I was watching a documentary about this. White guy who’s been living in Japan for decades goes to dying villages, talks with the locals in Japanese, they complain about no one wanting to live in villages, declining house prices, no one to do the necessary jobs. He mentions it’d be nice to live in a village.
The look of fear. You wouldn’t understand the culture, we have a certain way of doing things, … yadayada.
I’ve been watching this channel about a Canadian couple moving to a little village in Japan. The locals have been very welcoming. They’re renting a home from a local who were apparently very happy to have them.
I’m sure small town attitudes happen. They happen everywhere. I’m just not sure Japan is uniquely bad.
I watch them too. And there’s another similar channel of a single young (American, I think?) woman who’s doing the same thing. And again, the locals are very welcoming - I suspect this depends on whether the newcomers are making an effort to integrate, learn the language, etc.
Idk. Why go to Japan if you want to live in a village when you can go go to Thailand.
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Idk. Why go to Japan if you want to live in a village when you can go go to Thailand.
Idk. Why go to Japan if you want to live in a village when you can go go to Thailand.
Wasn’t that a BBC article? The wording is very familiar as well the exact scenario.
Do you have a link or name to that docu?
I think it’s this YouTube channel! (life where I’m from): https://youtu.be/LEh697_p79I
Cool, thanks
Sorry, no. Think it was something on NHK I watched several years ago.
Wouldn’t have thought that NHL of all would portrait japanese people like that. Interesting.
Funfact: Increasing birth rates in industrialized countries is correlated with increasing wealth of people in the age range 18-45 and increasing financial equality.
But that means less billionaires.
Makes a lot of sense anecdotally. So, I’m in my late 20s, making what people say is a “pretty good salary but not the highest I’ve seen” for someone my age, I save up religiously, and I have made zero large purchases (including holidays abroad) for the past 3 years.
I can now just barely afford to buy a decent place to live in.
That’s all without children. Now how in the hell am I supposed to afford that with a kid too? They’re very expensive.
Yep. A couple years ago I crossed the 6 figure threshold, which is what I was always told growing up was “good money”. But when you factor in inflation + living in a HCOL area, it doesn’t go nearly that far. I’m mostly comfortable and able to save but that’s because I save/invest religiously and also don’t make large purchases. There is 0 chance I could afford a kid right now.
And I’m not trying to say I have it the worst, I recognize the privilege I do have making as much as I do/how much less financial stress I have compared to previously. But man, 6 figures was so hyped up as a kid and it just doesn’t have the purchasing power it used to.
I’m convinced this is a major great filter event for all intelligent species. “Can the natural consolidation of power and resources in the world be sufficiently counteracted to avoid massive cataclysmic population crashes?”
Civilizations collapse because of environmental overshoot. Every other civilization has been in relatively small geographic locations.
Whoever thought this globalization thing was a good idea was incredibly short sighted.
Source? All data I can find indicates the opposite. The wealthier a cohort, the lower their fertility rate. In the U.S., for example, the wealthiest have the fewest kids and the poorest have the most.
Well here’s the Personal income inequality in the Nordics for example, and look what happened to the Total fertility rate in the Nordic countries.
Look at Sweden for example (purple in the first graph, blue-yellow in the second). You have this minimum in income inequality in 1990 and a maximum in total fertility rate at the same time. Then, inequality reaches a maximum and plateaus there from 1995-2000, which is exactly where the fertility rate reaches its minimum with a pleateu. Then from 2000-2005 there’s a minimum in inequality immediatly accompanied with a maximum in fertility again.
It’s probably a good thing in the long run. Like how the plague in Europe actually gave the serfs more rights. Since it gave the workers more leverage since there was more demand for workers than they were in supply.
Japan is overcrowded. Sure villages are bleeding dry, but in the cities people live in tiny apartments that cost too much. And lots of people do very meaningless soul crushing jobs for little pay, jobs that are already automated in the rest of the world. Like even a job that can be replaced by a simple sign. Seriously when I was in Japan I saw people at the station that were just pointing passengers towards the exit. And it wasn’t even an emergency situation, just a regular workday.
Sure a shrinking population is bad for the economy, but for the people it will mean that housing prices will go down and pay will go up and they will have more rights in the long run.
Seriously when I was in Japan I saw people at the station that were just pointing passengers towards the exit. And it wasn’t even an emergency situation, just a regular workday.
That’s because in Japan, people like people showing them the way. In a society were social contacts are… Seldom, these small things remind them there are other actual people. And I get the sentiment and I’m pretty young in comparison with just over 30. Making that exact job anything but meaningless.
I mean similar to how in the Western world we like to sit down at a table and have food brought to us, when we really could just get up and get it from the counter ourselves.
Service industry is exactly that. Serving people. Which can be expressed in lots of different ways in different cultures.
Obviously you run into a lot of other issues with a sudden change but we are frankly pretty overpopulated and could use a decrease. It turns out that a system predicated on infinite population growth with finite resources can’t be sustained forever. Especially with how finite they are in our case.
I think even worse than our population issues is the overcentralization though. SO much is based around Tokyo, the vast majority of jobs are located there, especially if you want any upwards mobility. It’s even worse if you include areas like Chiba and Saitama as part of the greater Tokyo area. Even the other cities pale in comparison to opportunities in Tokyo. If people could spread out a bit more, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is now.
I was lucky enough to be able to move out of Tokyo last year thanks to my work. I am not in a super rural area but I definitely never want to go back to Tokyo if I can help it. I am in the mountains around Mt. Fuji, and get to work overlooking a spectacular view of the mountain. Don’t have to deal with packing into crowded trains in the summer when everyone is dripping with sweat.
How’s child care? Is that a thing?
In the states you pretty much need a $50k job just to cover daycare for 2 kids. And that’s assuming your spouse covers food, housing, cars, etc
I don’t know how most families afford more than 1 kid, if any, based on salaries/pay in the US
Some prefectures offer free childcare services, but it depends a lot on where you live. Historically they aren’t services that have been used a lot, there is something of a cultural expectation that you or your family watch kids. As an example, babysitters/nannies are basically unheard of unless it is a relative. My girlfriend’s sister has a child and either the sister is home all day with the kid or her parents watch it; she even leaves in an prefecture with free daycare services.
There is a fairly decent maternity leave that most new mothers do end up using. There’s an initial lump sum payment plus you get about 2/3 your salary for up to a year (I think those times are right). Paternity leave technically exists as well but I have never met anyone who has used it.
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I can help with that, if you like tips fedora /s
Yamete kudasai!
