Tokyo is turning to a 4-day work week in a desperate attempt to get women to have more babies as birthrate plunges

[Demovictory9]

https://fortune.com/2024/12/07/tokyo-japan-4-day-work-week-oldest-population-birth-rate/

Tokyo is turning to a 4-day work week in a desperate attempt to help Japan shed its unwanted title of ‘world’s oldest population’

Japan is facing a population crisis—so Tokyo, its largest city, will try to solve the problem with something new: a four-day work week.

Starting in April, the Tokyo Metropolitan government, one of the country’s largest employers, is set to allow its employees to work only four days a week. It is also adding a new “child care partial leave” policy, which will allow some employees to work two fewer hours per day. The goal is to help employees who are parents balance childcare and work, said Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike.


“We will continue to review work styles flexibly to ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events such as childbirth or child-rearing,” Koike said in a speech this week during the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly’s regular session, the Japan Times reported.

The country’s total fertility rate, which represents the number of children a woman has in her lifetime, stood at 1.2 in 2023, and in Tokyo, the birth rate was even lower at 0.99. To maintain a broadly stable population, a birth rate of 2.1 is required, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The median age of a Japanese citizen is 49.9, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. In the U.S., the median age is 38.9.

[NoRethugFriends]

1. Because the planet certainly needs more people

[Celerity]

20. The advanced nations do, if they want to maintain their social safety nets and ageing population care via

internal means, and not rely on systemically destabilising (at so many levels of impact) mass immigration from the third world. A large chunk of the first world countries are below replacement rates in terms of pregnancies per female.

Japan is demographically in massive trouble atm.

Some nations, like where I live (Sweden), are having their birthrates propped up by non native immigrants and refugees, far too many of whom are now having a profound lack of integration into the overall society. My Swedish (I am a tripartite citizen, US, UK, and Sweden) government bears a large amount of the blame for it all, and now we have a large, hardcore RW nationalist, racist political party (Sweden Democrats ie SD) on our hands in the Riksdag (parliament). SD is now in a power sharing agreement with the other (more moderate) RW parties and is putting really bad laws into play. The whole situation is a clusterfuck.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

2. Couldn't be because the work week is too long, eh? (n/t)

[Silent Type]

3. I'd hold out for 3-day week.

[The Madcap]

4. It's not about number of workdays

But the number of hours is a bigger deal. 60-80 hours / wk and raising kids do not mix.

[JI7]

5. How about treating women more equally ? How many women are their in government and elected positions in Japan ?

[RazorbackExpat]

10. The governor of Tokyo is a woman

The representative from my district is a woman.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

6. Japan to be rebranded: "Land of the Rising Birthrates"

If 3 day weekend works out.

[soandso]

7. I hope it works

because Japan has such a unique and amazing culture. They're gonna have to knock off the octopus porn, though.

[exboyfil]

8. I wonder why they get a pass in taking in immigrants

A country of 125 million took in a total of 303 refugees in 2023 and that was a recent record. Most years were under a 100.

[soandso]

9. What do you mean, "get a pass"?

They're a sovereign nation who sets their own policies. They don't answer to any other entity.

[RazorbackExpat]

12. For one thing, a lot of immigrants can't adapt to life in Japan

You really need a Japanese family member or extremely close Japanese friend to guide you through the intricacies of living in Japan. Its unique written language is also an automatic roadblock for many potential immigrants.

日本の家族や親友がないと、日本の日常生活はむつかしいと思います。

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

17. I've lived there twice ...

... but both times it has been part of an organized program with orientation and support built in. The first time was on the Japanese government sponsored JET program in the early 1990's. I taught English at the two middle schools in a town in Nagano Prefecture (where the Olympics were in 1998). I met my wife, an American teaching at a private cram school (juku), during that year. The JET program and the local Board of Education did a lot to support me and help me fit in.

The second time, in 2003, I spent about 6 months as part of a sister university exchange at Shikoku University. My wife and two sons came with me, and they enrolled in a local kindergarten. The University had an orientation and support program in place that made it relatively easy.

I agree it would be very difficult for immigrants, especially refugees, to navigate the complexities of language and bureaucracy in the country. Unless there was a significant support structure in place. There is also the reality that the Japanese are culturally isolationist and do not particularly like foreigners.

Some Japanese individuals certainly are friendly and supportive and can become lifelong friends or more. But as a system and culture they see themselves as separate from all other nationalities and more or less require that most foreigners adapt fully even with little or no help doing so provided.

It does not make it an easy place to emigrate.

[RazorbackExpat]

18. I've had the advantage of having Japanese family members,

a high level of education, and a high level of Japanese proficiency. And even then, it took me a while to get used to life in Japan.

I've had to spend a lot of time in the Japanese health care system the last couple of years. My health care providers are very competent, but they breathe a sigh of relief when they hear I can speak Japanese.

[RazorbackExpat]

19. I also taught at a Japanese junior high in the 1990s

It wasn't JET, but a kind of offshoot of JET, handled by a private English school.

[RazorbackExpat]

11. Octopus porn isn't a big thing in Japan

Really, it isn't.

[soandso]

13. I was making a joke

but I have seen it's a thing which grossed me out. I'm very impressed with the Japanese but that stuff is creepy weird.

[RazorbackExpat]

14. In my 4 decades in Japan, I've never seen it

And I'm not a prude by any means.

[soandso]

15. I guess it was a lousy joke, then :)

Glad to hear it's not a thing.

[RazorbackExpat]

16. Japan has a reputation of being "weird"

but where I'm living, it's anything but weird.

[soandso]

21. Something of interest here

This is a tweet from the guy who killed Brian Thompson of United Healthcare:

Here he is on Japan's suicidal population decline:

Luigi Mangione
@PepMangione
Apr 18
Modern Japanese urban environment is an evolutionary mismatch for the human animal.

The solution to falling birthdates isn’t immigration. It’s cultural.

Encourage natural human interaction, sex, physical fitness and spirituality:
* ban Tenga fleshlights and “Japan Real Hole” custom pornstar pocket pussies being sold in Don Quixote grocery stores
* replace conveyor belt sushi and restaurant vending machine ordering, with actual human interaction with a waiter
* replace 24/7 eSports cafes where young males earn false fitness signals via Tekken fighting and Overwatch shooting games, with athletics in school
* heavily stigmatize maid cafes where lonely salarymen pay young girls to dress as anime characters and perform anime dances for them
* revitalize traditional Japanese culture (Shintoism, Okinawan karate, onsen, etc)

https://nitter.poast.org/PepMangione/status/1780863519677940189#m