Nearly half of unmarried Japanese under the age of 30 are not interested in having children. This is evident from research conducted by Rohto Pharmaceutical. In the past three years, the annual survey has not produced such a high percentage.
The results follow government data showing that the number of babies born in Japan fell to an all-time low last year. Never before (since the measurements of 1899) were less than 800,000 babies born in a year in the country of 125 million inhabitants.
Furthermore, it is not easy for Japan that things are going very well with the elderly. The Japanese are getting older and older: the country is among the best in the world when it comes to a high life expectancy. So there are fewer and fewer workers to support all those elderly people.
The prime minister is therefore sounding the alarm and has announced new measures this month. He wants to set up more day care centers and make more youth services available, such as counselling.
Traditional division of labour
Also, government data from this week shows that Japan’s population has declined for the twelfth year in a row. In the context of this trend, Maaike-Okano Heijmans, EU-Asia expert at the Clingendael Institute, is therefore not surprised that many Japanese do not want to have children. “It’s a long-term trend, so it’s not a big surprise. Rather, it’s a sad milestone.”
She explains that this is partly because Japanese society is organized on a traditional division of labour: the man works and the woman raises the children. And she sees that reflected in her Japanese mother-in-law. “It was only normal in her time that you stopped working when you got married. Then you started preparing to have children.”
You can also see it reflected in the Japanese parliament, which consists of only 10 percent women. “That is less than in North Korea,” says Japanologist and assistant professor of East Asia Studies Casper Wits.
He confirms that the traditional division of labor plays a major role in the decision not to have children. “Society is not adapted to flexible working for both parents and that has negative consequences for the position of women.”
In primary school, for example, mothers are often expected to help out in the middle of the day. “That is not stated in the law, but there is great social pressure to come anyway.” You cannot combine motherhood with a job.
Working 13 hours a day
Long working days also play an important role. A full-time job in Japan easily means that you work 10 to 13 hours a day. That is difficult to combine with raising a child, especially due to the dire shortage of (affordable) day care centers.
The Japanese are therefore more at work than at home. For example, Wits hardly sees a good friend in Tokyo, even if he stays at her house. She has a senior position at Mitsubishi and often works from 9 am to 11 or 12 pm. “It’s like having an apartment to myself.”
Okano-Heijmans sees this reflected in her Japanese husband, who hardly saw his father when he was growing up. “He came home at 12 o’clock in the evening and left again at 6 o’clock in the morning.” Because, she explains, in Japan you don’t go home until your boss leaves.
She does say that things have improved a bit, but not much. “They are now allowed to work less overtime, but then you come home at 8 or 9 o’clock, and you still hardly see your children.” And that makes Japanese men not an attractive partner to have children with.
Career woman
The fact that making a career and having children cannot be combined in the minds of the Japanese is already apparent from the Japanese term ‘career woman’ that they use for it. “That term means: women focused on a career, without a family.” Career tigers with a child are an exception.
That thought already plays a role when looking for a job, a good friend tells Wits. “It is easier for Japanese girls to find a job if they have only completed their bachelor’s degree.” Some employers prefer not to have you do a master’s as well. “They calculate that after a bachelor’s you still have about eight years before you start having children, while after a master’s it is only about six years.”
Maternity harassment
You can find that mindset in the workplace. Because anyone who does decide to combine work and motherhood will most likely have to deal with ‘maternity harassment’, or ‘maternity harassment’.
That means women are bullied from the workplace if they become pregnant, plan to become pregnant or re-enter after pregnancy. “You get a slanted look if you, as a pregnant woman, complain that you have to work overtime,” says Wits.
And even though maternity leave is now regulated by law: the boss is not waiting for it. “Do you have to pick up your child? What kind of nagging is that?”
Culture change
According to both experts, a social culture change is therefore needed to ensure that more Japanese people start having children. And according to Okano-Heijmans ‘that requires quite a bit’. For example, in 2007, the health minister described women as “beard machines” and urged them to “do their best” to solve the country’s declining birth rate.
Wits and Okano-Heijmans are therefore cynical about the plans of the current prime minister. “I’ve seen positive initiatives before, but they turned out to be no more than a drop in the ocean,” explains Wits.
In 2013, former Prime Minister Abe introduced the ‘womenomics’ initiative: women must shine in the workplace. But it didn’t make much difference. It only ensured that a number of women were put in a few important top positions.
The Japanologist believes that the prime minister understands the problem and wants to solve it, but society’s resistance is still too great. “And so a demographic time bomb is ticking.”
However, the experts are positive about the plan to scale up the number of day care centers. They call that a critical part of the problem.
Better robots than migrants
In any case, labor migrants are not a solution for Japan at the moment, argue Wits and Okano-Heijmans. Only 3 percent of Japan’s population was born abroad. The idea of migrant workers is in any case rejected by conservative politicians, but there is also aversion among the population.
They are not used to it and have high demands when it comes to language, for example, explains Okano-Heijmans. “Some people hate poor Japanese, but many Japanese just don’t get it either. They feel more comfortable with robots.”
She also thinks that the problem is partly solved precisely because of the high age expectancy of the Japanese. “When I take a taxi in Japan, the driver can just be someone as old as 80.” So they also work a lot longer. “Sometimes because they want to keep busy, but sometimes because it’s a dire necessity.”
Netherlands and Italy
But for the time being, Japan will have to make do with few babies, leading to the closure of schools in rural areas across the country. For example, the Yumoto Junior School in a mountainous part of northern Japan recently closed. The last two students graduated on April 1. It meant the end of the 76-year-old school.
The Netherlands is also dealing with a shrinking population and an aging population. But the situation here cannot be compared to Japan, says Wits. “Not wanting to have children has more to do with emancipation, for example.”
The situation in Japan is actually more comparable to that in Italy. Like Japan, the aging country faces expectations of the role of the traditional mother.
