Workers urged: Go home and multiply

[Sinestra]

Well once again Japan's birthrate and aging problem has made headline news. Companies at the request of the government are encouraging employees to go home early 2 days a week to spend time with their families and to make more babies.

For those of you who do not know Japan has a serious problem with their birthrate as it is the lowest in the world at 1.34 well below the 2.0 it needs to maintain the population. Add in the the fastest aging society in the world and you have the makings of a disaster waiting to happen. Japan wont even have enough citizens to work the jobs needed in the coming years.

I thinks its great the government is getting involved and trying to get the population to have more children (except for the Diet member who resigned because he called Japanese women baby making machines) but its going to take more than going home early 2 days a week to fix this problem. Its not just the long working hours but many other social problems and factors and i think many of these factors need to be addressed before a plan of action can be crafted to fix the problem. They are being encouraged to have more children during a economic downturn thats kind of ironic.

Any thoughts? speak up.

here is the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapc...ies/index.html

[TinyRedLeaf]

Japan should give up its "pure-race" myth and simply start allowing in more immigrants. In the long-run, no industrialised nation can fight against greying trends. A combination of higher costs of living and greater social freedoms for women has made it unattractive for families to have many children.

[King Lycan]

I always thought japan was overpopulated . >_>

[Takeru]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Japan should give up its "pure-race" myth and simply start allowing in more immigrants. In the long-run, no industrialised nation can fight against greying trends. A combination of higher costs of living and greater social freedoms for women has made it unattractive for families to have many children.

I agree also. I'm all for equal rights, but the whole "I want to work on my career" has it's effects on society. But it's not only that, but the fact that many workers don't come home until late in the night and are too tired to expend energy procreating. (I, for instance, remember waking up at 11pm and seeing the train crammed full of salary men heading home).

Originally Posted by Sinestra

here is the article.
Workers urged: Go home and multiply - CNN.com

Is that supposed to be a link?

[klowny]

Originally Posted by King Lycan

I always thought japan was overpopulated . >_>

same here but we were wrong?

it gives a reason to fornicate now

[sa547]

Originally Posted by King Lycan

I always thought japan was overpopulated . >_>

That was used to be back in the 70s, but now most of the population is approaching seniority, and the birth rate is lower.

Here's the link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/as...ies/index.html

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by King Lycan

I always thought japan was overpopulated . >_>

The problem is than the poplulations is more concentred in too few urban area ( the Kantou and Kansai , Sapporo, Fukuoka and a few others), when the country side is far less populated.

[Sinestra]

Thanks soulassassin547 i screwed up the link.

The birth rate problem is bigger than most people realize i mean they are not procreating at all and over half of their population are either at retainment age or passed it. Also, they have no SS or health insurance program for senior citizens set up so these people are screwed and since the tradition of children taking care of their parents when they are older is slowly but surely dying these people have no where to go compounding the problem even more.

[Shadow Kira01]

I believe this action is deemed to be problematic and inappropriate. First of all, not all employees are married to begin with and secondly, just because their employees are willing to go home early 2 days a week but that doesn't mean company executives should act like former Health minister Yanagizawa Hakuo.

On the contrary, since the official announcement from the companies were something like "go home early, spend time with your family" while the action of the company was to provide the same amount of salary as usual accompanied by lesser working hours, who would go against it? It is beneficial no matter how you look at it.

[King Lycan]

Well..seems like Japanese don't really love sex that much
Or they need to encourage the teens to have babies....
just kidding

[ClockWorkAngel]

I am sadden by the traditions of Filial Piety being abandoned by the Japanese. Its a sign of them growing out of tradition and of course losing culture as such, senior citizen crime rate is growing quite quickly because of poverty and loneliness.

The way I'm seeing it is that Japan has got itself into an economic predictament. They're relying too much on their exports, which leads to a huge shift to urbanization, but of course that's only population wise. Empty countryside = bad. Agriculture suffers and as such food gets more expensive, which causes a huge turmoil of things.

Well good luck with that Japan

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

Well once again Japan's birthrate and aging problem has made headline news. Companies at the request of the government are encouraging employees to go home early 2 days a week to spend time with their families and to make more babies.

For those of you who do not know Japan has a serious problem with their birthrate as it is the lowest in the world at 1.34 well below the 2.0 it needs to maintain the population. Add in the the fastest aging society in the world and you have the makings of a disaster waiting to happen. Japan wont even have enough citizens to work the jobs needed in the coming years.

I thinks its great the government is getting involved and trying to get the population to have more children (except for the Diet member who resigned because he called Japanese women baby making machines) but its going to take more than going home early 2 days a week to fix this problem. Its not just the long working hours but many other social problems and factors and i think many of these factors need to be addressed before a plan of action can be crafted to fix the problem. They are being encouraged to have more children during a economic downturn thats kind of ironic.

