Tomorrow, I’m heading off to be all touristy with my family, but before then I wanted to try to answer a few questions concerning Japanese society that I’ve been getting from friends back home who are confused about the population “problem” in Japan. Luckily, I had a Japanese teacher who thought students shouldn’t go through school without being exposed to a vast variety of topics, so she gave us a book on Japan’s Child-less society to report on before finals. Not so much fun when struggling to translate all the crazy graphs on marriage rates, but really useful.
When most people hear the words “population problem,” they think of there being too many people, or the birth rate being way too high. While this is somewhat the case in Japan, since there are a lot of people and overcrowding in the cities is really ridiculous, the real problem is the fact that there are no kids being born. You know how everyone says the American dream is the white picket fence and 2.5 children? That 2.5 is talking about how many kids are born one woman, namely a married one, during her lifetime. So in America, the average number of children born to one woman is currently about 2.2, while in Japan the number is almost half that at about 1.2.
So, while there were baby booms in Japan after the war and now there is an aging population, there are no kids being born. The 20- and 30-Somethings just don’t seem to want children; the youth either are supported by their parents so they maintain “child-status” within the home or don’t want the economic burden and responsibility of a child. Add to that the fact in Japan marriage has been built up to be this thing based on monthly income, and suddenly there are a lot fewer “eligible” men in Japan.
All the young girls nowadays are after the men making over a certain amount of money at the jobs. Since this number is limited, the girls have to compete for men and only a select few actually marry. In turn, the men deemed “non-marriageable” (because their incomes aren’t high enough) are thrown to the wayside. Thanks to all this, the marriage rate is down as well in Japan, which means – you guessed it – less babies being born.
Some economics professor calculated that if things stay the way they are, in a few hundred years there will only be one Japanese person. One. This is, of course, what economics professors call the “strict” or “low” prediction, but still. One lonely little Japanese guy. My teacher joked that he’d be in a museum.
In the end, in my opinion, the current population problem points to a lot of social factors that are deeply rooted in unique social customs. For any of you who have watched Asian dramas, you know the long, drawn out way romances are portrayed, and really, these depictions aren’t far off. People just don’t meet and get married. The rigorous levels of marriageable men and income requirements only add to an already difficult process of getting close to someone you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. One problem that’s lately come into light is that of “sexless couples,” or married couples that are more like friends. They live together, are good friends, but feel no attraction past that towards one another; they just settle because they know it’s safer that way and would rather not take the time to get back on the market, so to say.
The signs of these population problems are all over in Japan, but I’ll just tell you the things I see eveyrday. At night, from 6pm until 11pm, businessmen will be clustered in convenience stores at the magazine and manga racks, even though they can go home. But they don’t want to go home. They’d rather not be with their wife, so they stay out at 7-11, reading manga for hours on end. In downtown Tokyo, you see plenty of kids thanks to urbanization, but go 20 minutes out, to Yokohama or Ohmiya, and suddenly the trains are filled with nothing but the over-60 crowd and not a stroller in sight.
Alright then, I hope that answered some of the queries I’ve been hearing, or even peaked some interest. The Japanese population problem is really a lot more interesting that it sounds, mainly because it’s not just simple overcrowding. On an international note, because of the high standards for marriage, women who fail at getting a high-income husband find that foreign men are abundant and also get paid well. And the men who are left out because their pay doesn’t add up? Well, foreign women don’t have as high standards as Japanese women, and are a bit more willing to look past the income-factor in marriage. So inter-racial marriages have jumped in the last 15 years thanks to all this drama. Yay?
Finally, since the blog’s photos are working again – or should I say working anew, thanks to our flickr stream? – I took the opportunity to upload some pictures from one of my tourist days. It’s still very much winter here, but turning towards Spring. Hopefully you’ll see some cherry blossoms soon!
