Name:
Directions:
4
sentences of summary about the article(s). Include the most important points.
Your summary should show that you read carefully and have a good understanding
of the articles.
3
sentences of your personal response/opinion. What do you think about these
readings?
2
quotes that stand out (quotes can be important sentences or phrases written by
the author). Include a couple sentences on the significance of each quoted
sentence/phrase. Why did you choose it/what does it mean for this article?
1
question or connection—several sentences about something you still wonder or
don't understand about this article, OR about something in the text you can
connect to.
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10
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9-8
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7-6
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5
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4-1
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All items in the 4/3/2/1 are
thoroughly completed.
Answers are all in complete sentences.
Answers show complete understanding of
the 4/3/2/1.
Student went above and beyond what was
expected (analysis & thoroughness).
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One
part of the assignment may not be thorough enough.
Answers are mostly in complete sentences.
Answers show substantial understanding
of the question(s), but more analysis could lead to greater understanding.
Student met expectations of activity.
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More than half the assignment is
completed, but not analyzed thoroughly enough.
Answers show understanding of the
question(s), but they could use more detail, analysis, examples, and/or
connections.
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More than half the assignment is
incomplete.
Answers shows limited understanding of
the question(s), and needs a lot more detail and analysis.
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Assignment is either dreadfully
incomplete or needs significantly more detail and analysis.
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Name ________________________
Janet Reno
4 Sentence Summary:
3 Sentences of Personal Opinion:
2 Quotes and Why They Stand Out:
1 Question or Connection:
Japan and its birth
rate: the beginning of the end or just a new beginning?
BY OLGA GARNOVA
“Catastrophe”
is one of the words most frequently used to describe Japan’s demographic
situation: an aging society full of sexless couples having fewer and fewer
babies. Fertility is below replacement level, births are being delayed — but is
the situation as desperate as the media paints it? No, the data suggest. In
fact, the picture is improving.
Japan
has never made it into the “top 10” of countries with the lowest total
fertility rates (TFR) — the average number of children a woman bears over her
lifetime. And since 2005, when it bottomed out at 1.26 births per woman, the
TFR has been slowly but steadily growing, although the government is predicting
what it hopes is a slight blip — a 0.01-point dip — for 2015. According to the
World DataBank, in 2013 (the latest year for which full data — not just
estimates — are available) Japan, with its 1.43 TFR, was doing better than
South Korea and Singapore (both 1.19), Hong Kong (1.12) and Germany (1.38).
Media like to cite declining births
in absolute numbers or birth rates (the number of children born per 1,000
population). The results inspire juicy headlines such as “Japan suffers lowest
number of births on record” and “Alarm bells ring over falling birth rate.”
However, drops in these figures do not necessarily mean that women are having
fewer babies. If the pool of potential mothers is shrinking, the absolute
number of children will also decrease compared to previous years. Japanese
women of ages 35-39 outnumber those 30-34, 30-34 outnumbers 25-29, and so on.
Add in the ever-increasing number of elderly living longer than almost anywhere
else on the planet and birth rates drop as well.
Japan
is not unique. Other high-income countries also have TFRs lower than the global
average and below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. But as the latest
data show, in the majority of them the TFR is rising.
The
United Nations estimates that this trend will continue and Japanese will be
producing 1.72 babies per woman in 30 years. This is, however, still far short
of the replacement level of 2.1, and Japan is projected to lose about 15
percent of its population by 2050.
But
there is one caveat: U.N. projections are based on the demographic transition
theory, which suggests that human populations transition from high to low birth
and mortality rates as they industrialize and modernize. Once the transition is
complete, the theory says, TFR does not change much. But this idea has been
challenged by demographer Mikko Myrskyla.
According
to Myrskyla, when a country’s human development index (HDI), a composite
measure of a country’s achievements in health, education and wealth, climbs
over 0.86, its fertility starts to grow. If he is right, Japan, with its HDI of
0.89 (as of 2013), is going through a transition to higher TFR. Unfortunately,
it is not possible to foresee how far this will go, as there are no historical
precedents of long-term fertility rebound. But for now, let’s cherish this
piece of much-needed good news.
The bad
news is there is no cookie-cutter solution when it comes to sustaining this
trend. The fertility growth trend started in Europe almost 20 years ago, but
“we do not find a completely consistent pattern for Western European
countries,” Myrskyla admits. Japan will have to find its own way.
While
there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for boosting fertility, current trends in
European countries suggest that gender equity might be a key to higher birth
rates. As opposed to gender equality, which is based on identical treatment of
men and women, gender equity requires fair and just treatment of genders
depending on their needs. According to Thomas Anderson and Hans-Peter Kohler,
researchers from the Population Studies Center, the latter is especially
important within families.
Economic
development leads to better access to education and employment for women, but
household norms and expectations change at a much slower pace. As a result, the
family-work conflict intensifies and women delay marriage and childbirth or
remain childless. This is what Japan is experiencing now.
However,
hitting this “tipping point” may be exactly what is needed to trigger social
changes. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the mean age
for first marriages was 30.9 for men and 29.3 for women in 2013. Declining
birth rates lead to a shortage of brides: Men tend to marry younger women, but
each younger generation has fewer people. Also, there are more men than women
in all age brackets. Thus, there are more bachelors than brides, which gives
women greater bargaining power — a perfect setup for the gender revolution.
Change
is already in the air. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communications’ “Survey on time use and leisure activities,” men spent an
average of 27 minutes a day on home-related work in 1996, as compared with 49
minutes in 2001 and 69 minutes in 2011. This is still a lot less than the more
than three hours women spend on such chores, but it indicates a shift in values
from traditional to egalitarian. And egalitarian families have been shown to
have more children than traditional ones — even though they have them later.
Have
you ever noticed that marriages and children come in waves? From being
surrounded by carefree childless couples, within a couple of years it can seem
as if the majority of your friends are suddenly married with kids on the
horizon. Perhaps counterintuitively, marriage and childbirth decisions are
affected by the environment. So if we stop repeating the mantra that Japanese
are not having babies, the current fertility rebound might just speed up.
Low
fertility is still an important problem, but Japan is showing signs of
recovery. It will take time, and political and cultural changes, but the
population will stabilize. In the meantime, Japan faces a choice between
growing small gracefully, turning to large-scale immigration to fill in the
gaps or putting its faith in mass robotization. Good luck with that one.
Foreign Agenda offers a forum for opinion on issues related to
life in Japan. Ideas and comments: community@japantimes.co.jp
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