Japan’s health minister provoked fury when he referred to women as “child-bearing machines” in a speech intended to address the country’s drastically declining birth rate.
Hakuo Yanagisawa, 71, embarrassed the Government of Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister, in a speech delivered on Saturday, which was immediately attacked by women and opposition politicians.
“The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed,” he told the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the city of Matsue. “Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask is for them to do their best per head.”
In 2004 the population peaked at 128 million and began to shrink last year. At current levels of decline it will have fallen to less than 90 million by 2055…
Yes, there are pundits who think this decline will cause “devastating social and economic consequences”. Including the aforementioned politician.
Is it surprising that in a world of “Human resources” that people might think of women as baby-making machines?
When I hear people bemoaning dropping populations, I think of the black plague in Europe. Same number of resources divided by less people equals greater prosperity.
I can see where this would be a problem in Japan. They are a very closed off xenophobic society that eschews immigration to fill in employment gaps. If these Japanese child-bearing machines don’t kick into overdrive soon, their aging population is going to become a serious drag on their economy. The health minister might not win PC points, but he is correct.
JT: I don’t think a society has to be “xenophobic” to eschew immigration to fill in employment gaps.
First off, there are clear examples of places around the world that allowed the process to happen and are having problems (among other reasons, problems with assimilation). In an extremely homogenized society like Japan, problems will definitely occur.
Secondly, science and technology may alleviate some potential problems (better health and longevity, robot and other artificial labor, etc.).
Third, reasonable people may decide that it is OK to lower your standard of living rather using immigration to maintain it. I’ve had some money problems where I chose to spend less rather than taking in a roommate. It does not make me xenophobic.
We could solve our immigration problem by giving illegals a free ride to Japan…
The Japanese are just going to create robots to fill their labor needs, since most of their population is high tech, that mean whatever people are left there will be plenty of jobs for Robot repair and maintence.
They need no immigrants, just robots, kinda like the amricans, only the americans use robots that are biological and you can only program them in “espanol”.
Soft body robots, no less!
rofl, great comment #6 – unfortunately those robots are only good for certain types of labor (landscaping, selling taco-bell food, etc)
What are women pissed off becasue they’re finally getting some credit for being baby making machines? thats what you’re for, dammit
#7
“What are women pissed off becasue they’re finally getting some credit for being baby making machines? thats what you’re for, dammit”
Which raises the rather interesting question: What are men for, exactly?
I thought penises were called baby making machines 😉
Yeah, the issue with declining birth rates is all about economics, sadly. One would think declining birth rates is encouraged given that within 50 years we will have exhausted water supplies, not to mention fuel. The planet is said to only support 10 billion people… total. We are more than halfway there now.
OK Asimov fans… Japan = Solaria. Europe tends toward Aurora, except for the influx of “refugees” from countries which are largely Muslim. I wonder if they debate the overpopulation issue? Time to do a little research.
Meanwhile, we argue about petty things in a vacuum and give pc time to overly sensitive women’s groups. Cmon folks, kids are supposed to be wealth creation machines (if we raise them right anyway; which is easier said than done I admit!)
I’d expect a declining population to be bad for anyone with enough wealth to be looking for workers (servants, “soft-body robots,” factory workers, etc.). For people looking for some way to make a living, I’d expect a bit more of a job-hunter’s market to be good for them. I wonder if a poll of how people react to rumors of shrinking population would reveal the clear class division I’d expect. Of course it’d be fuzzed somewhat by people who buy into the fiction that Social Security is an expense rather than tapping into enforced savings accounts. Propaganda seems always to be able to keep people blindered. But c’mon, shrinking population causing more “economic dislocations” than, as GlobalWarmer always says, Global Warming (TM – how doe you do superscript in HTML?) or unassimilating Muslim cultural invasions or declining water or peak oil or… ? Surely there’s a lot more for conservatives to have their nightmares about than declining stocks of soft-body robots – by which I mean all the but the wealthy, not just Hispanics.