Japan's foreign resident population hits record 4.12 million

Replacement rate is 2, technically, one child each to replace their mother and father. But generally it is given as 2.1 at least because you need to account for some number of children dying in infancy or being sterile or otherwise unable to reproduce.

I wish, Germany is at 1.35 right now unfortunately.

Replacement rate is 2.1 for stable population. Two kids per woman with a little extra to accommodate early deaths.

It's per couple, and zero growth/decline is considered to be 2.1 - 2.3, depending on whether you live in a first or third world country (i.e. low infant mortality rate), respectively.

Korea is I’m actually WORSE shape. It’s hard to believe but .9 is roughly halving where as the nearly .7 Korea is at is closer to 1/3 of what’s needed. Korea is literally in an irreversible death spiral

Replacement rate is 2.1. This number is the Total Fertility Rate. It’s number of children the average woman has in her lifetime, so not exclusively married couples. It has to be more than two because two children have to be born to replace the two parents but there has to be an extra 0.1% so there’s a bit of wiggle room. Because unfortunately some of those kids will die young.

Would be okay if we had societies focused on the community/tribal level. We are living lives we as humans are not evolved into. And at the same time, housing is also a big issue.

Yeah, I don't think it's a coincidence that generally intelligent people tend to have less kids. It is what it is

Do people in villages in Niger have the most kids because they're exploring and innovating? Do highly educated scientists who explore and innovate have 12 kids?

F*** it. Just give me the dritter Weltkrieg boss I aint filling out more papers.

The solution is to make having children less expensive and stopping the penalization of motherhood. Couples don't have children because it's not beneficial for them. It's not only about government subsidies. Women take a huge career hit as soon as they get pregnant, and in some cultures, as soon as they are in a stable relationship or get married. Housing is expensive after having a child, childcare is expensive. And what exactly is the benefit? My husband and I joke with each other that we need to have a child so they can pay for our retirement, but it's not exactly necessary. In fact, if we don't have kids, our net worth would be much higher when we retire as we both work in decently high paying jobs and I will not lose my income for about 3 years or subsequent promotions because my attention will be divided between a child and my work. I come from a huge family from a third world country. My father had 11 siblings and my mother 8. They both come from families that had a lot of land and children were necessary in keeping and maintaining the land - even if they never farmed by themselves. Modern life has no such necessity. Sex is also not the only available entertainment anymore. That, plus the amount of problems pregnancies cause physically, and financially - yeah, birth rate isn't improving anytime soon.

2 40 hour full time working parents (And 2 full time working grandparents) is what they have in common.

> I don’t know what the solution is. Let the population decline and technology and automation can fill in the gaps. Tax the rich to cover social safety nets to care for the elderly. When we have more space and life is easier to afford, people will have more time and money for raising families.

Part of it is reframing how we think about fertility rates in the past. It’s only the last few generations where women truly have the choices to have children or not and under what terms. Our grandmothers were often dealing with marital r*** and coercion or just had far less options in front of them in life. It was almost an almost universal life path for women: you grow up, get married, have babies. 

Also being a single woman can do that.

>People living in the hardest conditions on earth generally have the highest birthrates. absolutely correct. and its often for a variety of reasons-- sexual violence/r*** (including spousal abuse), lack of education, lack of birth control, being encouraged to have children--- bc once they grow, they can either take care of the youngest kids or enter whatever 'workforce' there is, etc. lack of children is almost always the sign of a country thats well educated and wealthy (altho individuals may not be wealthy enough to 'afford' children).

Yeah because it’s a necessity to survive. Once you get even a modicum of relative wealth to be out of that category of needing basically to birth kids just have extra hands and support like the west it drops. Because the rules change and you get away from the most primal reasons to have kids due to you actually being apart of capitalism

They had some policies like this like forbidding mandating overtime, but then the managers just pressure the employees to “volunteer” for overtime.

It didn't even have enough time for any reasonable person to tell if it made a difference in the people who would be effected. At least the commentor deleted their posts rather than let that stupidity fester.

You’re right Africa is my favorite country

Higher education, professional success of women in the workplace, and the near-elimination of teenage pregnancy

They aren’t wrong though. Italy’s is like 20% lower.

Correlates more with female educational attainment more than anything.

Story as old as time

The current PM of Japan is a conservative thatcher type so yeah your comment is accurate 

You didn’t add any “nuance” that makes a justifiable argument. Japan gets all these weird mental gymnastics to justify things that other countries don’t get

Nuanced? Yes racism(xenophobia) is always nuanced, doesn't make it any less real. People talk about how big racism is America, and it is, but generally it comes from a loud minority of the population. In respect to Japan it's more of a silent majority. And quiet isolation can be just as painful as loud overt racism.

By and large, immigrants to Japan are aware of the social rules, and do follow them. It’s tourists who don’t. Many local wards in Tokyo offer low cost Japanese language lessons, but they’re during working hours so if you have a full time job they’re not for you. I don’t disagree that expanding access for services for foreigners is a good thing, but it needs to be more than basic etiquette. There also needs to be serious pressure on companies to stop racism and sexism— during a job interview, it’s completely legal (and happens often) to ask a woman if she plans to have kids, and to ask foreigners why they’re here and how long they’ll be staying.

I don’t know, but regardless in general Japan is changing and when things change people will get upset as they see the world they used to know “disappear”. It’s the same in most places, but in Japan it’s intensified because culture is so integral to Japanese people’s self perception. They feel like foreigners- even a small amount- pollutes that.

This is going to sound hyperbolic, but it really isn't, Japan is going to implode without a heavy influx of foreigners. Young people are going to leave, Japan can try to stop them but even that wouldn't actually by that much time. Everyone in power there with 2 brains cells to rub together knows it.

The best part is that many of these landlords and CEOs hate immigrants, but so long as their own neighborhoods stay white I guess it's no problem.

Maybe have it a bit lower than replacement levels would be ok since it would take longer for the population to go down but korea and Japan are going to be dealing in with issues with managing the elderly. 1 person will be supporting 3 people.

Problem is that there is no known permanent solutions. No first world nation has been successful at keeping its fertility up.

And once ppl immigrate. They too will have a low birth rate… its a temp fix not solving the underlying problems Of why couples are having less children

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There are perfect conditions for right-wing ideas in Japan right now. First, you have a huge influx of tourists. Then you have young people glued to their phones all day and getting fed videos of foreign tourists being assholes. It makes anti-foreign sentiment an easy sell. Never mind that most foreigners who actually live in Japan are unlikely to behave like that.

To your point, they’re already implementing anti-tourism measures. I understand that this year they’re significantly increasing hotel hospitality taxes for foreigners and getting rid of the duty-free tax benefit. There also seems to be Visa reforms coming out by 2028 which will make some forms of tourism/long-term residency easier but other forms harder completely dependent on your country of origin. Most of it I would describe as common sense. I’m sure the locals have fatigue from all the tourism especially if there’s a higher incident rate from specific countries that can be measured. I doubt they’ll ever get rid of it entirely. But I could totally see it being more narrowly tailored/priced out such that only tourists from specific countries or income levels can visit.

Their economy relies on tourism but they also hate tourists.