Free Republic

A youtuber shows a day in life of a Japanese Elementary School with only 8 students and 11 teachers. The school has about 20 rooms and had over 400 students in previous generations but is now virtually empty. There are about 11 million akiya, or abandoned homes, in rural Japan. Here we see a nearly abandoned school. The video shows happy students and teachers but you can also feel the sad decline. The school built for more capacity. The number of teachers should have been 20-30 and the number of students was and should be hundreds. All of the nearby...

As a younger woman, Lisa Pang was sure she wanted children. But now, aged 37 and a successful business entrepreneur, her career is so fulfilling she has rejected the idea of motherhood. Her reluctance to raise a family while focusing on her career in the sports industry in Guangdong is reflected among swathes of women of her generation in China, which is facing a fertility crisis that has accelerated the rapid ageing of the population and could hamper economic growth. “The low birth rate nowadays may be due to the change of mindset among young people,” said Ms Pang.