Local Japanese leaders call for more foreign immigrant workers
(www.sankakucomplex.com)
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There must be more to it than that, because even relationships are less likely to result in children, where they would consistently get 4-5 children in earlier times. Part of it is that children are now a burden, when they were an asset to peasants (and societies where cultural norms are closer to agricultural ones).
I'm not sure how to fix it, but we first need to diagnose the problem.
Most people can't afford kids.
Or think they can't. The ones who actually can't afford to have kids are being taxed to pay for the children of those who actually can't, but did anyways.
Meh on this as sure, children require a lot of energy and investment but how are they MORE a burden now with modern agricultural technology able to do the work of 100 people with 1 person than back in time when everyone worked or starved and childhood didn't exist.
The answer is Legacy, we have no concept of it nowadays and it's all short term thinking. Relationships are a Legacy as you think of power couples or with grandparents staying together for decades creating several generations. Now , it's all instant gratification to the extent that kids are a burden to having more fun.
You're looking at it at a societal level. You should look at it from an individual level. On a farm, a kid is used to help from an early age, and more kids means more security in retirement - as the norm is that kids take care of their parents when they are old.
Right now, a kid only costs you stuff. You have to pay exorbitant sums on everything from food, clothing to college tuition. You have to forgo vacations and get a babysitter (who may be molesting your kid) whenever you're away from the home, so you don't have any freedom. And this for what? Certainly not for any tangible financial or other sort of material benefit. While that is not all there is to having a kid, it certainly doesn't help to have the material costs be so onerous.
But I know people who have stayed together for a long time without having kids. So like I said, there's more to it than just that, though the 60s culture definitely does not help.
Child labor, you just said that children are a burden when they used to be an asset. Parents could rent out their children to a factory for the price of food and a pod to sleep in.
Mandatory education is also a huge depressor. What's the point in having kids if you just act as a place that feeds them, keeps them overnight, and gets them ready for the real authority in the kids' lives, which is the government?
It turns out that when you take away people's authority (and charge them for the privilege), they become less invested in the product and less likely to have more of that product.