Lower school fees, free checkups proposed to tackle declining birthrate

Sunday 14th June, 05:33 AM JST

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RandomTask at 10:25 AM JST - 14th June

This sounds like a great plan! Make the young pay more taxes on top of the fortune they are going to be paying to keep their 125 year old grand parents alive.

Reduce working hours for all, raise the age of retirement to 85-90 unless medical conditions prevent you from working. Oh, and pay women fairly too.
huberts2 at 11:07 AM JST - 14th June

As for education expenses, particularly the 'higher' education costs, the greatest drain upon a family -- reduce the number of private, for profit, schools and universities and replace them with public schools and public universities. University fees, in the ordinary student's case ( that is apart from scholarship awards) to be paid by the students principally, to the extent they can't work and earn sufficiently to meet those costs, from Public loans to be repaid out of future earnings, repayments based on level of earnings. Parents can say - "go pay your own debts !" and the parents relieved from perhaps their greatest financial worry. It would add something for the youth also to know it is their responsibility to meet a debt to the Public - they will never acknowledge a debt to parents.
noborito at 11:26 AM JST - 14th June

The only way the birthrate will go up, is when 1. people have money to have children and maintain their way of life. 2. have a place to live that is comfortable and safe. 3. have sex. (All of which) are not present in todays Japan. The measures above.... complete waste of time. I suspect a few law makers children are pregnant and they want a free pass.
bcbrownboy at 11:50 AM JST - 14th June

The schools are fine, unfortunately they don't make graduates competitive for the universities. Dakara, juku's make a killing, and kill us in the process.
Jeff198524 at 12:41 PM JST - 14th June

It amuses me how much you people are giving in to this alarmist nonsense.
ThonTaddeo at 04:35 PM JST - 14th June

One thing that could be done would be to slash the benefits paid to retirees and let young working people keep more of their salaries.

But we all know what the infinitely-selfish baby boomers will think of that idea.
kirakira25 at 05:31 PM JST - 14th June

When are they ever going to address the real issues behind this problem???!

And what is this crap about how 14 medical checkups don't need any personal expenditure? I am pregnant at the moment, have my 14 forms which I fill in and take to the clinic every time I go, and yet I still wind up also paying for the consultation. Is it not mandatory for the hospital to pass on the benefit to the patient? It seems that my hospital is charging me AND charging the government!
tshirt at 06:45 PM JST - 14th June

The reason people don't have children is the perceived value of children is low. When the value increases, then people will have more. Very simple. So the question isn't really, how much money can (will) the government throw at people, but how to increase people's perception of the value of children. State subsidies don't really increase the birthrate... maybe if a couple was planning on 1, now they'll have 2, but that won't fix the problem.

You need people to get married in their early 20's, and have 3 little ones popped out before 30. Maybe 2 or 3 more before 40. How can the government help that? Easy, get rid of the pension system. People expect the government to take care of them in old age. If they don't have that, then they will look to (make) family to do it.
nisegaijin at 08:19 PM JST - 14th June

screw that! they only need increase of population so they can pay for their ponzy scheme called pension and social healthcare. This this should have failed ages ago.

Good on Japanese people to place responsibility ahead of basic instinct of reproduction.
sharky1 at 08:56 PM JST - 14th June
Stop the declining birth rate by:
1. Outlaw abortion
2. Legally define marriage as the act of conjugation.
hereandthere at 09:00 PM JST - 14th June

Reducing education expenses and promoting the use of taxpayer money for regular health checkups of pregnant women...

"use of taxpayers money"... how in the world does that translate to reduction of anything!? that "free" education has to be paid for by someone... so an increase in taxes to pay for the education expenses and an increase in taxes to pay for "free" health check-ups...

somehow that "free" word seems to blind too many people to reality.
LIBERTAS at 02:41 AM JST - 15th June

Oh, and stop abusing your children too!
dracpoo2 at 08:59 AM JST - 15th June

Working 14 hours a day is definitely not the reason why couples are not having children, I mean I do this daily also and have no issues rising to the occasion

@Susteki I guarantee you, that this is a good reason for any well meaning parent to be, to decide against children. A big part of raising a child includes spending quality time with them. I have had my students write about their greatest wish, many of them just wanted DADDY TO COME HOME EARLIER, this broke my heart. I was shocked when I came here to see students hanging around on the streets odd hours of the night in UNIFORM, I later understood why....there is no one at home to receive them after school, like you the parents are probably working 14 hours a day.
cleo at 09:17 AM JST - 15th June

somehow that "free" word seems to blind too many people to reality.

Yeah, some people are blind to the reality that every inhabitant of a country, whether they're a parent or not, benefits from that country having a healthy, well-educated work-force. If you can't contribute to that physically by producing kids (and let's face it, not everyone can, or should), then you can play your part by paying a reasonable amount of taxes to support that healthy, well-educated workforce.

When the potential monetary cost of raising a child is as prohibitive as it is in Japan, it makes sense to spread the cost among all the beneficiaries.
Himajin at 09:21 AM JST - 15th June

If Japanese public schools are so great why is there a need for juku at all?

The juku is not a review of school work, it's training in taking entrance exams, and lessons beyond grade level. The junior high my son took an exam for at age 12 had 8th and 9th grade chemistry questions the kids would not have been able to either anticipate or answer without going to juku. They also give them mock exams once a month to get them used to the format. The point of entrance exams is to keep people out, not let them in...the tests are moving farther and farther beyond the grade level of the kids sitting for them.