网民讨论：日本 - 人口减少是国家毁灭的万能公式
Depopulation a surefire formula for national ruin
译文简介
这是7月17日 发表于今日日本网站上的文章及网民就日本人口问题的讨论
正文翻译
Depopulation a surefire formula for national ruin
July 17 © Japan Today
人口减少是国家毁灭的万能公式
7 月 17 日 发表于：今日日本网站
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
TOKYO-- talk about depressing headlines: "A great prophesy of Japan's demise. The frightening result of depopulation."
东京——谈论令人沮丧的头条新闻：“日本灭亡的伟大预言。人口减少的可怕结果。”
东京——谈论令人沮丧的头条新闻：“日本灭亡的伟大预言。人口减少的可怕结果。”
First of all, let's look at a paper on population statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare issued on June 3. After noting that 811,604 new infants were born in Japan during 2021, it pointed out that the average number of births per female had dropped for the sixth straight year, to 1.30.
"Twenty years from now, we'll be looking at a shortfall of 2 million care providers for the elderly," predicts professor Masahiro Yamada of Chuo University. "To fill that number would require half of the nation's new graduates every year. Paying costs for care won't be difficult for the wealthy, but for the rest, it won't be feasible. We'll be faced with the choice of either reducing services or relying on foreign labor; but as Japan becomes poorer, I don't know how we'll get foreign workers to come here."
The present situation, of elderly people caring for other elderly, has become a common occurrence, and this can only get worse, frets the writer, so increasing cases of kodokushi (dying alone) can be expected.
On May 7, Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- not exactly a Japan expert -- made headlines with a tweet that read, "At the risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birthrate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world."
首先，让我们看一下厚生劳动省6月3日发布的人口统计数据。在注意到2021年日本有811,604名新生儿出生后，它指出每名女性的平均出生人数连续第六年下降至 1.30。
“从现在开始的 20 年后，我们将面临 200 万个为老年人提供护理人员的缺口，”中央大学的山田雅弘教授预测。“要填补这个数字，需要每年全国一半的应届大学毕业生。支付护理费用对富人来说并不难，但对于其余的人来说，这将是难以承受的。我们将面临选择要么减少服务，要么依赖外国劳动力；但随着日本变得更穷，我不知道我们将如何让外国工人来这里。”
目前，老人照顾其他老人的情况已经司空见惯，而且这种情况只会变得更糟，作者担心，因此可以预期会增加孤独死（孤身一人去世）的情况。
5 月 7 日，特斯拉的首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（他并不是日本情况的专家）以一条推文登上了头条，上面写着：“冒着显而易见的风险，除非有什么改变导致出生率超过死亡率，否则日本最终将不复存在。这将是世界的巨大损失。”
"Twenty years from now, we'll be looking at a shortfall of 2 million care providers for the elderly," predicts professor Masahiro Yamada of Chuo University. "To fill that number would require half of the nation's new graduates every year. Paying costs for care won't be difficult for the wealthy, but for the rest, it won't be feasible. We'll be faced with the choice of either reducing services or relying on foreign labor; but as Japan becomes poorer, I don't know how we'll get foreign workers to come here."
The present situation, of elderly people caring for other elderly, has become a common occurrence, and this can only get worse, frets the writer, so increasing cases of kodokushi (dying alone) can be expected.
On May 7, Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- not exactly a Japan expert -- made headlines with a tweet that read, "At the risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birthrate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world."
首先，让我们看一下厚生劳动省6月3日发布的人口统计数据。在注意到2021年日本有811,604名新生儿出生后，它指出每名女性的平均出生人数连续第六年下降至 1.30。
“从现在开始的 20 年后，我们将面临 200 万个为老年人提供护理人员的缺口，”中央大学的山田雅弘教授预测。“要填补这个数字，需要每年全国一半的应届大学毕业生。支付护理费用对富人来说并不难，但对于其余的人来说，这将是难以承受的。我们将面临选择要么减少服务，要么依赖外国劳动力；但随着日本变得更穷，我不知道我们将如何让外国工人来这里。”
目前，老人照顾其他老人的情况已经司空见惯，而且这种情况只会变得更糟，作者担心，因此可以预期会增加孤独死（孤身一人去世）的情况。
5 月 7 日，特斯拉的首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（他并不是日本情况的专家）以一条推文登上了头条，上面写着：“冒着显而易见的风险，除非有什么改变导致出生率超过死亡率，否则日本最终将不复存在。这将是世界的巨大损失。”
Part of the looming problem will be caused by the huge demographic bulge of the postwar baby boomers, born between 1947 to 1949, who are now turning 75 years of age. With the decline in hospital beds, as people in this group begin to die out, 400,000 or more stand to become "refugees with no place to die."
