A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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May 10, 2008Japan: What Children?A Washington Post article about Japanese demographic collapse surprised me. There's no general agreement on why said collapse, but I blame racism, and especially sexism. Japanese treat their women a little worse than we did before 1960. Women are only expected to hold certain limited jobs, they're expected to become full-time homemakers when kids come, are expected to be obedient, not only to hubby, but to the often live-in in-laws. Remember, it takes a man and a woman to make a child - and if the woman thinks of marriage as not much better than slavery, then you're in trouble. Of course, we'd be collapsing, too, albeit much more slowly, without our immigrants. But Japan also treats most of its immigrants badly, too, so it's easy to see why they have problems. Being very interested, I googled some and came up with a long paper on the subject. Here's the IMHO money quote:
That just startled me. The Profesora loves childrearing (understatement!). But, you know, she didn't have to give up work to have him, nor give up freedom to be my, the kid's, and my parents' quasi-slave. OK, she IS the kid's slave, but she has help in that; I help her instead of expecting her to do everything. 50 years ago, Japan could get away with mistreatment - but now we have global media and blogs, making comparisons of life much easier. More later. Posted by Jon Kay at May 10, 2008 03:19 AMComments
It's not just that Japan treats their (minimal number of) immigrants badly. It's also that they totally refuse to accept their descendants as Japanese. By comparison to the "Koreans" in Japan (some of whose families ahve been there for more than a century), the Muslims in France or Germany are extremely well accepted full members of society. We have concerned discussions about xenophobia in the United States. And rightly so. But compared to most countries, we're still a melting pot. And Japan is way far on the other end of the spectrum. The only reason that Japan is not in far worse shape is that they apparently missed out on the mania for gender-selection that have left China and India with a severe shortage of marriageable women in the current and next generation. As a result, I wouldn't be surprised if India and China find themselves with shrinking economies by mid-century -- just from lack of people to generate economic activity. Japan will still get there first. But not by much. And unwillingness to accept immigrants will deny all three the relief that the US (in spite of a massively stupid immigration policy) gets from our immigrants. Posted by: wj at May 10, 2008 10:09 AMAnother thing to consider--as Japan has commercialized, self-fulfillment and obligation to the Holy Company have climbed to replace obligation to the Emperor as many people's number one priority, and children have gotten incredibly more expensive to raise over the same time span that women entered the Japanese corporate workforce. Duty to the Emperor required producing offspring. Duty to the Corporation requires not distracting oneself from business with trivialities. Posted by: Tully at May 10, 2008 02:52 PM |
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