Any thoughts? speak up.

here is the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapc...ies/index.html

Its going to take some basic structural changes in attitude from corporations on families and family life.
First, people have to have TIME to FIND someone and get married (biggest reason given in Japanese surveys for not being married).
Second, attitudes about women by men are going to have to catch up (men: 1950s women: 1970s) - this is more a problem for middle agers and up than for youth.

And yes, the government is going to have to allow more people to immigrate. If they're worried about cultural issues - hell, make immigrants take culture courses, be careful about admitting immigrants who show they won't disturb the "wa".

[windstar!~]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Japan should give up its "pure-race" myth and simply start allowing in more immigrants. In the long-run, no industrialised nation can fight against greying trends. A combination of higher costs of living and greater social freedoms for women has made it unattractive for families to have many children.

Pretty much everything said there, I agree that they are way to fixated on preserving their "pure-race" by enforcing strict immigration laws. If they ease the restrictions and laws on immigration more people from other Asian or Western countries are likely to immigrate and take the low paid jobs they don't want to do or the positions they simply need due to the fact that there are no Japanese workers available.

Tradition and culture is something beautiful and definitely needs to be preserved but sometimes a compromise needs to be found, especially when you want to play in the league of top industrial nations.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

Well once again Japan's birthrate and aging problem has made headline news. Companies at the request of the government are encouraging employees to go home early 2 days a week to spend time with their families and to make more babies.

For those of you who do not know Japan has a serious problem with their birthrate as it is the lowest in the world at 1.34 well below the 2.0 it needs to maintain the population. Add in the the fastest aging society in the world and you have the makings of a disaster waiting to happen. Japan wont even have enough citizens to work the jobs needed in the coming years.

I thinks its great the government is getting involved and trying to get the population to have more children (except for the Diet member who resigned because he called Japanese women baby making machines) but its going to take more than going home early 2 days a week to fix this problem. Its not just the long working hours but many other social problems and factors and i think many of these factors need to be addressed before a plan of action can be crafted to fix the problem. They are being encouraged to have more children during a economic downturn thats kind of ironic.

Any thoughts? speak up.

here is the article.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapc...ies/index.html

i volunteer to go to Japan to help with this issue

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

Thanks soulassassin547 i screwed up the link.

The birth rate problem is bigger than most people realize i mean they are not procreating at all and over half of their population are either at retainment age or passed it. Also, they have no SS or health insurance program for senior citizens set up so these people are screwed and since the tradition of children taking care of their parents when they are older is slowly but surely dying these people have no where to go compounding the problem even more.

Really? I thought Japan took care of their elders very well.

[windstar!~]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

i volunteer to go to Japan to help with this issue

You see, I think a lot of people have this attitude and actually want to go there.
It's more like the Japanese government are the ones who are hindering everyone from doing it by enforcing their strict immigration laws trying to preserve said "pure-race" myth.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by windstar!~

You see, I think a lot of people have this attitude and actually want to go there.
It's more like the Japanese government are the ones who are hindering everyone from doing it by enforcing their strict immigration laws trying to preserve said "pure-race" myth.

i don't plan to stay there but if the Japanese man are either not willing or unable to do thier duty. I am more then ready to help out

[Vexx]

Undoubtedly there are some factions in the government have a "pure race myth" issue, but really I think the bigger issue is protection of their culture and etiquette.

Europeans are experiencing first hand what happens when you let groups of immigrants in who have substantially different world views and then fail to integrate them mentally into the prime culture.
America has problems at times with that at the edges but a great many of its immigrants over history understand they've come here because things sucked at home and they should leave some of their cultural baggage behind.

I think before I'd open the gates to immigration very much more, I'd address the internal problems that have led to this crisis though.
1) corporations unfriendly to the personal lives of employees.
2) social safety net issues and cost of living.
3) inequities in gender attitudes.

[windstar!~]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Undoubtedly there are some factions in the government have a "pure race myth" issue, but really I think the bigger issue is protection of their culture and etiquette.

Europeans are experiencing first hand what happens when you let groups of immigrants in who have substantially different world views and then fail to integrate them mentally into the prime culture.
America has problems at times with that at the edges but a great many of its immigrants over history understand they've come here because things sucked at home and they should leave some of their cultural baggage behind.

I think before I'd open the gates to immigration very much more, I'd address the internal problems that have led to this crisis though.
1) corporations unfriendly to the personal lives of employees.
2) social safety net issues and cost of living.
3) inequities in gender attitudes.

You're very right Vexx, in my country for instance - we've been accepting loads of immigrants with open arms to take the lower paid jobs but we failed to integrate them.
Now the biggest problem we're facing is people from other countries wanting to carry on living how they are used to it but, on the other hand,
there are loads of people not accepting that and that causes hatred and racism.

As for Japan, you might be right about them having to solve their internal problems but that means they'd have to overcome their traditions and think over the whole system of time-management for employees.

[Goshin]

OMFG i just remembered a H-manga where they called for 'extensive" sex-ed in classrooms to repopulate japan... that author knew it was going to happen someday....

or they can start accepting immigrants.....