The Land of the Rising Sun may have no tomorrow if a solution to the economically advanced but spiritually demoralized nation’s fertility woes isn’t found.
Japan’s childlessness crisis has gained international notoriety over the past several years. But the crisis goes beyond the much-discussed “herbivore” phenomenon of young men withdrawing from the dating scene.
According to the results of the gender equality survey conducted by the Japanese government last year, the epidemic of anti-nuptial, anti-natal sentiment affects both sexes. And it’s getting much worse.
Japan Today reports:
More than one-third of unmarried adults in their 20s to 40s have never been in a relationship and one-fourth have no intention of ever getting married, a recent survey found.
At 34.1 percent, the ratio of single men and women who have never had a romantic relationship was at a record high since Recruit Holdings Co, a staffing service group, began conducting surveys on people’s views on marriage in 2017.
Among the respondents in their 20s, 19.4 percent of women and 23.7 percent of men said having a romantic relationship is a waste of time and money. The percentage was lower among older male respondents, but it was notably higher among female respondents in their 30s at 23.6 percent, rising sharply from 14.6 percent in the previous survey in 2021.
Among men of all age groups who do not want to marry, the top reason, given by 42.5 percent, was the financial strain of married life. As for women, 40.5 percent said they do not want to compromise their freedom and independence.
Left unexplained by respondents was the question of what good personal freedom and independence were if the aggregate result of individuals using those liberties is national suicide.
If Japan’s childlessness crisis continues, the last Japanese person will die ca. AD 2500.
While 46.1 percent of all respondents said they want to marry eventually, the number has been on the downtrend, falling from 55.4 percent in 2017 and 52.6 percent in 2021.
The crisis even caught the attention of the BBC, which interviewed a typical Japanese career woman.
Though the woman listed three reasons for Japan’s childlessness crisis, they all collapse into one root cause: rampant materialism.
In particular, her mentions of motherhood conflicting with academic and career goals are supported by studies that link declining birth rates to rising female educational attainment. Not only do college and work demand much of women’s time during their peak childbearing years, women will admit that they dislike the prospect of marrying men with lower education and pay than theirs.
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This link between increased female educational attainment and decreased fertility isn’t just correlative. It’s been shown to be causal.
In considering whether female education actually drives a decline in the TFR, one might ask whether the opposite is true – do women who prefer smaller families want to study longer? However, the evidence from sub-Saharan Africa clearly supports the causal role of female education in fertility decline. For example, an education reform in Kenya that increased the length of primary education by a year resulted in increased female educational attainment, and delayed marriage and fertility. One randomized control trial found that reducing the cost of school uniforms in Kenya not only reduced dropout rates, but also reduced teenage marriage and childbearing. Another study found that increasing female education by one year in Nigeria reduced early fertility by 0.26 births.
The causal relationship between rising numbers of women in the classroom and the office and demographic collapse extends to advanced nations, as well. A common complaint among women in Japan’s mainland neighbor China concerns the difficulty of finding men who are better educated and higher earners than they are.
A quote from the great Bruce Lee would seem to be apt:
We shall find the answer when we examine the problem, the problem is never apart from the answer, the problem IS the answer, understanding the problem dissolves the problem.
In the case of the childlessness crisis, the problem arises from radical Modernism and materialism leading millions to forsake the good of doing what they ought for the license of doing what they think they want.
Japan presents a sharp cautionary tale in which embracing Western Liberalism proved to be a national suicide pact. We can only pray they dissolve that Faustian bargain before time runs out.
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