SUMMARY BBC NEWS

Why does Japan have so few children? - BBC New

Japan's number of children has been reported to be at its lowest since 1950.There are just 14.6
million children in the nation under the age of 14, according to figures from Japan's internal affairs
ministry.Japan's falling birth rate and high life expectancy is putting pressure on public spending and
resulting in labour shortages.The BBC's population correspondent Stephanie Hegarty reports.

The Japanese average salary hasn’t increased in the past 20 years or so, but the cost of living has
been. As a young Japanese living & working in Tokyo, if I were to make enough money to have a child is
to work for foreign-owned companies - which pay about 1.5-2x or more than what you’d get paid in
Japanese companies; this option is only given to those who can speak English. Even then, many
managers of these companies will still adopt the Japanese work style, which will make it difficult for
many people to have spare time to raise a child. Also, we are required to pay pension fees regardless of
what we make per year, and quite a big portion of our income gets deducted. The irony is t's not even
guaranteed that we will be paid pension funds when we become older; we are paying for security for
the retired lives of people we don't even know.

Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArB4rgA1hM