To curb the decline in Japan's population, it is vitally important to create an environment that enables younger generations to fulfill their wish to get married and raise children.
In a newly adopted "policy outline for countermeasures for a society with a chronically low birthrate," the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stipulated the next five years as a period of intensive efforts for combating the nation's dwindling population. The series of measures envisioned in the outline must steadily be put into effect.
Japan's fertility rate - the average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to over her lifetime - stood at 1.43 as of 2013. This figure represents some improvement in recent years, but it is still well below the 2.07 needed to prevent the nation's population from shrinking.
As stated in the policy outline, Japan is now confronted with a "critical demographic situation that could shake the country's societal and economic foundation."
Worthy of note in this connection is that the outline urges men to more proactively take on child-rearing and household chores. Emphasizing that "men's limited participation [in child-rearing and domestic duties] is a major factor behind the low birthrate," the policy outline cites a set of priority tasks for "reforming the way of working," such as rectifying the practice of working long hours.
The amount of time Japanese men spend on child-rearing and other domestic affairs is among the lowest in the world. Japanese men with a child aged younger than 6 spend a daily average of one hour and seven minutes on these areas, markedly fewer than the around three hours in the United States and Europe.
According to a survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the more time a husband spends on child-rearing and other domestic tasks, the more likely the couple is to have at least a second child. It is reasonable that the policy outline has come out with a target of raising Japan's figure to two hours and 30 minutes a day.
The outline also calls for increasing the percentage of men who take paternity leave for child-rearing to 13 percent from the current 2 percent. Another goal has been hammered out of raising the percentage of men who take paternity leave immediately after their wives give birth to 80 percent.
Reduce nonregular workers
Although an increasing number of men want to participate in child-rearing, they tend to hesitate to take paternity leave, mainly out of consideration for others in their workplaces.
With the number of two-income couples on the rise, there can be little hope of seeing the birthrate go up as long as household chores and child-rearing are left to women. Working with high efficiency over a short time to achieve harmony between men's work and home life - this is an important viewpoint in the government's declaration to "promote women's empowerment in society."
Businesses, for their part, must improve their mindset in this respect.
Support for child-rearing, such as building new child-care facilities, is indispensable. On the strength of the new support system for children and child-rearing that was launched at the beginning of this month, the goal of eliminating waiting lists for child-care facilities must be fulfilled without failure.
The policy outline also stipulates as a priority measures to help younger generations get married and have children.
Despite wanting to get married and have children, an increasing number of young people must abandon those hopes for financial reasons. Factors behind this include the increasing number of nonregular workers, whose pay is low and employment not secure. The percentage of married men among nonregular male workers is much lower than among regular full-time employees.
It is urgent to improve nonregular employees' working conditions and raise their status to that of regular workers.
To mitigate the financial burden of child-rearing, the efficacy of such measures as expanding scholarship programs should be studied. It is especially important to provide sufficient consideration for households with many children.
