Jump back to 1990 for a moment.

Japan’s falling birthrate is a long-familiar issue, but the country was in shock when the government initially reported the prior year's birthrate was 1.57, a record low. This was several decades after the previous low of 1.58 in 1966.

The so-called “1.57 shock” galvanized the government into action to address why fewer people were having children, laying out a slew of family programs designed to reverse the downward trajectory.

But more than three decades later, things are getting even worse. What’s wrong with Japan’s approach?

Masahiro Yamada, a professor of family sociology at Chuo University, said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun that the government policies did not work because they failed to address young workers’ needs regarding their financial insecurity.

The lack of stability resulted in a widespread consensus among young adults that they cannot afford to have children.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

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Question: The health ministry announced in June that Japan’s birthrate plunged to a new low of 1.20 in 2023 and the number of Japanese born the same year was 727,277, also a new low. What are reasons for the declining birthrate?

Yamada: Numerous academics, including myself, have pointed out that a longstanding factor behind the low birthrate is the growing population of unmarried men and women.

I am not saying they started out less willing to get married. That does not seem to be the case with today’s young people, either. But they end up staying single because they cannot ignore the financial implications of a marriage.

Today, countless numbers of young people reject the idea of enduring a life with less money and less free time after marrying and starting a family. They tend to wait and continue to live with their parents until they can foresee a decent life after marriage. This delay results in many reaching middle age or older as they wait.

Q: Are young people holding off on marriage and having children until prospects emerge that allow them to no longer consider both a risk?

A: Thirty to 40 years ago, younger generations were able to have faith in the future of Japan’s economy. They believed the Japanese economy would remain strong and that, therefore, they would be able to raise their children in a relatively affluent setting. Since they had few doubts about the possibility of a better life, they could take the plunge and got married.

But Japan’s asset-inflated bubble economy burst in the early 1990s. The nation has since entered an era of economic stagnation. In the process, the percentage of employees with temporary contracts and part-timers with fragile job security rose, widening the economic disparity of younger generations.

Concerns grew that they may fall from the middle class. These financial concerns led a bulk of young workers to grow hesitant about marrying and starting a family.

They tend to think they would not be able to lead a life as materially wealthy as their parents had. Or, even if they had children, their children would be miserable because of struggles caused by limited financial resources.

Q: One reason that depopulation is particularly worrisome in rural regions is that young women leave for urban areas to attend college or work. What can we do about this?

A: The demographic trend that has become increasingly notable over the past 10 years or so is that more women than men move to Tokyo from the countryside.

Unless the way women work and the norms for women are changed in rural regions to eliminate discrimination against them, the exodus of young women will continue. That means that provincial areas will not see an uptick in the number of births.

Q: The question of how to stem Japan’s low birthrates has been recognized as a pressing issue for decades. What has kept the government from implementing effective family policies to tackle the challenge?

A: The government initiatives failed to squarely address the changing reality of the nation’s workforce: an increase in the number of part-time and contracted workers. They were devised on the assumption that young workers are “university graduates who work for large companies and live in large cities.”

The initiatives, according to my assessment, worked as far as residents in Tokyo’s 23 wards are concerned. In those wards, the number of children born rebounded around 2006 and continued to increase for about 10 years.

A pattern taking root in Tokyo is for married couples to both have “seishain” full-time regular employee contracts at major companies while raising children.

However, the government policies did not have the intended results in other regions. This is because they did not take into account that a sizable portion of working-age young adults are self-employed, freelancers, part-timers, temporary contractors or employees at midsize and small companies.

Q: How do you evaluate the efficacy of issuing a child allowance without a cap on household income? The government calls it part of an “unprecedented package of countermeasures against the declining birthrate.”

A: I see it as an extension of the existing policies. It takes nearly 30 years for people get married, have children and see those children grow up and start working. Few people, whether they are politicians or members of the public, would feel like investing in a society 30 years from now by sacrificing their present life.

Q: What will Japanese society be like in 30 years if the falling birthrate's trajectory continues?

A: It would slowly decline. Tokyo and other large cities would have more vitality with a steady stream of talented youth moving there. In contrast, rural regions would go downhill fast. More municipalities in the countryside would be left with a rapidly shrinking population of young women.

In recent years, I have been often asked by experts overseas about my insight regarding how to avert a repeat of Japan’s failure to properly address that fewer people are having children.

These experts are not only from the United States and European countries, but also East Asian countries like China and South Korea. Both are seeing birthrates rapidly fall.

Q: Is it too late for Japan to reverse the trend?

A: The government needs to make a leap. Do things radically, like Hungary dedicating 5 percent of its gross domestic product toward increasing its number of children.

There is no single panacea to resolve population decline. It is time for the government to throw the kitchen sink at trying to narrow the financial disparity in the young adult population. This starts with doing everything from making higher education free to providing a child allowance to part-time workers, freelancers and the self-employed.

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Masahiro Yamada, born in 1957, has written numerous books on the Japanese family and lifestyles of younger generations. He is known for coining terms including “parasite single,” an unmarried young adult living with their parents, and “konkatsu,” or marriage hunting.