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Taiwanese family living in Taiwan and frequent Japan prior to having kids and after having kids.

Most people are quick to point out the gruesome work culture, but honestly, that is just a small part of the total issue.

1- Japanese people culturally hate outsiders. So their immigration system is setup to almost never give a foreigner citizenship.

2- Japanese people culturally have a mindset that if you pop one out, it's you and only you that share that burden. That means that if you're on a train and struggling with a crying toddler that is tired of standing, nobody and I mean nobody will let you have their seat. Half the patrons will turn up their volume on their headset and the other half with mean mug/glare at you for annoying them. You wanna know the worst part. This mindset transcends to the kid's grandparents. That's right. The grandparents will not lift a finger to help you.

3- The government is not making it easy to help the families. Do you have a sleeping kid in a stroller? Well, you better hold the kid if you're using mass transit. Elevators are an afterthought. So once you get off a train, you either have to walk an extreme distance to get to an elevator or in some instances there isn't even an elevator at all. In some rare occasion there is a designated elevator for strollers and wheel chair access, it's jammed packed with people who is able-bodied and can take the escalator, all of which won't exit the elevator to let people with wheel chairs or strollers in.

I went to Osaka Universal studios and ask to rent a stroller. The guy didn't speak English at all. We eventually used my phone to translate and he asked me my kids age. I said 5. He said, is today his birthday? I said no. He turned 5 a few weeks ago. He then poceeds to deny me from renting a stroller. I reasoned with him telling him my kid is having major jet lag and needs a place to sleep right now. He told me to just go back to the hotel to sleep because he wasn't going to rent a stroller to me.

I love Japan and the Japanese people, but honestly they all hate kids.

Management issues... I know what can help... Introduce Agile.

People now realise that kids are a lot of hard work and fucking expensive.....and that yearly skiing holidays are fun.

I'm sure artificially lowering female med student's grades to increase drop-outs amoung women will help with the financial stability and job security needed to raise a child!

I love Japan, but I will say it has its issues that often get overlooked. Workplace culture is horrific in Japan and it contributes to their high suicide rates. There's even a word in Japanese that specifically refers to a person dying from being overworked. I know friends who immigrated to Japan, only to regret it because they saw for themselves just how harsh the workplace culture was. Japanese people have no time for their family. Something must change or this problem is going to get worse but given it's a highly conservative culture I'm not sure it's going to see changes anytime soon.

In the context of Capitalism, sure, Japan is in trouble.

But then again, any system that demands infinite growth within a finite system has a biological parallel… in cancer. Yes, capitalism is economic cancer.

Japan has a bright future in front of it, if it can successfully pioneer an effective degrowth system that prioritizes the lives of people over Paraiste-Class profits.

As an American (or at least a non Japanese native) if my boss came up to me yelling and swearing in my face I would punch him out cold.

Actually if more Japanese did this I think things would improve at the office.

No one has time for family in Japan

When I watch yt videos about people leaving the workplace at 10pm, I wonder how suicide rate isn't way higher

You can tell capitalism is super efficient and sustainable by how it totally collapses without fresh babies to sacrifice.