If the present trend continues, by 2040, Japan will have become a "super-aged society," in which the burden of supporting an elderly person will fall on one out of every 1.5 households.
While numerous factors figure in population decline, one of the main causes is clearly shortsighted policies aimed at encouraging families to procreate. According to a survey by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2017, Japan's outlays for child rearing relative to GDP were 1.79% -- below the OECD member average of 2.34% and, for example, less than half of the 3.6% spent by France.
迫在眉睫的问题的部分原因将是战后婴儿潮一代的巨大人口膨胀，他们出生于 1947 年至 1949 年之间，现在已经 75 岁了。随着病床的减少，随着这一群体的人开始去世，40万或更多人将成为“无处可去的难民”。
如果按照目前的趋势继续下去，到 2040 年，日本将成为“超高龄社会”，每 1.5 户家庭中就有一人要承担赡养老人的负担。
虽然人口下降的因素很多，但主要原因之一显然是在鼓励家庭生育的政策性短视。根据经济合作与发展组织的一项调查，2017 年，日本的育儿支出占 GDP 的比重为 1.79%，低于经合组织成员国 2.34% 的平均水平，例如，还不到法国投入3.6%的一半。
If the present trend continues, by 2040, Japan will have become a "super-aged society," in which the burden of supporting an elderly person will fall on one out of every 1.5 households.
While numerous factors figure in population decline, one of the main causes is clearly shortsighted policies aimed at encouraging families to procreate. According to a survey by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2017, Japan's outlays for child rearing relative to GDP were 1.79% -- below the OECD member average of 2.34% and, for example, less than half of the 3.6% spent by France.
迫在眉睫的问题的部分原因将是战后婴儿潮一代的巨大人口膨胀，他们出生于 1947 年至 1949 年之间，现在已经 75 岁了。随着病床的减少，随着这一群体的人开始去世，40万或更多人将成为“无处可去的难民”。
如果按照目前的趋势继续下去，到 2040 年，日本将成为“超高龄社会”，每 1.5 户家庭中就有一人要承担赡养老人的负担。
虽然人口下降的因素很多，但主要原因之一显然是在鼓励家庭生育的政策性短视。根据经济合作与发展组织的一项调查，2017 年，日本的育儿支出占 GDP 的比重为 1.79%，低于经合组织成员国 2.34% 的平均水平，例如，还不到法国投入3.6%的一半。
"Take Hungary, for example, which to deal with a decline in births devotes just under 5% of its GDP to families," points out the aforementioned professor Yamada. "School tuition there is free, and home purchases are generously subsidized. In the case a fourth child is born, the family's taxes are permanently exempted.
"For Japan to match European countries in measures to encourage the birth rate, it would need to devote a quarter of its national budget," he added.
What's the main cause of decline in the country's birthrate? As Yamada puts it, "There have only been small, incremental changes in Japan's societal values from its postwar period of high economic growth, when the prevailing view was, 'the husbands went to work, and the wives remained home and did housework.'"
The magazine noted that in the run-up to the July 10 elections, none of the major parties proposed any new changes to their population policies, so whichever party wins will be moot. Japan, clearly, has embarked on a road to ruin.
“以匈牙利为例，为了应对出生率下降，该国将 5% 的 GDP 用于家庭，”山田教授指出。“那里的学费是免费的，买房有慷慨的补贴。如果生了第四个孩子，家庭就可以永远免税。”
他补充说：“要让日本在鼓励出生率的措施上与欧洲国家相媲美，它需要拿出四分之一的国家预算用于这方面。”
我国出生率下降的主要原因是什么？正如山田所说，“日本的社会价值观在战后经济高速增长时期只发生了微小的渐进式变化，当时流行的观点是‘丈夫去工作，妻子留在家里做家务’。 "
该杂志指出，在 7 月 10 日选举前夕，没有一个主要政党提议对其人口政策进行任何新的改变，因此无论哪个政党获胜都将是没有实际意义的。显然，日本已经走上了毁灭之路。
"For Japan to match European countries in measures to encourage the birth rate, it would need to devote a quarter of its national budget," he added.
