A 46-year-old woman living in the Tokyo metropolitan area feels a twinge of pain every time she hears about government spending plans to support younger generations and lift the declining birthrate.

Under the Kishida administration’s “different dimension” measures, public insurance coverage now covers infertility treatments, and cash benefits are being considered for child-rearing parents who work reduced hours.

The Tokyo-area woman, like many other childless people in her age group, feels they never received such help and are now being unfairly blamed for what the government calls a fertility crisis.

“Members of my generation who entered the workforce in the ‘employment ice age’ are said to have brought their plight upon themselves,” she said.

She was referring to the decade-long period of economic stagnation that started in the mid-1990s when graduates had a hard time finding full-time regular employment.

After asking 200 companies to send information materials during her job-hunting days, only about 10 percent of them called her for an interview.

She landed a job at a manufacturer and worker there. After that, however, she registered at temporary staffing agencies and remained stuck in a series of nonregular jobs.

She obtained certifications as a bookkeeper and a labor consultant, and she deepened her knowledge of information technology.

But her working conditions never improved.

She trembles with anger when thinking that she has never earned more than 3 million yen ($22,000) a year. Still, her income tax and social security premiums were deducted from her paychecks without mercy.

When she was 40 years old, she married a man she met through work. But he is also on an unstable income, and the couple gave up on having children.

They couldn’t afford in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, and she was excluded from a municipal subsidy program because of an age limit.

Nonregular workers, including herself, increased after the central government eased regulations on temporary employment in the 1990s. Their numbers continue to grow.

She said she feels “expendable.”

“Am I the only one to blame for being unable to have children?” she said. “I feel like I am being increasingly abandoned by my country as I grow older.”

A 55-year-old single man living in the Tohoku region had worked in nonregular jobs when he was in his 30s, hoping to teach at universities.

He once had a girlfriend, but he couldn’t see himself raising a family because of his bleak outlook for his future. He gave up on becoming an instructor, but he passed a difficult national exam at age 39.

The man could save money and felt ready to start a family only after he began working with his parents, who produce applications for real estate registrations on behalf of their clients.

However, he now feels out of the loop because the government’s countermeasures against the falling birthrate are aimed at people in their 20s and 30s.

“When I was younger, I couldn’t marry even if I wanted to. It pains me to think that I have always been rejected by society,” he said.

22.3% MARRIAGE RATE

According to the labor ministry’s Labor Force Survey, 6.69 million men and 14.32 million women were nonregular workers as of 2022.

A government analysis based on a 2017 survey showed that 22.3 percent of male nonregular workers between 30 and 34 were married.

The marriage rate soared to 59 percent among men in regular employment in the same age range.

People remain single or marry later when they face economic hardships and uncertainty about their futures. This has deprived Japan of a third baby boom.

The government’s draft proposal on lifting the dwindling birthrate released in March also cited economic instability as a main reason people were not having children.

It is necessary to increase the income of younger generations so that they won’t give up on having and raising children, the draft says.

However, few support measures have been provided to remedy the long-standing situation.

Masami Saito, a part-time lecturer in sociology at the University of Toyama who studies the relationship between the state and family, said politicians have focused on the prosperity of the country instead of its people.

This has resulted in the growing number of nonregular employees, she said.

“What is needed now is a mindset to protect individual human rights, which have been chipped away to keep the country going,” Saito said.

While the government has yet to achieve equal pay for equal work, working women face additional challenges, such as ensuring their annual income falls below the “1.03 million yen wall” to receive a spouse tax credit, and the “mommy track,” in which women are stripped of opportunities to work on big projects after giving birth.

“Addressing such absurdities in front of us one by one will be a shortcut to eventually stop the falling birthrate,” Saito said.

(This article was written by Erina Ito and Yusuke Nagano.)