How politicians are so far away from the reality of life?
Came across an article where the Municipal administration of Tokyo has proposed to give to each mother $1000 to give birth.
This is one of the unrealistic and under thought reality that the governments can come up with to encourage the birth rate increase.
As per statistics pasted above from google info, it shows that the growth rate is in the minus and the population is sitting at the reverse or upside triangle, Japanese are traditionally considered one of the long living nations in the world because of their food, living standards etc …
This article is specifically looking at the idiocracy of the policy and what Japanese female responded when I sent them the article.
I’ve asked a few Japanese ladies of what they thought of this policy and they were quite excited and disappointed at the same time.
Exciting part was that they happy for those Mothers that would get $1000 to give birth but were disappointed that they are not in living Tokyo and wished their local authorities will adopt the same level towards it.
When I asked them what are the actual costs of nappies and food over the next 3 years from the birth of children their reply was, it will be less than $1000. But they are not realising that there is no actual real support by the same municipality to address quite obvious issues with raising kids in Japan.
First of all, the food, clothing, roof over the top of the head, safe place for a child to grow in Tokyo could be extremely expensive if we compare to other parts of Japan. So the $1k does not cut the cookie when you put those things into perspective above and beyond the simple example of the costs of nappies and food.
Then lets look at the primary education although the government provided playgrounds, childcare and education facilities are generally free, there are just not enough of them to sustain the whatever growth that they are projecting. To top it up, there is not enough trained and reliable staff to look after the influx of new borns in the years to come.
In 2021, the stats are pointing towards over 50k kids on an average on the waiting list to be placed in the childcare facility, which means, that the mothers that gave birth must sit at home and entertain their own kids in the meantime until they are placed in the educational facility. It is so ridiculous these days that the waiting list in some urban areas are 3 years ahead.
Second of all, the costs of the private/semi-private educational facilities, on average it could cost $1000 p.m. to place 1 child into the facility, hence there is no real encouragement for women to either have kids nor to look for jobs that will only cover the costs of the educational facilities, and yet again the same problem as the government provided facilities, there are just not many spaces to place the kids into it.
Lastly, what the mothers are going to be doing after their kids entered the first childcare ? there is no logistical set up for a support to return the mothers to workplace from the moment they have given birth a raised them, also the logistical set up of work place vs living place is so far away that it becomes unrealistic for them to actually pursue either the career or having kids.
What is the conclusion here? The authorities that are coming up with ridiculous thoughts are not thinking it through end to end or talking with people about the reality of the situation.
The moment they start doing the jobs that they are paid to do, this is the time when something will start to change and until then, unfortunately we will see the once loved prosperous nation dying a slow death with no real quick solutions in place…