What's the main cause of decline in the country's birthrate? As Yamada puts it, "There have only been small, incremental changes in Japan's societal values from its postwar period of high economic growth, when the prevailing view was, 'the husbands went to work, and the wives remained home and did housework.'"
The magazine noted that in the run-up to the July 10 elections, none of the major parties proposed any new changes to their population policies, so whichever party wins will be moot. Japan, clearly, has embarked on a road to ruin.
“以匈牙利为例，为了应对出生率下降，该国将 5% 的 GDP 用于家庭，”山田教授指出。“那里的学费是免费的，买房有慷慨的补贴。如果生了第四个孩子，家庭就可以永远免税。”
他补充说：“要让日本在鼓励出生率的措施上与欧洲国家相媲美，它需要拿出四分之一的国家预算用于这方面。”
我国出生率下降的主要原因是什么？正如山田所说，“日本的社会价值观在战后经济高速增长时期只发生了微小的渐进式变化，当时流行的观点是‘丈夫去工作，妻子留在家里做家务’。 "
该杂志指出，在 7 月 10 日选举前夕，没有一个主要政党提议对其人口政策进行任何新的改变，因此无论哪个政党获胜都将是没有实际意义的。显然，日本已经走上了毁灭之路。
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All talk in Japan, and no concrete actions.
日本一直都是空谈，没有具体行动。
There are a few major cultural factors.
Japan discriminates against women in the workforce. Compare to Europe, US or even China Japan does not allow women access to a career path or powerful positions in the workplace.
Japan is unfriendly to immigrants. Getting work in Japan is difficult, and even if you do, you cannot become a citizen without Japanese ancestry, and even if your kids are born in Japan they are still considered immigrants.
Lack of incentives for childbearing. Japan honors its elderly but seems embarrassed to procreate. They don't have incentives for childbirth. They don't have encouragement for young people to get married and settle down. Their aren't inducements for families to have a fourth child. How would Japanese view a woman who has 4 kids before the age of 30? How would Japanese view a man who has 4 kids, and works a white collar job? They need an attitude adjustment about work life balance.
这有几个主要的文化因素。
日本在劳动力中歧视女性。与欧洲、美国甚至中国相比，日本不允许女性进入职业道路或在工作场所担任重要职位。
日本对移民不友好。在日本找工作很困难，即使你做了，没有日本血统你也不能成为公民，即使你的孩子在日本出生，他们仍然被认为是外来移民。
缺乏对生育的激励。日本尊重老年人，但似乎对生育感到尴尬。他们没有生育的动机。他们不鼓励年轻人结婚和安定下来。他们不是诱使家庭生第四个孩子。日本人会如何看待一个 30 岁之前有 4 个孩子的女人？日本人会如何看待一个有 4 个孩子并从事白领工作的男人？他们需要调整工作生活平衡的态度。像马丁路德一样：他主张结束文职独身，但他也决定自己结婚生子。
Looks like the J-gov will need a large influx of tax money to help support the elderly.
看起来日本政府将需要大量税收来帮助支持老年人。
There is no way to solve the birthrate crisis without solving the overwork crisis. People who routinely work until 8pm or later do not have time or energy to make or take care of babies and then kids.
不解决过度劳累危机，就无法解决生育危机。经常工作到晚上 8 点以及更晚的人没有时间或精力来生产或是照顾婴儿和孩子。
The real problem is that Baby Boomers must be the most selfish generation in history. This problem, at its core, is all about "Who's going to take care of me and support me when I'm old?" Younger generations deserve their own futures - they shouldn't be treated like indentured servants working to supported a bloated population of elders whose reckless fiscal policies created their own situation. Sad as it is in many cases, the future of society is the youth. Sure, old people should be helped, but not at the cost of destroying the future of the youth.
