The Culture Beat

The lede from a story in the Christmas Eve — talk about irony! — New York Times (hat tip: Ross Douhat via Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish) said it all:

Japan’s population declined this year for the first time since the country began keeping demographic records in 1899, according to preliminary figures released by the government this week.

Given Japan’s notoriously low birthrate, 1.29 births per woman, its population is expected to both drop and grow older: from 128 million today to half of that in 2100 and people over 65 are expected to be 30 percent of the population within 20 years.

Make that “was expected.” “The decrease, which specialists say signals the start of an era of shrinking population, occurred two years earlier than had been expected.” That suggests that the problem, which threatens not only Japan’s economy but, at the least, its sense of identity and, at the most, its very existence, may be worst than predicted.

What we know for certain is that, in Times-speak “government policies [appear] to be ineffective in raising the birthrate . . .” You think? I’ve written about this many times and, at the risk of repeating myself, low fertility rates resist governmental incentives like the ones Japan has employed because the reason for low birth rates isn’t, as the Times believes, “a pervasive pessimism about the future,” at least not primarily.

When the Times notes that “in the past decade, Japanese companies have relied increasingly on contract workers instead of hiring costly staff employees,” it neglects to mention that Japan’s birthrate began to fall long before that: during the height of “Japan, Inc.” with its promise of lifetime employment.

While economics plays a role in falling birthrates, (it could hardly do otherwise) that role is hard to pin down: hard times seem to lead to falling birthrates, e.g., smaller American families during the Great Depression. Likewise, prosperity nearly always produces lower birthrates, e.g., everywhere.

If something — let’s call it “E” for economics — produces both a thing and its opposite, then it’s reasonable to suspect that the best explanation lies, if not elsewhere, then in that “something” plus something else: in this case, E plus “C,” as in culture. Falling birthrates are shaped by our attitudes, beliefs, and priorities. Are children ends or means? Are they why we work or an obstacle to be overcome as we build our careers? Do women feel that childbearing will be held against them at work? Do men contribute more than sperm and a portion of their income to the care and nuture of their children?

Given the sui generis quality of Japanese culture, it’s best not to draw any broader conclusions from their predicament save one: not only are cultural attitudes unresponsive to economic incentives, once they’ve taken hold, they are tough, if not impossible, to reverse. That’s why once birthrates begin to drop they tend to zoom past “replacement level,” 2.1 births per woman, straight to the national suicide levels we see in Japan, Korea and Western Europe. People don’t think “while having four kids is bad, having two is good.” They view having kids, regardless of the number, as problematic on both a personal and public level.

This is what we call anti-natalism, which is why I’m pessimistic about Japan’s future, albeit for very different reasons than the Times.