Japan has become accustomed to looking at its demographic statistics with a heavy heart. Especially those that have to do with birth. In 2023, the country had its eighth consecutive year of declining births, recording a decrease in 5.1% that has dragged its birth rate to all-time lows. In Tokyo they have decided that it is time to look for solutions. And they are doing so by emphasizing the balance between work and family life. After its first move, focused on the four-day work week, it now wants to focus on daycare centers.

As? Offering them for free.

Daycare open bar. If the Tokyo Government’s plans go ahead and come to fruition, next year raising children will be cheaper for families in the city. Your governor, Yuriko Koike, has announced who wants to offer free daycare to all preschool children.

The measure would apply starting in septembercoinciding with one of the semesters into which the academic year is divided, and will be applied without distinctions. It will be applicable to both first-born children and the second and successive children of a family.

“There is no time to waste”. At the moment the Japanese press does not provide more details, nor does it specify how much the measure will cost, but it does has been echoed of the warnings of Koike herself, in office since 2016 and who has held other responsibilities in the Japanese administration, such as Minister of the Environment or Defense.

Without warming up, Koike acknowledged that the country faces “a crisis” due to the decline in its birth rate that does not seem like it “will disappear” on its own. Hence he has insisted on the urgency of seeking solutions. “There is no time to waste.”

A new measure? Yes. And no. If the proposal goes ahead, The Japan Times precise that Tokyo would become a national pioneer, expanding free access to daycare to all homes. What is not new is the approach.

At the beginning of 2023, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has already adopted a similar measure precisely to facilitate conciliation and lighten the economic burden of parenting, although with an important nuance: in an obvious attempt to encourage births, free daycare was then limited to second children up to two years old, leaving out firstborns.

Redoubling the effort. Now the Tokyo authorities want to go one step further and extend the cost exemption to the first children of each family as well. The measure is interesting because it reflects the extent to which Japan is strengthening its efforts to emerge from the birth rate crisis in which it has been mired for years.

Before 2023 the administrations They already offered subsidies to pay for much of the care of the youngest children, between zero and two years old, but they were limited to homes that met certain requirements. For example, to receive help for raising a second child, the first had to be of a certain age and family income was also assessed. Tokyo wants free. And widespread.

Kindergartens and much more. It is not the first measure promoted by Tokyo to reactivate its birth rate. Just a few days ago Yuriko Koike announced another change that, to a large extent, seeks to improve its demographics through conciliation: offering a four-day work week to metropolitan government employees. The new policy would come into force in the short term, in April, and employees who take advantage of it will enjoy three days off per week, which a priori should make their parenting easier.

“We will review working styles with flexibility, ensuring that no one has to leave their career due to life events such as giving birth or caring for a child,” proclaimed the governor during a speech at the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in which she also pointed out another proposal with the same purpose: making the working day more flexible for employees with children in school. “It is time for Tokyo to take the lead in protecting and improving the lives, livelihoods and economy of our people during difficult times for the country.”

Is the problem that serious? Japan is not the only nation with worrying birth data. Not even in Asia. In South Korea they also have serious problems that threaten even the future of their army and the once powerful Chinese demographic engine seems to have seized up, accumulating two consecutive years drop in census and a decrease in births.

The situation in Japan is, however, especially delicate. Statistics published in June reveal that in 2023 in the country just over 727,000 babies5.6% less than the previous year. The figure also marks the lowest birth rate since Japan began to compile comparable statistics on the subject, at the end of the 19th century.

Images | JoshBerglund19 (Flickr) and Note Thanun (Unsplash)

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