High rent delays child bearing. I wonder how much of the story of the falling japanese population can be attributed to that?
Japan is a social laboratory for the west and we see similar phenomena in the west these days.
Rent is expensive because both parents are working allowing price to go up.
Because parents wait longer. Their earnings are higher. Allowing daycare Costs to increase.
Tldr it's a vicious circle
(Quebec/Canada has a mix of semi-state-owned daycare, which are great, but few, and subsidized private daycare, which aren't as good, but usually not that bad)
This correlates pretty well with my experience. Even in Tokyo, prices are not that high (compared to London or Sydney, for instance -- and nowhere near SV). Because there is a good train service, it's also very reasonable to live in the countryside and commute to work. Even if you work in Tokyo, it is very easy to live in Chiba , Saitama or Kanagawa. Admittedly I really live in the countryside but my monthly rent is just 66,000 yen ($591 US as of today) per month for a modern 2 bedroom apartment with galley kitchen, living room, balcony and 2 parking spaces. Used 3 bedroom houses routinely go for $100-150K in this area, with fixer-uppers being under $100K. Most of Japan is not expensive for rent.
Cost of living is higher than the US and salaries are lower, but people tend to be more frugal too. Also, children often live with their parents until they get married (late 20's to early 30's).
IMHO, the reason for the low fertility is that young men in Japan have to get their career going and work very hard right out of school. Women, on the other hand tend not to have those kinds of career aspirations (for better or for worse). They usually intend to get married and have kids. Young women tend to view their 20's as their time to be free and they often travel (a lot!).
Usually young women are fairly well off because they live with their parents. Even though they tend to contribute to the family income, the shared cost of living is quite a bit lower than if they lived alone. They work in factories, or in offices and don't really have a lot of responsibilities. They tend to put off getting married as long as possible because after they are married, they often have to quit their jobs and concentrate on running the household.
The average age of marriage in Japan is 30.1 years old, according to Wikipedia. The average age in the US is 28.2. Young people in Japan also don't tend to live together before marriage, while US couples tend to live together for 2-4 years before getting married (I couldn't get good stats, but it seems like 1-2 years before getting engaged and 1-2 years after getting engaged based on various google searches).
Because people in Japan do not live together before marriage, they are less likely to have children before marriage. This resource [3] shows an interesting statistic: The average woman has their first child at 30.7 years old, while the average US woman has their first child at 26.3 years old.
In my mind, this is really the difference in fertility rates. Women in Japan are trying to put off getting married and having a family, while Americans are not.
[1] - https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_age_at_fi...
[3] - https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-average-age-to-have-a...
I'm gonna have to go look up surveys on why women don't marry now
The talking points always assume that fundamental human tasks like raising a family is infinitely more despicable than working as a drone in a corporation. I'm amused that the powers that be push the story that doing what is often a pointless chore, often for mere survival in contemporary times, is somehow 'more fulfilling' than the above.
This is not entirely surprising, since family has essentially become nationalized, while state is being privatised. Orwell's world will probably come into existence due more to reasons that far more insipid and glacial in its accumulation, than those 'big bang' events like terrorism. The latter no doubt are setting up crucial infrastructure for these, but the social aspect is has a much larger time constant.
This is not to say that I don't understand the risks of giving up an early industrial career in order to run a household, but I've got to say that I think an enlightened society should find a way to make that a viable option: no matter what your gender is.