and a luxury to raise a child. To tackle this problem the government raises consumption taxes for the people but decrease taxes for corporations.
– Change to the extremely conservative government with an agenda in 2012 meant that the only thing they thought was needed to tackle the declining population problem was to return to the good old days of traditional Japanese values, but not enacting practical policies that could tackle the problem.

So what does Japan do to tackle the declining population problem? They are doing the exact opposite of what they ought to be doing.

Or more accurately, they are doing nothing and hoping that the problem will go away or solve on its own. They simply don’t really care that much as long as their own “class” of elites can live well off.