People used to understand this. You want Japan to have a future? Get rid of the bloated bureaucracy and old politicians and give the younger generation a chance to build a strong country.
真正的问题是，婴儿潮一代一定是历史上最自私的一代。这个问题的核心是“当我老了谁来照顾我和支持我？” 年轻一代应该拥有自己的未来——他们不应该被视为契约仆人，他们努力支持臃肿的老年人口，他们鲁莽的财政政策造成了他们自己的处境。在许多情况下很可悲，社会的未来是青年。当然，应该帮助老年人，但不能以破坏年轻人的未来为代价。
人们习惯于理解这一点。你希望日本有未来吗？摆脱臃肿的官僚机构和老政客，给年轻一代建设强国的机会。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
The real problem is that Baby Boomers must be the most selfish generation in history.
Sigh. How parochial. Baby boomers only exist in the US. Blaming low birth rates on baby boomers does nothing to explain the low birth rates in places like PR China, South Korea, Singapore, Italy or Russia.
understands the real problem, long workdays leaving workers with no time or energy for families. I will add a second thought for your consideration, namely living in high rise housing estates. How do you raise kids in a concrete high rise? No yard, no place for the kid to play safely outdoors unless a parent takes time away from their home to supervise their kids in a park. When I was a kid my mom would shoo me outside saying "go out and play" so she could get stuff done in the home. Same for the neighbor moms so the kids would play in the front yards of the homes. Can't do that when you live in the concrete jungle. So blame long workdays and demanding jobs, but also blame dense urban living.
“真正的问题是，婴儿潮一代一定是历史上最自私的一代。”
叹气。这想法是多么狭隘。婴儿潮一代只存在于美国。将低出生率归咎于婴儿潮一代并不能解释中国、韩国、新加坡、意大利或俄罗斯等地的低出生率。
要理解真正的问题，漫长的工作日让上班族没有时间或精力照顾家人。我再补充一个想法供你考虑，即住在高层住宅区。你如何在混凝土高层中抚养孩子？没有院子，没有地方让孩子在户外安全玩耍，除非父母花时间离开家在公园里监督孩子。当我还是个孩子的时候，我妈妈会把我赶到外面说“出去玩”，这样她就可以在家里做事了。邻居的妈妈也一样，所以孩子们会在家里的前院玩耍。当你住在混凝土丛林中时，不能这样做。所以归咎于长时间的工作日和要求苛刻的工作，但也归咎于密集的城市生活。
they knew this would happen for decades and they continued kicking the can down the road.
NO ONE wanted to address the problem early on and all we heard is Japan is not a multicultural nation and doesn't want to be.
they could have solved this problem 20 years ago and had slow and careful immigration into the country, but they chose not to
OF COURSE no one wants to come and work here now. Japanese wages are extremely low for a developed nation and on top of that, they are not allowing real immigration- just a promise to allow guest workers to work 5 years and that's it. And they don't pay them enough to send money home.
Japan as usual boo woo wooing but this was their doing
他们几十年前就知道这会发生了，他们只是继续拖延时间而已。
没有人想尽早解决这个问题，我们听到的只是日本不是、也不想成为一个多元文化的国家。
他们本可以在 20 年前通过缓慢而谨慎地（吸收）移民到这个国家解决这个问题，但他们选择“不”
当然，现在已经没人愿意来这里工作。对于发达国家来说，日本的工资极低，最重要的是，他们不允许真正的移民——只是承诺允许外来工人工作 5 年，仅此而已。而且他们付给他们的钱不足以寄钱回家。
日本像往常一样嘘声求爱，但这就是他们的所作所为
Much of the rest of the world is falling into a similar demographic decline. India’s birth rate fell below replacement rate this year. Japan is lucky to have the Philippines and Indonesia in their neighborhood, but immigration isn’t really a solution.
Hopefully immigration, automation, and capital investment can work as a stop gap until the demographic bulge passes away, but Japan is at the front of a crisis facing most countries. They need to start major policies to try and stimulate their birth rate.
