In May, the government announced a five-year plan to stem declining birth rates
-- now at an all time low of 1.29 per woman -- pledging to nurture a working
environment that respects family life, a society that accommodates children and
one that also helps youth to find steady jobs.
The new plan illustrates a sharp shift from the older Japan, responsible for
the nation's post-war economic miracle, where men worked for long hours in
companies and women stayed at home to look after the family.
It also follows a decade, which ended in April, of government-led reforms
towards a baby boom centred on increasing child care facilities for working
parents -- but it only produced gloomy results.
Saito says the dismal decade illustrated that infrastructure alone cannot
reverse the population trend.
"The population fall can be related to more deeper problems in society which
have yet to be dealt with," he acknowledged in an interview.
According to government research, late marriages and job-hopping among youth
are the key reasons for the population decline.
The average age for marriage is now 27.8 years for women and 29 years for men.
According to statistics, 720,429 couples were married in 2004, down by 19,762
from the previous year.
More than 520,000 youth between the ages of 15 to 34 years are classified as
NEET -- not in education, employment or training -- and 4.17 million are called
"freeters", those lacking steady jobs (and incomes) and thus unable to marry
and start families.
"Many young women and men do not want to get married these days, and even if
they do, prefer to not have children. They are worried about economic stability
as well as want to be free from family responsibilities," says Professor Yoshio
Higuchi, a labour expert at Keio University.
Higuchi's research into freeters shows the trend started growing in the
eighties, when more young graduates shirked the rigid and demanding job
structure to opt for a lifestyle that emphasised personal enjoyment over
starting families.
That structure became more firmly entrenched in the nineties, when Japan's
economic slide led to fierce corporate restructuring and more youth became
hired as temporary workers to slash costs. Such a situation, says Higuchi, has
contributed heavily to the greying of the Japanese population. In 2004, only
1.11 million babies were born, down from 1.23 million in 2003.
In a bid to address the situation, the government is spearheading a campaign to
have Japanese companies enact regulations that help their workers take
child-care leave, hire full-time employees and, in particular, to not
discriminate against female employees who want to start families.
Local governments have also begun to enact programmes to increase the number of
babies. Nara prefecture, 200 km west of Tokyo, which is grappling with birth
rates as low as 1.16 per women, is pouring money into plans that centre on
matchmaking, to help young women and men to get married as soon as possible.
"We found out in our surveys that youth were delaying marriage because they
could not find suitable partners. So we are providing financial support for
programmes that bring youth together for the purpose of marriage," said
Atsuhiro Goto, an official at the Nara prefectural office.
Comments from unmarrieds or couples who are opting to delay starting a family,
however, point to the uphill struggle faced by the government in its efforts to
increase the population.
"I am not in a hurry to get married. Single life gives me the freedom to do
what I like," says Ichiro Yoshida, 36, a computer programmer who divorced his
wife three years ago.
Keiko Muto, 34, who is single and works in a bank, repeats the same comment.
Muto, who just invested in a new home, says marriage is not an obligation but a
choice if she finds a partner who shares her interests.
''I enjoy my work, which demands a lot of my time. To change my life for the
sake of starting a family depends on if I can find the correct partner," says
the confident woman who has spent may years overseas.
Such opinions, according to gender activist Mari Matsumoto, represent the vast
changes in Japanese society that must be accepted when addressing the
population decline.
"The generation gap in Japan is pretty obvious and the government must realise
that expecting women to produce more babies is not the goal but how family
responsibilities can match the new aspirations of modern youth," she argued.
Inter Press Service
