In the context of Capitalism, sure, Japan is in trouble.

But then again, any system that demands infinite growth within a finite system has a biological parallel… in cancer. Yes, capitalism is economic cancer.

Japan has a bright future in front of it, if it can successfully pioneer an effective degrowth system that prioritizes the lives of people over Paraiste-Class profits.

No one has time for family in Japan

When I watch yt videos about people leaving the workplace at 10pm, I wonder how suicide rate isn't way higher

You can tell capitalism is super efficient and sustainable by how it totally collapses without fresh babies to sacrifice.

I live and work in Japan, and it definitely is not a very condusive environment for younger Japanese people to have children. My wife and I are both foreigners, and we are in out late 30's and just had our first. The country has some really great benefits and support services for having children, but we definitely would not be able to do this if we worked for Japanese companies, and with the Japanese work mentality.

While it IS getting better, work being the central pillar of life and the expectations from the older generations are still very much a thing. The long hours of paper pushing, the culture of promotion based on age and time served rather than innovation and hard work takes a toll on people. If you are not living in the office in your 20s to show your dedication, you are looked down upon, at least accoridng to my Japanese friends.

Immigration could help fix some of this. Japan is a desireable, largely affordable country, that is safe when it comes to raising children. Living here as a foreigner though has specific challenges, and your job prospects are pretty poor unless you are lucky, and access to housing and just general living can be challenging, even if you can speak Japanese.

I just got a new job in Kyoto, and I currently live in Tokyo. I would say around 40% of the houses we applied to look at would not even let us see the properties because we are foreigners. That's 100% legal and totally ok to say here, and I take that in stride. In Australia (where I am from), they would either just tell you to piss off, or show you the property knowing you don't have a chance, so at least they are upfront about it here I guess. Getting a credit card is a massive ordeal, which you kinda need here because debit cards are increasingly hard to find, and they don't even work for all bills and systems, and getting a bank account ... it all just snowballs.

Also anything outside of the major cities is kinda dead. I love it, but living and thriving there in places that have more space that would probably promote having big families, is nearly impossible, or at least impossibly boring. This is not unique to Japan, Australia is largely the same outside of the main cities.

Not sure what the fix is. But annecdotally I see these articles all the time, and yet there are kids and younger families always around, so not sure if it is as serious as they are saying, or more media hype?

As an American (or at least a non Japanese native) if my boss came up to me yelling and swearing in my face I would punch him out cold.

Actually if more Japanese did this I think things would improve at the office.

The biggest issue that no one ever wants to talk about is ....

... it's isn't about the QUANTITY of life

.... it's about the QUALITY of life.

If people are able to have a comfortable, stable and prosperous life, with plenty of their own free time to enjoy without worrying about losing everything then they'll make time and an effort to have a family and children.

If all our wealthy overlords ever want to do is squeeze every penny out of us all the time, then people will be less likely to want to have children.

"It's so expensive to have children in Japan that birthrate is further declining."

I swear to God these people couldn't connect the dots with a GPS.

Give them some days off.

This problem is not isolated to Japan. Countries all across the world are facing the same issue and have been for a number of years.

Create a shitty, miserable, society with no rights or support, and people do not want to bring children into it.... who'd guess?

The flannel has been wrung dry to the detriment of the working class; there is no where to go, no more water to squeeze from them. This is global society / capitalism falling apart.

I believe Japan has less inequality than the US. Not sure on that, but I think it's true. I think in this case we see work culture playing a role. The only country in the world with a worse work culture than the US is Japan. No one has time to even think about having kids when you are a company man there. It's similar in the US.

Japan will literally collapse into fire before they allow immigration

Huge amount of japanese descent people in Brazil (including me), but I have the feeling the japanese would rather have their country implode than give us nationality

I love Japan, but I will say it has its issues that often get overlooked. Workplace culture is horrific in Japan and it contributes to their high suicide rates. There's even a word in Japanese that specifically refers to a person dying from being overworked. I know friends who immigrated to Japan, only to regret it because they saw for themselves just how harsh the workplace culture was. Japanese people have no time for their family. Something must change or this problem is going to get worse but given it's a highly conservative culture I'm not sure it's going to see changes anytime soon.