世界其他大部分地区也正在陷入类似的人口衰退。印度今年的出生率低于更替率。日本很幸运有菲律宾和印度尼西亚在他们的附近，但移民并不是真正的解决方案。
希望移民、自动化和资本投资可以作为一个权宜之计，直到人口膨胀消失，但日本正处于大多数国家面临的危机的前沿。他们需要启动重大政策来尝试刺激他们的出生率。
What's killing it is 996 culture. They have literally no time to even think about dating or having babies.
996 Culture: 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. The people don't have to work more than 8 hours, but that's the work centric culture. If you are not doing 996 and your competitor is or coworker is, then you are "losing" your future.
导致这种局面的是996文化。他们几乎没有时间考虑约会或生孩子。
996 文化：每周 6 天，上午 9 点至晚上 9 点。人们不必工作超过 8 小时，但这就是以工作为中心的文化。如果你不执行 996 而你的竞争对手或同事在做，那么你就会“失去”你的未来。
What is actually destroying the population pyramid is their racist take on immigration. A wealthy country like Japan could have been absorbing easily 1M inmigrants per year, mostly from SA. After decades these people would mostly integrated and be part of a Japanese melting pot.
But they have always put big barriers to people immigrating permanently to Japan. And it’s biting their asses.
PS, Spain has similar life expectancy and natality rate. But since late 90s around half a million inmigrants started to enter per year during the growth years. Lately we are in just 250k net inmigrants, not enough but a big relief, especially because most inmigrants usually are in their 20s and early 30s
真正摧毁人口金字塔的是他们对移民的种族主义态度。像日本这样的富裕国家每年可以轻松吸收 100 万移民，其中大部分来自东南亚。几十年后，这些人大多会融合并成为日本大熔炉的一部分。
但他们一直对永久移民日本设置很大的障碍。现在这个问题正在咬他们的屁股。
顺便说下，西班牙的预期寿命和出生率（都与日本）相似。但自 90 年代后期以来，在经济增长时期，每年约有 50 万移民进入。最近我们的净移民人数只有 25 万，这还不够，但让我们松了一口气，尤其是因为大多数移民通常都在 20 多岁和 30 多岁出头
The demographics of Japan are really really bad though and that is how societies end.
日本的人口结构确实非常糟糕，这就是社会的终结方式。
Japan isn’t even an outlier in their birth rate. Similar countries include Canada, Spain, Poland, Finland, Italy, Greece. South Korea is even lower.
If you want to offer an explanation for low birth rates, make sure the explanation is universal enough to cover these countries as well. They all have wildly different cultures and government programs but have the same result. So don’t pin it on work culture and hentai porn.
日本的出生率甚至不能算作是异常值。类似的国家包括加拿大、西班牙、波兰、芬兰、意大利、希腊。韩国甚至更低。
如果你想为低出生率提供解释，请确保该解释的普遍性足以涵盖这些国家。他们都有截然不同的文化和政府规划，但结果相同。所以不要把这个问题钉在工作文化和无尽的色情片上。
Japan also makes it suck to be a mother, and Japanese men dont help out with anything either.
在日本做母亲也很糟糕，日本男人也不愿帮忙。
Absolutely. I listened to a podcast that covered this (I think it was The Daily but I'm not sure). Expectations for mothers and fathers are so stringent that they featured one Japanese man that was so unconfident in his parenting abilities that he didn't even feel comfortable taking their kids to school alone without the oversight of his wife. Why would you want to be a parent in an environment like that?
没错儿。我在一个播客上听过涵盖这个的内容（我认为是The Daily，但我不确定）。（日本人）对父母的期望如此严格，以至于其中一位日本男子对自己的育儿能力如此不自信，以至于他甚至不愿意在没有妻子监督的情况下独自带孩子去上学。为什么要在这样的环境中做父母？
Japanese men are also dropping out of dating entirely because Japanese women have such insanely high expectations, and the job market is so competitive.
日本男人也放弃约会，完全是因为日本女人的期望太高了，而且就业市场竞争如此激烈。
What do Japanese women want??
日本女性想要什么？？
Not much different from other countries with conservative cultures. High salary, good educational background, good looks, good family background, good social skills, and other personal preferences. With a tough labor market, low pay, terrible working hours, and high costs of raising children, the prospects of marriage become less appealing.
