Japan tops child welfare table

Thursday 11th December, 06:45 AM JST

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cleo at 09:38 AM JST - 11th December

The interesting question, which of cours escaped you, is if Japan is such a great place for kids, how come so few are being born here?

Maybe it's a great place for kids because there are fewer kids. Bottom of the STC survey was Niger, which has the world's highest total fertility rate. Poorer countries tend to produce more kids and are less able to look after them properly.

Respectfully, you would expect the country with the world's second highest GNP to score high on this kind of survey.

Respectfully, you wouldn't expect the country with the world's highest GNP score to come a sad 23rd.

Let's face it, in the eyes of a certain kind of poster Japan cannot do right. Even when they do right, they do wrong, or they cheated, or the survey was skewed, or they should have done better.....
Potsu at 09:53 AM JST - 11th December

Wow ! That is really hard to believe.Why do so many families leave when formal education starts then ?
Potsu at 09:54 AM JST - 11th December

Proxy...you must be Japanese ?
cleo at 10:03 AM JST - 11th December

Why do so many families leave when formal education starts then ?

Got any figures to show that Japan is haemorrhaging families with school-age kids? I know lots of families that came back to Japan when it was time for the kids to start school, or enter junior high.... don't know of any that left.

Or are you talking about expat families, who basically do the same as Japanese expats and prefer to educate the children in their home country?
soldave at 10:20 AM JST - 11th December

rjd - Quelle surprise at your response. Nice result although does anyone know what the criteria are for child welfare? By the looks of it, actually looking after and parenting your kids doesn't seem to have any part in it.
floyd_43 at 10:26 AM JST - 11th December

My wife and I deliberately chose to raise our daughter here in Japan, and I have never had any cause to regret that decision.

I think Japan is a great and safe place to raise kids - and I think it is reflected in the kids themselves, who are, by-and-large, happy, fun, kind-hearted, respectful and well-behaved...whenever I go back to Europe, I am always shocked at what a bunch of badly-behaved, disrespectful (and yes, treating the world around you with respect is important!) louts they seems compared to most Japanese kids!

On the other hand, the problems we have seen with disfunctional kids here committing henious crimes also shows that a proper support structure is NOT in place for children with problems.

My niece, who lives in Holland, as a baby was displaying all sorts of strange behaviour and her parents really thought she might have been mentally handicapped. But within a few days of being at kindergarten, the teachers had diagnosed her as having ADS syndrome and promptly got social services to provide both her and the parents with proper counselling and treatment. She's now a totally 'normal' kid and fully and extremely happily integrated into her school. That's exactly what Japan should be doing, rather than shoving problematic kids into those awful 'special needs' classes, where they are just effectively left to rot.
herefornow at 10:35 AM JST - 11th December

Cleo -- what is sad is that there is a certain kind of poster here who reads "Japan bashing" into every post, where possible. I applaud Japan for scoring high on this survey, I was just pointing out that it is not necessarily related to the manner in which parenting is done here, as rjd_jr claimed. I was also trying to point out that this is the good news. The bad news is that while it is wonderful for Japan to feel it is "kid friendly", if no one is having kids, it is a somewhat moot point. Because these kids may grow up healthy and safe, but then they become freeters or NEATS, because they see no future due to all of Japan's problems.
cleo at 11:20 AM JST - 11th December

does anyone know what the criteria are for child welfare?

Try reading the first paragraph of the article?
kirakira25 at 11:52 AM JST - 11th December

As a foreign Mum raising her kids here I have to say that so far I think Japan is fabulous in terms of healthcare, nutrition and education. And I originally came from a very cynical perspective on the whole thing but have been repeatedly proved wrong.

However, I wouldn`t necessarily think Japan may have scored quite so highly had psychological factors and parenting skills been taken into account.

However, given that every time I open the British yahoo news recently it is full of child abuse deaths, kids murdered by their parents, child neglect etc etc I can`T in all conscience sit here and claim Japan is any better or worse than anywhere else.
archiebald at 12:35 PM JST - 11th December

cleo, floyd_43 and kirakira25, I 100% agree with you. I am from the UK, been living in Asia since 1992 and adopted my daughter here in Japan in 1999. She attended a local Kindergarten and now is in 4th year elementary at our local Japanese school in Nagano.

She has developed wonderfully, has a great time with her friends and the teachers are extremely supportive and pro-active on matters such as children's morale and bullying. My wife will be meeting with her class teacher on Monday for the regular Parent / Teacher interviews, she just had her bi-annual medical check (includes blood tests from 5th year).

My daughter loves going to school, the lunches are healthy and delicious, enjoys the lessons and they have plenty of field trips and special events, something that British schools have almost given up on due to fears of litigation and high insurance costs. Her next trip will be a skiing day for the entire 4th grade.

I take a home leave to the UK every two years and it serves as a refresher as to why I know I made the correct decision to raise her here.
pointofview at 03:07 PM JST - 11th December

I agree that kids in Japan are looked after quite well. An acceptable level of basic needs and protection is offered to most kids. They are cheerful, intelligent and have fantastic abilities. I see it first hand at school... Im very supportive of a lot of the duties children are responsible for at their schools/communities ie. cleaning, students council, local festival participation, eating a fairly healthy lunch together (not starving and overweight like many western kids), school events etc. I find teamwork to be very important at school in Japan. Yep, there are your typical problems like anywhere else but in general the welfare of children is definitely considered a very important facet of Japanese society. The type of family upbringing would be difficult to comment on as I dont have adequate personal information on this issue. I would hope that it is and should be a positive one a child.
floyd_43 at 05:17 PM JST - 11th December

There's a lots of comments here about how good (or not!) Japanese are in the role of parents. Interestingly, there was a survey run by Unesco a couple of years ago, asking women from 8 different nations how much they enjoyed being mums. Dutch and Korean women enjoyed it the most, while Japanese women enjoyed it the least - and by a very big margin.

Nevertheless, from my observations, the biggest crime committed by Japanese parents is lack of communication with their kids and a weak family structure, especially in urban areas. I don't think its actually intentional ignoring, its simply not really knowing how to handle their kids (especially dads). In a group society like Japan, I think that can have a pretty traumatic effect on kids.

On the other hand, my best friend is the headmaster of a primary school in London and he estimates that 60% of his pupils are victims of some form of domestic abuse and that a quarter of the girls have been victims of sexual abuse. His school is an inner-city one, admittedly, but those are still pretty shocking statistics! I cannot possibly believe that Japan has anywhere near the same rates.
pointofview at 08:50 PM JST - 11th December

Also, I think it is important to teach an International outlook on things too (at school and at home)because learning more about the worlds cultures and people, it will enable us to find more common agreement. I believe that a lot of young people around the world really want to interact with one another. That`s very important for future peace...
pointofview at 08:52 PM JST - 11th December

Many good points on this story today...
samsarks at 10:13 PM JST - 11th December

i have a kid here and it is amazing the support am getting fro government.i do not think i would have gotten it any where other than in japan.Kudos ,Japan