• Alteon@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    There’s a plateauing effect that’s been observed when health, happiness, and comfort are reached within a country. When your country doesn’t have a high infant/child mortality rate, you don’t need to have more than 2-3 kids. So the birthrate tends to go down.

    Japan is sort of a whole different beast. There’s some pretty good documentaries that discuss the issues when observed from certain fronts: the grind culture, lack of childcare, lack of gender equality.

    There’s a lot of cultural things that need to be fixed in Japan, and no one wants to change.

    • Chriswild@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I think you’re leaving out one of the biggest. Immigration is the main factor keeping many western nations out of population decline. Japan is fairly xenophobic and not really big on immigration.

      The US for instance has an aging population and Americans don’t have many kids anymore. Immigrants have bigger families at least for a couple generations and slow the decline.