与其他具有保守文化的国家没有太大区别。薪资高、学历好、相貌漂亮、家庭背景好、社交能力强等喜好。由于劳动力市场艰难、工资低、工作时间长、抚养孩子的成本高，婚姻的前景变得不那么吸引人了。
One of the issues I haven’t seen mentioned yet… in Japan the default expectation is still that a woman will quit (or substantially scale back) her career to become a full time mother. Childcare has traditionally not been available, and now that it’s more common they also have a shortage of childcare workers (owed in part due to discrimination towards mothers in the field, ironically).
But women are educated, they’re cosmopolitan, and they want to work. They don’t want to give up their careers and ambitions.
So they want one of two things: (1) A man who is successful and charming enough to make being a SAHM appealing. This is a high standard. Very few men meet this standard, and it’s an incredibly stressful situation to have to maintain. (2) They have to be successful-ish, willing to help with childcare, and have a job that lets them help with childcare. Because of how rigid Japanese work culture is, I’d argue this is an even harder achievement. There are very few jobs that would allow two parents to meaningfully split the burden of childcare.
So it’s not so much that Japanese women have unrealistic standards. It’s that Japanese work culture and social services are about two decades behind on making the structural changes necessary to support what women want. And (understandably) very few men can make up for the gap left by the government on that front.
我还没有看到提到的一个问题……在日本，默认的期望仍然是女性将退出（或大幅缩减）她的职业生涯以成为一名全职母亲。传统上社会不提供托儿服务，现在更普遍的是，他们也缺乏托儿工作者（具有讽刺意味的是，部分原因是该领域对母亲的歧视）。
但是女性受过教育，她们是世界性的，她们想要工作。她们不想放弃自己的事业和抱负。
所以她们想要两件事之一：（1）一个成功和迷人的男人，足以让婚姻具有吸引力。这是一个很高的标准。很少有人能达到这个标准，这是一个非常紧张的情况，必须维持。（2）他们必须成功，愿意帮助照顾孩子，并且有一份工作可以让他们帮助照顾孩子。由于日本的工作文化是多么僵化，我认为这是一个更难达成的成就。很少有工作可以让两个父母有意义地分担育儿负担。
所以并不是说日本女性有不切实际的标准。日本的工作文化和社会服务在进行必要的结构性变革以支持女性想要的东西方面落后了大约 20 年。而且（可以理解）很少有人能弥补政府在这方面留下的差距。
It’s a negative feedback loop a lot of the time.
Women in Japan, like most women in the west, don’t want to marry a man who earns less than them.
As a result a man must work himself to the bone in order to progress in his career to earn enough to convince a woman that he is worthy of marriage, but the irony is that said woman’s very presence in the labour market has made it that much harder for him to progress into a higher earning position.
A lot of men are now realising that the sheer amount of effort it will take to be able to get married, while also seeing how miserable their fathers/older co-workers are in their own marriages, where the woman controls 100% of the spending while he works 14 hour days, means that they’ve decided that they’ll be happier just living off of their parents/welfare, and living a very minimalist life of playing video games/watching porn.
It’s a complicated issue, and it isn’t one that can be solved by any one thing the government could do.
很多时候这是一个负反馈循环。
日本的女性和西方的大多数女性一样，不想嫁给一个收入比她们低的男人。
结果，一个男人必须竭尽全力才能在事业上取得进步，以赚取足够的钱来说服一个女人值得与他结婚，但具有讽刺意味的是，这个女人在劳动力市场上的存在就让如此之多地令他更难进入更高收入的职位。
很多男人现在意识到结婚需要付出巨大的努力，同时也看到他们的父亲以及年长的同事在自己的婚姻中是多么痛苦，女人控制着家庭 100% 的支出，虽然他每天工作 14 小时。这意味着他们已经决定他们会更快乐地靠父母或政府福利为生，过玩电子游戏/看色情片的极简生活。
这是一个复杂的问题，不是政府能做的任何一件事就能解决的。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
I think a lot of their expectations are not to have to do all of the house work and all of the child rasing and all of the taking care of elderly parents, and it doesn't help that on top of that japanese employers expect everyone in work to do overtime even if they just sit there doing nothing. Remaining single means that they only have to deal with a crappy work environment and elderly parents.
