Comments by "Gordon Graham" (@gordonbgraham) on "Why Foreign Men Struggle Dating In Japan" video.
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@unixtreme I agree with those points that are demonstrably accurate. My world view is determined by facts. A recent survey in the Japan Times (2019) noted that more than 1/3 of the 3000 high school girls polled listed "homemaker" as their future goal. I've taught at a high school of 1500 students for more than 30 years. I have a pretty firm read on how young people in Japan think and what their ambitions are. I've kept in touch with several of my students over the years. Most of whom have gotten married and had kids. No, not having kids does not "mostly come down to money". The poorest countries have the highest birthrates. Young people having fewer kids comes down to more women entering the workforce, mainly. Many of those women have kids later, in their mid to late 30s and as such only have one or two at most, not 3~5 like the previous generation. Another factor in young people not wanting to have kids is the hyper-consumerism that took hold in the 1980s bubble by which people became even more driven to obtain expensive goods. High school girls from middle class families would sell themselves to get money for expensive brand name goods. Having expensive stuff became a desired necessity. People became more "get stuff...lead a gorgeous life" focused than "settle down and have a family" focused. The thing is, Louis Vuitton can only bring so much temporary happiness and does not give one a sense of purpose, so those girls started to have kids in their mid 30s or even early 40s...and as such only had one kid. It's not a matter of "affordability", raising kids in Japan is not expensive. It's been more of a "choosing to accumulate expensive stuff, have extravagant vacations etc." over "choosing to have a family" scenario. Lastly, there is the advent of the Internet, which has made it easy for many to cocoon inside and live vicarious lives on the Internet. This has led to the social recluse issue and has made it especially easy for guys who aren't good at socialising to just retreat into pornography for their physical gratification. All these factors have had a greater impact than "affordability" as it's not any more expensive to raise children now than it was 40 or 50 years ago when the government didn't provide stipends of ¥15,000 a month and renting or buying a home was relatively more expensive. My example simply serves to illustrate that one can raise 5 kids with a household income of $50,000 quite comfortably in Japan. It’s less about “me” than it is about financial viability.
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