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Fiery Horse hobbles Japan's
fertility future
By Richard
Hanson
TOKYO - In 1966, as the Japanese
economic "miracle" was is full swing, the curse of
the Fiery Horse, or Hinoe-uma, galloped
through the land like a demographic stampede. An
old wives' superstition says that that every 60
years the horoscope's Year of the Horse turns
fiery. The unfortunate girls born in that year are
not suitable for marriage.
Sure enough,
1966 was a baby-boom disaster. The ratio of girl
to boy babies born that year hit a historic low.
On the flow charts, the Fiery Horse looks like a
brief sharp spike downward. What population
experts call the Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
resumed a gradual rise for the rest of the 1960s.
What Ryuichi Kaneko, a 20-year veteran in
the government's National Institute of Population
and Social Security Research (NIPSS), and his
colleagues now say is that the curse of the Fiery
Horse was more of a warning of a future population
planner's worst scenario: that Japan's population
that would both age and shrink from the start of
the 21st century into the foreseeable future.
"The next five years will be the last
chance to try to do something," Kaneko warns. "We
are already in an almost permanent Fiery Horse
situation. Women realized the problem first, but
people failed to realize the whole picture."
Many of those people are among Japan's
male-dominated political leadership, which has
focused on the possible long-term economic
consequences - employment, economic growth and
stabilization of the nation's debt-ridden national
finances. The larger crisis that is already
gripping Japan is social - and, well, personal.
"The big problem is marriage," says
Kaneko. "In an historic view, the declining Total
Fertility Rate is the history of marriage."
Marriage? This is not just a matter of
getting married and divorced, or even a long-term
trend toward marrying late. What researchers - and
women, in particular - are beginning to recognize
is that Japan's fertility problem, long focused on
the female quotient, is perhaps equally the result
of male behavior.
As in all matters of sex
and reproduction, the numbers don't reflect
motivations or individuals. But a recently
released 2001-03 study, "Fertility and Marriage",
of the shrinking birthrate and child-care problem
by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare
revealed, among other things, some telling
statistics on the subject of not getting married.
In the 1920s, the percentage of "no
marriage" females was steady at around 10%. This
percentage became distorted by the still
much-resented (by women) wartime policies of the
1930s and early 1940s aimed at producing babies
for the war effort.
Two years after World
War II, Japan had its only true baby boom between
1947-49. The number of births was about 2.7
million per year, and the Total Fertility Rate
(TFR), defined as the number of children an
"average" woman is expected to give birth to
during her life, was over four children. After
this baby boom, fertility rates declined rapidly.
By the year 1956, the TFR dropped to 2.22 and the
number of children born that year reached only
about 1.6 million.
As one scholar points
out, in the 1950s as other Asian countries were
struggling with population explosions, this rapid
drop in fertility rates was called the "Miracle in
Japan". This "miracle" did not happen without
reasons, rather it was the result of a number of
government programs, including the "New Life
Movement", family planning and family financial
planning. These were both public and private
efforts.
The curse of the Fiery Horse
aside, Kaneko of the NIPSS points out that another
"boom" in births took place from 1971-74, followed
by a return to shrinking birth rates. "This was
just the 'echo' of the 1947-49 generation of
female babies," Kaneko emphasizes.
Japanese national fertility surveys show
that from 1992-2002, the tendency of married
couples to postpone having children increased
"drastically". But, on the other hand, there has
been little change in the numbers of kids.
"Couples" in general were still having 2.2 babies
in 2002, the same as in 1972.
Other
non-scientific observations indicate that this
boom was limited and reflected the serious trend
toward a drop in the number of births per women to
under two children. This is the generation that
saw the TFR ratio slide to the current record-low
ratio of 1.29 - again, roughly the edge where
Japan stops producing enough babies keep the
population stable.
Back to the role of "no
marriage" men in the fertility equation.
According to NIPSS statistics, the
ratio of never-married men at the age of 50 jumped
from 1.5% of men in 1955 to 12.6% in 2000. That is a
jump about twice as large as for never-married
women, whose numbers doubled from 2.5% to 5.8% of
all women.
"The role of men in the decline
of the population is very little noticed," says
Kaneko. That is certainly true when it comes to
the Japanese government's latest measures to be
taken regarding the overall questions of the
shifts in Japanese demographics. Indeed, the most
heated debates over the future of Japan's
population still tend to be among economists and
academics, both from the private sector and the
government.