我认为他们的很多期望不是必须做所有的家务活，所有的孩子抚养和所有的照顾年迈的父母，除此之外，日本雇主希望每个人都在（办公室）即使他们只是坐在那里无所事事，而且必须加班。保持单身意味着他们只需要应对糟糕的工作环境和年迈的父母。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Until there is a culture shift in how Japan handles working life, then it isn’t going to change.
Officially, Japan’s annual leave allowances etc are all very generous, but the issue is that because the market is just SO competitive, that individual workers are terrified of taking any kind of time off at all, because they need every single advantage possible, so it becomes a race to the bottom to see who can devote the most amount of time to appearing busy to the bosses.
The only solution is for these old farts to be forcibly retired, their utterly outdated notions of work and productivity has massively held Japan back over the last few years, hence why Japan, for example, still has such a reliance on fax machines and landline phones, why it is still so heavily cash based, and why there is often such a reluctance to modernise.
Japan’s culture is naturally conservative, but in the worst possible way, an attitude of resisting change for its own sake.
Look at how Japan was opened up to the world, it took a military expedition from the US to force it to do so.
在日本处理工作生活的方式发生文化上的转变之前，这种（人口趋势）不会改变。
从官方层面上说，日本的年假津贴等都非常慷慨，但问题是，由于市场竞争如此激烈，个别工人根本不敢请假，因为他们需要所有可能的(表现出自己的)优势，所以它变成了一场逐底追逐底线的竞赛，看谁能花最多的时间在老板面前显得很忙。
唯一的解决办法是让这些老家伙们强制退休，他们完全过时的工作和生产力观念在过去几年里极大地阻碍了日本，这就是为什么日本仍然如此依赖传真机和固定电话的原因，为什么它仍然如此依赖现金，为什么经常如此不愿现代化。
日本的文化自然是保守的，但最糟糕的是，一种为自身而抵制变革的态度。
看看日本是如何向世界开放的，它需要美国的一次军事远征才迫使它这样做。
Making it easier to be a mother doesn't seem to be helping the Scandinavian countries bring up the birth rate either.
做母亲更容易似乎也没有帮助斯堪的纳维亚国家提高出生率。
1.7 per Woman vs 1.36 is significantly more, and recent studies have been showing that one thing Japan actually does right is that it builds enough housing. Something that Sweden hasn't been doing. So Sweden and other Nordic nations could probably increase their birth rates by just building more housing.
（斯堪的纳维亚国家）每位女性 1.7 与（日本的） 1.36 相比要高得多了，最近的研究表明，日本实际上做对了的一件事是它建造了足够的住房。这是瑞典没有做过的事情。因此，瑞典和其他北欧国家可能会通过建造更多住房来提高出生率。
I don't know the housing situation in Japan, but I feel like the rising house prices contributes to lower birth rates. If you have to live with your parents until your mid 30s saving for a house, you aren't having children in that home. By the time you have the space to have kids it might be too late.
It feels like there's plenty of things a government could do to raise birth rates, they just don't want to. And that's maybe for the best for the planet. There's only so much topsoil, after all.
我不知道日本的住房情况，但我觉得房价上涨对降低出生率有帮助。如果你必须为买房子存钱而被迫与父母住在一起直到 30 多岁，那么你在那个房子里就不可能有孩子。而当你有空间生育孩子时，可能为时已晚。
感觉政府可以做很多事情来提高出生率，但他们只是不想这样做。不过这或许对地球是最好的，毕竟只有这么多的土地面积。
It's true that there may be a correlation. During Japan's biggest economic boom in the 80s, Tokyo had the highest real estate prices anywhere in the world. Famously the Imperial Palace was valued at more than the entire state of Florida. And was the mid 80s that the Japanese birthrate really began to fall and never recover.
确实可能存在相关性。在 80 年代日本经济最繁荣的时期，东京的房地产价格是世界上最高的。众所周知，皇宫那么大地块的价格超过了整个佛罗里达州。80 年代中期，日本的出生率真正开始下降并且再也没有恢复。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Houses in the Japan countryside are almost free now. Without conditions they're super cheap. Last I checked there were 8 million abandoned houses. The deflationary pressure keeps rents relatively cheap in the cities.
