Sloppy Reporting on Zero Hedge: Japanese Birth Rate
The Zero Hedge site posts some great articles. This is not one of them.
It is an article on an important topic: the collapsing birth rate in Japan. It has a major problem: it never cites the far more important figure, the fertility rate.
It cites another article, which reports:
The government of Shinzo Abe, prime minister, has made raising Japan’s birth rate a priority. On Friday it approved a budget that takes the first steps towards providing free pre-school, private high school and university education in an effort to reverse the trend.Unless the low birth rate is reversed, the only option to increase Japan’s population would be for it to take in more immigrants. Yet despite high inflows of guest workers drawn by the strong economy, Japanese politicians have been reluctant to debate the subject.
Mr Abe’s government has instead set a target to raise the total fertility rate to 1.8. Officials hope the strong economy, combined with measures making it easier for women to combine work and childcare, will encourage families to have more children.
This article raises an obvious question: "Raise the fertility rate to 1.8 from what rate?" It raises this question: "What is the definition of 'fertility rate?'" It raises this question: "What rate is most significant?"
The fertility rate is the number of births per female.
The fertility rate that is the marker is 2.0, meaning two children per woman. This replaces the couple who produced them. But the functional population replacement rate is 2.1. Why? Because not all women marry, and not all women who marry have children. That extra 0.1 is the compensation needed to keep the rate at 2.0.
Then what is the actual fertility rate in Japan? The author never gives this figure. That's correct: the crucial evidence for his headline is never provided. Japan Births Plunge To Lowest Level Ever Recorded As "Celibacy Syndrome" Takes Its Toll.
Is there a crisis? Yes. This is why Abe's government is using welfare state subsidies to get the rate to 1.8, which is lower than replacement. This is the rate the USA has experienced ever since the recession of 2008.
How big a crisis is it? The author refuses to provide this evidence. He provides peripheral statistics.
This is sloppy writing.
According to Business Insider, it is 1.41. That is low.
In the years leading up to World War II, Germany tried to raise the fertility rate. It also used government subsidies. The attempt failed.
I am unaware of any nation whose fertility rate increased in response to government subsidies.
Japan is a wealthy society per capita. Its people have steadily lost faith in the future of Japanese culture. The Japanese are becoming lower class, as defined a generation ago by Edward Banfield in his book, The Unheavenly City. He defined class position in terms of a person's view of the future. An upper-class person is intensely future-oriented. A lower-class person is intensely present-oriented.
When a rich society has a fertility rate below 2.1, it is not upper class, no matter what its per capita wealth is.
Japan is facing a demographic crisis. So is China at 1.57. So is South Korea at 1.24. So is the West. In the EU, Ireland has the highest fertility rate: 1.9.
No one knows what the effects of the declining fertility rate are. This is a post-1930 phenomenon. What we do know is this: government subsidies will not reverse the trend. The trend has accompanied the expansion of the welfare state.