One key element involves
disagreements over just how swift and severe will
be the consequences of Japan's rapidly aging
population, starting with the next five years that
the government is focusing on. The private
estimates are even more alarming than the
government's projections.
On the private
side, a comprehensive view of the dilemma was
published recently by Peter Morgan, an economist
with HSBC Securities (Japan), Ltd. "Falling
marriage and birth rates could mean far fewer
births in Japan than expected," the report says.
"This could drastically reduce the share of
children in the population - what we term as
'Childhood's End'".
The HSBC estimates are
even more stark concerning the next five years.
Morgan's analysis suggests that births could fall
more rapidly than generally expected. His report
says that the government's projection that the
number of births will fall by 43% by the year
2050, at which time children up to the age of 14
will represent only 11% of the total population,
is somewhere in the "middle". HSBC's shocking
conclusion is that "a plausible extrapolation of
the current trends could cut the number of births
by 75% between now and 2050. This would drive the
ratio of children to as low as 6%. They currently
represent 14%.
Privately, some government
officials agree with parts of the report's
conclusions. But, the government is not at liberty
to make projections that outpace the official
policies of the government.
So the
emphasis for the next five years, as set out in
the Ministry of Health's White Paper, is to take a
positive position. The five years from 2005 could
be a good opportunity for Japan to halt the
falling birthrate. This would depend on persuading
the generation of women born during the second
baby boom of the 1970s, who will reach
childbearing age, that bearing children is a good
idea.
Remember that these women will be
the "echoes" of the "echoes" of the short-lived,
but memorable 1947-49 baby-boom generation. There
is only speculation (and direct observation) of
the intentions of that generation. As usual, the
government is just looking at the numbers. The
population of women in their 20s and 30s, the key
childbearing years, is estimated at 8 million to 9
million over the next five years.
"It is
important to implement policies that will allow
women in this age bracket to give birth and rear
children with ease," the Ministry of Health's
White Paper says. As a token, the government is
planning to build more nurseries that will allow
men and women to have steady jobs "for greater
independence", while their children are cared for.
This may sound like a proposal made, or at
least approved, by men. Past experience shows that
working male participation in child rearing is
still an iffy situation. But nevertheless, on
December 24, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
government announced its latest policy step in
dealing with the aging problem: a new five-year
plan to help working parents. The plan, approved
by a government task force dealing with the
falling birthrate, includes the goal of
introducing child-care leave at all companies; at
this time, women can be penalized, or even fired,
for taking leave.
The task force, headed
by Koizumi, based its plan on a policy outline,
adopted in June, that also calls for reducing the
number of employees working long overtime hours by
at least 10%, government officials said. The plan
proposes encouraging young people to become
independent and balancing home and work by
reviewing the way people work. The officials said
the plan also calls for deepening people's
understanding of issues related to life and
families and renewing support for raising
children.
According to government data,
about 60% of companies offered child-care leave as
of 2002, and about 12.2% of employees worked 60
hours or more per week as of 2003. The government
plans to encourage workers to take paid days off,
aiming to raise the rate at which employees
actually take such leave to 55% or more. It says
that in 10 years, 20% of working fathers and 80%
of working mothers should be taking child-care
leave.
The government also plans to
drastically increase the number of child-rearing
consultation centers where parents can ask
questions as well as places where parents can
leave children in temporary care when they
themselves are sick. For single-mother households,
the government plans to boost the number of women
who obtain professional qualifications with
support from their employers.
The
government also plans to set up a nationwide
network of child abuse prevention centers. And it
plans to remove physical barriers at busy train
stations and airports so that baby strollers can
be moved easily.
Population officials are
not convinced that these sort of measures can turn
the corner on population shrinkage in the next few
years. The five years starting in now are
psychologically important. This period will mark
the actual projected start of the fall in
population from the current 127 million people.
The birthrate hit a record low of 1.29 per woman
in 2003.
Just how the public will react is
hard to predict. So far, women (and those elusive
and so far silent men) have yet to vote with their
bodies and minds. But Kaneko of the population
institute says: "It's a good opportunity ... The
next five years are out last chance," he adds. "We
have no choice."
The next year of the
Fiery Horse is looming in 2020.
Richard Hanson, veteran
correspondent and expert on Japanese economy,
finance and politics, is the author of Money
Lords: The Pride and Folly of Japan's Finance
Ministry Elites.
(Copyright 2005 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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