Japanese researchers are warning the island nation that its prevailing lack of interest in family and child-rearing could potentially result in the disappearance of the Japanese people within a few generations.
Fox News is reporting that researchers from the city of Sendai say there are now just 16.6 million children under the age of 14 living in Japan, with that number shrinking at an alarming rate of one ever 100 seconds. With the birth rate expected to hit 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, Japan’s future looks grim.
What is behind the lack of children in Japan?
It does not appear to be the widespread use of the pill, or government programs encouraging birth control. According to the Japan Times, almost 80 percent of married women in Japan prefer condoms to regulate births. As of 2009, only 2.2 percent of Japanese women were taking the pill, mostly because the idea that birth control is a woman’s issue is not widespread in Japan.
Abortions are also relatively low compared to the rest of the developed world. In 2007, there were about 9.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49, compared to the U.S. where the number is 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of the same age group, and 18.2 per 1,000 women in England and Wales.
Then why is it that the Japanese aren’t producing children?
Researchers believe the answer lies in several reasons.
The first reason is cost. Japan is one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in and putting a child through college can cost a family everything it owns.
Another reason is an increase in the number of “Herbivores” or effeminate men who are either not interested in sex, or who women don’t find masculine enough.
Others believe technology has produced a new generation of Japanese young adults who prefer “virtual” friends or robots, suggesting that the national fascination with comics – known as manga – has become the preferred “relationship” among youth.
At any rate, it seems clear that young Japanese are just not all that interested in sex.
According to Fox, a study released earlier this year by the National Institute of Population and Social Security found that one in four unmarried men and women in Japan in their 30’s has never had sex. Sixty percent of unmarried young men didn’t have a girlfriend, and 50 percent of women weren’t dating with the majority saying they preferred being single.
Another survey, by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36 percent of men between the ages of 16 and 19 said they have “no interest” in sex.
This all adds up to a population dearth so gaping that by the end of the millennium, there will no longer be any children in Japan.
As a result, academics have created a “population clock” to highlight the crisis and try to encourage public debate on the issue of children.
“By indicating it in figures, I want people to think about the problem of the falling birthrate with a sense of urgency,” Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, who led the research team, told the Japan Times.
The clock will be kept up-to-date by adding the latest population data each year.
“If the rate of decline continues, we will be able to celebrate the Children’s Day public holiday on May 5, 3011 as there will be one child,” said Hiroshi Yoshida, an economics professor at Tohoku University to the AFP.
“But 100 seconds later there will be no children left,’ he said, adding: ‘The overall trend is towards extinction, which started in 1975 when Japan’s fertility rate fell below two.”
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