[gamepsys]

Out of all of Japan's problems, I think the fundamental root is they need to import a significant amount of energy. They do not have significant coal, oil, uranium. They have limited access to solar and wind for their population size. To offset all of their energy imports, they need to work very hard to produce a lot of exports.

The economic troubles are centered around having to pay a premium to import energy. The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation. Their foreign policy has to keep energy access as a main priority.

[kredd]

> The birth rate is negatively impacted by the economic situation

Only to a certain extent. Looking at data of every single rich country, and my own circles, there’s just no appetite for most of people to have 3 children (2.1+ needed for replacement).

I weirdly think about this issue way too much, since I’m a part of a problem. All my girl friends, who want children, only want one or two. Why would anyone sacrifice, at the very bare minimum, 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children? There’s just too much opportunity loss compared to lower income / less rich countries.

I have no idea how to tackle this problem, but would be very interested to read about or somehow even contribute to potential solutions that are beyond “people have to have lots of children for cultural reasons!” argument.

[swatcoder]

> Why would anyone sacrifice, at the very bare minimum, 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children? There’s just too much opportunity loss compared to lower income / less rich countries.

> solutions that are beyond “people have to have lots of children for cultural reasons!”

But you've already just framed it as a cultural dilemma in the preceding paragraph. Are you really meaning, "without challenging my own cultural values, how can I get someone else to provide the time and money I don't feel justified investing myself?"

[dauertewigkeit]

> 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children? There’s just too much opportunity loss

No there isn't. People want to dick around without responsibility. That's fine. But most people don't really accomplish anything that would come close in worth to raising a child in those six years, in no way shape or form. Let's not frame it in economic terms. People just want to dick around and that's fine.

[gustavus]

> Why would anyone sacrifice, at the very bare minimum, 6 years of their youthful years for 3 children?

Most of the most fulfilling and meaningful things in life don't always make sense or are reasonable. But they often almost always have to do with serving and sacrificing for others.

[calf]

It's not a "real" problem unless 7 billion people really need a net positive replacement rate.

[lainga]

Well, one solution could be for Western economies to irreversibly contract under the strain of a high dependency ratio, leading to the cessation of industrial fertiliser production. At that point, I expect a large fraction of the population would return to subsistence farming, and rediscover the traditional incentive that children can work as farm-hands, the more the better (esp. in case some of them die to cholera, typhus, etc.).

Nothing more than a modest proposal to spur discussion...!

[irrational]

Tie things like social security, healthcare in old age, etc. to how many kids a person has had. You only get full retirement benefits if you have had three children and raise them to adulthood. There are bonus levels for going above three children. Those who are infertile can adopt to meet their quota.

[zo1]

We either have to embrace the new world and make it work for our species in terms of population, or we have to go back to the old ways on some level (after admitting they were that way for a reason).

Here are some ideas, some wild, some controversial, some super obvious that we can try. But we never will because the backlash from the usual suspects will always be too great.

1. Pay people to have babies. Seriously, tax breaks and literally free money. E.g. for every baby a citizen makes and cares for, we'll give them enough to times their monthly salary by 1.06. You could do this tomorrow, and people would have babies. That relieves the burden placed on people for the wonderful gift they brought into the world.

2. Make daycare a universal human right. Quality care and free for all your citizens, no questions asked.

3. Give mothers 1/2/3/4/5 years worth of paid maternity leave. No, don't get the companies to pay it. Should be a government salary that matches the employer's salary with yearly growth. That way pregnant women aren't a drain on a company, but rather the burden we happily accept as a society.

4. Pay people to get married and stay married if they have kids. Maybe even make divorce a hard thing to motivate for and only for the right reasons such as abuse. We don't want divorces breaking up family homes and our baby-making factories prematurely.

Some potentially wacky ones:

5. Ban dating apps and outlaw hookup culture. We want genuine relationships and marriages to form, as they're the backbone of a culture that values generational properties such as legacy and community.

6. Make promiscuity illegal. Track who hooks up with who and you can't do more than X per year. Seriously, sex needs to be hard to attain. Side note, ban sex work and porn.

7. Subsidized baby-assistance jobs. Pay to get a nanny or au-pair or teacher in every home. Bonus points you help with the unemployment question.

8. Baby making factories or make it a profession for women to do - however workable until we figure out artificial wombs. There are so many people out there that just will never be able to get the chance to be parents even though they'd make wonderful and loving parents, why not help them by letting them adopt.

And yes I know there are many ways the above could go bad, or are riddled with "a ha gotcha" holes, but at least we'd be doing something as a society. Right now, our governments are doing nothing and just complaining "oh shame look at our poor birth rates, we wonder why. Let's just conveniently import more of them from the poorest and most incompatible countries, that outta fix it and not cause problems down the line.".

We could fund most of the above by just getting rid of all the silly government expenditures such as military and who knows what other fat we have lurking in the government.

[ttepasse]

> They have limited access to solar and wind for their population size.

I would have assume an island nation on their latitudes would profit from solar and even more from offshore wind. Is there a reason why it doesn't seem so?