The government has been promising to expand spending to reverse the downward trend in Japan’s birthrates without increasing the burden on taxpayers.

It is doubtful if the government can realize its policy efforts to fundamentally strengthen support for childbearing and child rearing when it continues trying to sell such a fantasy to the public.

The government should instead truthfully show specific options for mutual support among people to achieve the policy goal and build a consensus.

In his June 13 news conference about his administration’s “Children’s Future Strategy Policy,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spent much of the time on expansion of related benefits, including increasing child allowances and cash payments to married couples with young children when they both take child care leave.

The measures will start in the next fiscal year and will cost the government 3.5 trillion yen ($25 billion) when they are fully implemented in three years, Kishida said.

But Kishida failed to talk much about plans to finance these measures, only referring to cuts in expenditures on health and nursing care and an addition to the premiums for social security insurance for a “support fund system.”

The specifics of these steps are unclear and even how they will be worked out is not known.

But Kishida defiantly and insincerely denied that his administration is putting off debate on ways to finance the package.

Kishida also said there will be no net increase in the financial burden on the public to fund the package. He claimed envisioned cuts in health and nursing care spending to curb growth in premiums will offset the effect of the additional “support fund.”

But changes in insurance premiums will differ for individual beneficiaries while increased out-of-pocket payments and lower quality of services will place new burdens on people.

Some ruling coalition lawmakers are also concerned about possible negative effects on the health and nursing care programs. If sufficient spending cuts fail to be achieved, taxpayer money and the new support fund will have to be used to finance the measures.

Instead of making the dubious claim that there will be no additional financial burden for taxpayers, Kishida should honestly talk about the necessary sharing of burdens for expanding policy support for childbearing and child rearing.

Some members of the panel of experts that advised the government on this policy initiative called on the government to consider a broad range of options to secure funding for the package, including tax measures.

The government has failed to offer any convincing explanation about its decision to increase social security insurance premiums rather than taxes.

The government cannot win broad public support for the initiative unless it promotes more in-depth open debate on diverse options and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Public attention tends to be drawn to financial benefits such as child allowances. But a confluence of factors is behind the nation’s low birthrate.

As the document on the Children’s Future Strategy Policy points out, it is particularly urgent to improve working conditions through steps such as shortening working hours and change the current situations in which the burden of household chores and child rearing is borne mainly by women.

The government needs to figure out effective steps to achieve these goals.

Low fertility is not the only problem that requires more policy efforts to support childbearing and child rearing. Boosting pay for child care workers and reviewing the staffing standards for child care facilities are vital for dealing with the serious labor shortage problem in the sector.

The government has failed to deliver on its promise to tackle these issues for 10 years.

The government should also act swiftly to develop specific plans to address the problems of poverty among children and child abuse. These policy imperatives were included in the policy document at the last moment at the prime minister’s instructions.

This three-year intensive policy campaign will increase the budget for the Children and Families Agency by 50 percent. But follow-up policy measures and future financing plans have yet to be discussed.

The government should not forget that there is still a long way to go to attain the goal of doubling spending to tackle this crucial demographic challenge.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 15