日本农村的房子现在几乎是免费的。没有条件，它们超级便宜。上次我查过有800万座被废弃的房屋。通缩压力使城市里的租金也相对便宜。
I'm guessing economic opportunities in rural areas of Japan is very limited though. Somehow I doubt Japan's work culture is super open to remote work
我猜日本农村地区的经济机会非常有限。不知何故，我怀疑日本的工作文化对远程工作是否超级开放
True.Due to land tax and property tax, heirs of many rural properties have given up on them. Even about 10% of the housing in Tokyo is abandoned too.
没错儿。由于土地税和房产税，许多农村地区房产的继承人都放弃了它们。甚至在东京也有约 10%的住房被废弃。
It feels like there’s plenty of things a government could do to raise birth rates
I haven’t seen any evidence that anything a government has ever done has resulted in birth rates increasing. Plenty of places have generous parental leave, large subsidies per child, property subsidies, free childcare, tax breaks, yet nothing works.
“感觉政府可以做很多事情来提高出生率”
我没有看到任何证据表明政府所做的任何事情都会导致出生率上升。很多地方有慷慨的育儿假、每个孩子的巨额补贴、财产补贴、免费托儿服务、税收减免，但没有起到任何效果。
People will not have more kids until there's a material reason to do so. Birth rates are so high in the places they are because kids help you on your farm, in your work, taking care of family, etc. Kids in the US and EU are a net negative to the parents from a cost-analysis perspective. Having to pay for childcare, and then for college, and other expenses is the opposite of how this has worked for the majority of human history.
In the olden times if you were in farming you needed children, and a lot of people were in farming. Children often did less dangerous domestic jobs (including taking care of other children) and worked for the family until they were ready to strike out on their own.
除非有物质上的理由，否则人们不会愿意要更多的孩子。（以前的）出生率之所以如此之高，是因为孩子们在农场、工作、照顾家庭等方面可以为你提供帮助。从成本分析的角度来看，美国和欧盟的孩子对父母来说是一个净负面因素。父母必须为他支付托儿费用，然后支付大学费用和其他费用，这与人类历史上大部分时间的运作方式相反。
在过去，如果你从事农业，你需要孩子，而且很多人都从事农业。孩子们经常从事不那么危险的家务工作（包括照顾其他孩子）并为家庭工作，直到他们准备好独立成家。
China in the 50s seems like an example, but I'm not sure exactly what the government did other than outright say "have more babies" and that seemed to be it.
50 年代的中国似乎是一个例子，但我不确定政府到底做了什么，除了直接说“生更多的孩子”，似乎就是这样。
There is always a population boom after a war, China’s population rate didn’t grow at a dramatically higher rate than most other places.
战争结束后总会有人口激增，中国那时的人口增长率并没有比其他大多数地方更高。
The reality is that raising kids just kind of sucks.
Once women have any kind of better options, they tend to chose that over motherhood for very obvious reasons.
现实是，抚养孩子是糟心事。
一旦女性有任何更好的选择，出于非常明显的原因，她们都倾向于选择它而不是当妈妈。
The purpose of a lot of these articles is to critique Japan's strict immigration policies. Japan is frequently criticized for not accepting more immigrants, refugees, etc as they wish to keep their population homogeneous and reject the immigration paths followed by western Europe and the US
许多这些文章的目的是批评日本严格的移民政策。日本经常被批评不接受更多的移民、难民等，因为他们希望保持人口同质化并拒绝西欧和美国所走的（吸收外来）移民道路
And we have to remember, they never wanted to START letting people IN. The west pushed that issue and they've been wanting to close that door ever since.
我们必须记住，他们从来不想让（外来）人进来。西方推动了这个问题，从那以后他们还是一直想关上那扇门。
Yup. Gunboat diplomacy courtesy of Perry and his ‘Black Ships’.
是的。炮艇外交来自佩里和他的“黑船”。
If only we could allow some sort of movement of peoples from one area of the globe where work is scarce to another area of the world where work is more plentiful…
Too bad Japan is so fearful of immigrants
要是我们能允许人们从世界上工作稀缺的一个地区转移到工作更丰富的另一个地区就好了……
可惜日本太惧怕外来移民了
Immigrants are just a bandaid solution.
移民只是一个创可贴式的解决方案。