Good Example Of Low Fertility Trends In Japan Essay

Around half a century ago, the total fertility rate (TFR) of Asian woman was expected to be six children. However, fertility rates in Northeast Asia, mainly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, have dropped significantly during the past few decades. Northeast Asia’s significant declines in fertility rates are accompanied by economic and social developments in the past 50 years. Increase in levels of education, job opportunities, living conditions, combined with improvements in technology of health care and family planning contributed to lower birth rates in the communities. Now, these countries have one of the lowest birth rates in the world, as women tend to have only one child during their childbearing years, which is far below the replacement level (2.1 per woman). In contrast, other developed countries such as United States and some European countries’ fertility are close to the replacement level. As a result, Northeast Asia countries’ elderly population kept expanding and working-age population, who can pay for pension and drive economic development, kept declining. The unanticipated trend has raised concerns about implications of not only their demographic changes, but also their economies. Considering the current situation in Northeast Asia, this paper argues that it is important to formulate a set of pronatalist policies to encourage childbirth and thereby establishing a foundation on which further policies and practices can be devised. This paper primarily focuses on fertility trends in Japan, as a representative country among the Northeast Asia countries, since its decline in fertility rate is more pronounced than the other societies.
Today’s fertility rates vary largely, depending on countries; for example, average births per woman in Pakistan are around three to four in their lifetime (Westley, Kim, and Retherford, 2010). Japanese woman’s average birth rate was 4.45 children in 1947, declined to 2.04 children in 1957 and it is continuing to decrease. Now, Japan’s TFR in 2005 is 1.26, which is lower than the most of developed countries even though it is slightly higher than that of South Korea (1.08) and Taiwan (1.12) (Suzuki, 2006). The total population in Japan is already decreasing and the first observed trend so far among the Asia countries. It is problematic when we consider the fact that Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world. It is important to make sure that the “replacement-level” fertility is maintained, which means each woman has, on average, 2.1 children in their lifetime. When it is so maintained, “population growth will slow and eventually population size will stabilize” (Westley, Kim, and Retherford, 2010). In this sense, Northeast Asia’s governments, including Japanese government, should take action to formulate pronatalist policies in an effort to encourage childbirths.
Japan’s low fertility patterns have inescapable consequences for national population profiles over the coming generations. These extraordinarily low birth rates will force a pervasive and very rapidly aging population. When birth rates fall, a demographic divide occurs as it changes the age proportion of population. When there are many young age population, relatively more working age adults contribute to economic development and social welfare. Consequently, it can lead to rapid economic growth and less burdens on families. However, the demographic divide turns negative when population is getting aged as in current Japan’s situation. When large number of working age population move into the old age population and birth rates keep declining, the dependency ratio rises, which means young age people will be heavily responsible for taking care of old age population. Evidently, data shows that among the Northeast Asia countries, Japan faced the fertility transition much earlier than others. In 2002, Japan had 17 per cent old age population (aged 65 years and over), and 15 percent young age population (aged under 15 years) in their total population. Furthermore. Japan is expected to have 36 per cent old-age population in the overall population by 2050; that is around three times more than the number of youth population. Consequences of low fertility rate will also be conducive to a peaking, and thereafter, more or less indefinite decline, in the size of the working age population, i.e, those between age 15 to 64 years (Gubhaju and Moriki-Durand 2003). As a practical matter, these trends stand to complicate the prospect of maintaining rapid economic growth. They can also increase the pension burden on economies and societies. Besides, inevitably, these demographic changes result in fatal problems such as shortages in labor force, critical burdens in public pension system, and nation’s societal stability.
Significant efforts are made to increase birth rates through certain political approaches. Japanese governments created a series of pronatal policy interventions since the beginning of 1990s, but those have not been significantly effective in raising the birth rates yet. During the past few years, almost all kinds of policies that the government can think of were created.
They include bonus payments for births, family allowances, paid maternity and parental leave, leave to care for sick children, tax relief for parents, care facilities for young children or tax relief for childcare, flexible working arrangements for mothers and guarantees of retained promotion rights, labour force re-entry training programs, housing benefits for families with children, and educational supplements for children (Retherford and Ogawa, 2005).