Der Plan für ein verlängertes Wochenende in Tokio wird die Probleme der Bevölkerung nicht beenden

ss: The strategy might work outside Japan, but everything depends upon how that extra day is used by a couple. The same study showed that the women generally had a veto on extra children.

The worst-case scenario in Tokyo is that only women take the extra day. They use the time to “catch up” on child caring duties. Their partner carries on as before.

Without the change in underlying child rearing behaviour, within a family, a three-day weekend is no use.

I remember a language audio course i took that had the sentence “i only have to work five days out of the week”

This might surprise most people, but kids won’t let you turn them off during the week. That extra day off from work will be nice, but it’s a pretty bad proposition.

“Hey, you only have to work 4 days out of the week. Can you please build a human that will be a 24 hour concern for at least the next 18 years of your life?”

“Oh, also, the planet seems to be nosediving in health for some reason and automation is going to send most the world into poverty, but please think of the country and our birth rate issues. We need meat sacks up until we don’t. So, please find the motivation to do your part”

Tokyo has pretty good housing prices tbh, especially compared to other cities like New York… but it’s also filled with tiny apartments with people living with multiple generations together. Not everyone has the motivation to impregnate their wife while the father in law watches. I think they gotta find a way to spread the population back out to the countryside, embrace remote working, and give people space to have happy kids with their own rooms.

I can’t stand seeing all this doomerism in the comments.   

Yes a 4 day weekend won’t magically solve all the problems BUT it will improve things.  It will improve work life balance and allow more rest, time for cooking, cleaning, shopping and things that ease the burdens of child care. 

Yes, it won’t magically make all people want to have kids but some people will see this change as a positive and feel more an ease if they were to have a child. 

And finally, yes, some (many) people will still be pressured into working 5 days but some wont.  And it’s the start of a change whereas, say, 10-20 years down the line it becomes normal to work 4 days and not 5.  

There is no magic 1 switch fix all solution, instead it’s the sum of many small changes like this to fix problems.  

I hate this “dwindling birthrates” alarmism. Women don’t owe this world or anyone any kid/kids. Motherhood is every woman’s personal choice not an obligation.

The only possible and right way to “boost birth rates” is make family and parenthood a fair deal to women.

Currently the patriarchal model of family and parenthood along with the fact that choosing motherhood still means a woman having to go through the horrors, risks and harms of pregnancy and childbirth herself even today, makes family and parenthood a totally unfair deal for women, which makes it unappealing to them.

If we truly want to effectivly “boost birth rates”, we need to make marriage, family and parenthood a fair and equal deal for both men and women.

Humanity should invest in developing the Artificial Womb Technology and make it an accessible reality to all asap, so that women who actually wants kids can have an option to have them without the need to go pregnant and face the horrors of giving birth themselves, if they choose to.

Marriage and family system should be gender equal, ambilineal and ambilocal and both men and women should do their fair share of unpaid household work. There should be serious crack down on all forms of domestic violence. Overall marriage and family should be a partnership of equals. Strict gender roles should be abolished from society and both men and women should be paid equally at work and should have equal opportunities to advance in their careers. Also, housing and raising a child needs to be made affordable. Moreover, there should be strict measures to combat climate change to secure the future of our children.

If these steps are undertaken, it will not only make society a fair place for all but will also effectively encourage couples to have kids. Otherwise, no point for these “experts” and “policy makers” to throw tantrums over “dwindling birthrates”. I rest my case.