[diamond6]

As my dad always says..."follow the money trail".

[MegaSilver]

It is attitudes like that, still commonplace here - and not policies - which Japanese women say are putting them off getting married.

Which is a lie. In most parts of North America, women are strongly encouraged to engage in family planning and work--and they have low fertility rates, as well.

[traumer]

Doesn't China have something like extra 40+ million men ?
Ship them over...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I've read about this problem before in Japan. The main issue/concern is, is that they have this HUGE elderly population that lives off the Government.

No babies means no workers yoked to supporting the elderly until they die, which means their government and economy is going to go down in flames. Just like ours, LOL!

I'll go see if I can scout out those other articles as to what the REAL reasons are behind this panic over no babies being born. It ain't because they just love babies, LOL!

[canuck_conservative]

Guess they need to get an NBA franchise.

[CindyDawg]

Strange. I thought Japan was over populated. My son stationed there and talks about how crowded it is.

[spodefly]

Why don't they just import millions and millions of Mexicans like we do?

[anobjectivist]

We're headed the same way with inflation and taxation making the buying power of the dollar much less than it was pre world war 1. With taxation over 1/3 of the average taxpayer's income, it takes a lot of extra time (years) to pay off debts, build up a nest egg, and start a family with a reasonable amount of income.

Stop sacrificing our country's future to the wants of political power.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

As natural resources get depleted population will decrease and eventually the planet will maintain about 1 billion people.

[DTogo]

If most Japanese males had an interest in his wife beyond mommy replacement (cook and clean for me), let alone any interest in the kids, there might be more rugrats running around over there. Rugrat... roughly translates into kahpetto nezumi (carpet mouse).

[bert]

Problems in the hive....... workers are overlooking the most important part of living.

[SauronOfMordor]

Real quick way to reverse the trend: announce that in 30 years the government pension will be cut in half -- but will be supplemented by 30% of the taxes paid going to the parents of the taxpayer.

All of a sudden, people will have a big incentive to have several kids, and make sure they grow up to be high-earners

[snowsislander]

In my opinion, these are some of the big factors: young people are often working bad jobs (arubaito) and cannot save good money to start families; even if a Japanese mother wants to use daycare, there is a significant lack of it in the big cities (one year waits are not uncommon); and there is just a lack of room in the big cities -- who wants to raise 3 kids in a tiny Tokyo apartment?

[RightWhale]

The gubbermint is nutz. In the 60s they were concerned that their 90 million was overpopulation destined to bring the islands to certain ruin.

[kittymyrib]

Gee...whatever happened to Malthus and all the other geniuses who were constantly moaning about the over-population of the earth in the '60s? I guess the Western societies believed them, but China and India and Pakistan and Indonesia are making up for the death of the West by providing plenty of people to take over these dying European countries.

[The Great RJ]

Given the high cost of living brought about by government policy and the high rate of abortion in Japan it should come as no surprise.