Abacus | Japan’s message for China: a baby boom isn’t going to happen

In many respects, trends in China, including its demographics and ageing society, are following a well-trodden path taken by the Japanese 25 years ago

China still has time to learn from Japan and come up with a plan

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Amateur sumo wrestlers at a baby crying contest at Sensoji temple in Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Reuters

Neil Newman

Published: 7:00am, 16 Aug 2021Updated: 7:13am, 16 Aug 2021

MADE IN JAPAN

Five years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Aya, a lovely young lady working in Tokyo’s financial district.

Aya’s career was accelerating fast, and in her late-20s, recently married, she was now looking to start a family. It was refreshing to hear her excitement, given all the negativity around Japan’s “lost generation”, and their lack of babies. And it seemed many of her friends were like-minded and wanted babies too! The proviso was that they found affordable childcare so they could continue with their professional careers, and that the long-term education costs would be easily within their means. The message was clear enough.

I started working on the theory that under the right conditions, and with the famous Japanese herd mentality, there could be a baby boom among these 20- to 30-year-olds that would benefit the long-term economy and go some way towards stabilising the population decline.

In 2018, Japanese government economists calculated that a stable population of 100 million was needed to ensure long-term economic growth. And to get there, I calculated that an additional 250,000 babies per year were needed. That shouldn’t be too difficult, given that about 300,000 little-discussed pregnancies are terminated a year, mostly to satisfy social norms. The Japanese can certainly make babies, but a lot didn’t want them.

The Japanese government listened to its economists, and the prime minister of the time Shinzo Abe, eager to get more women working, accelerated the creation of childcare places and worked up policies to make education, elementary through to university, very affordable.

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