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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Asian societies turned population control into a quasi-religious endeavor in the 1960s and are now paying the price. Japan’s fertility rate peaked at well over 5 in the beginning of the 20th century. In just 40 years, from 1925 to 1965, it fell to just over 2. But it shot right past replacement levels, down to 1.4 today. It’s not going to be easy to overcome decades of socialization telling people that not having kids is the pathway to prosperity.

Even countries like Bangladesh will start shrinking in this century. I’m less worried about those because (1) I think Islam provides some back-pressure to keep birth rates from collapsing totally as in countries like South Korea; and (2) Bangladesh and India are quite a bit more densely populated than Japan, which really isn’t that crowded.

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I don't think population control in the 60s is the issue now, rather like in North America, the way life and work is structured is not conducive to raising a family, and so many people have opted out of that.

Linear optimization within capitalism.

Finding the most reliable path to success.

I am left with no family.

The sharpest drop in the US birth rate came after the baby boom, from 1960 to 1980, and was almost certainly a product of changing norms rather than economic pressure.

> The sharpest drop in the US birth rate came after the baby boom, from 1960 to 1980, and was almost certainly a product of changing norms rather than economic pressure.

Economic conditions are a powerful factor in shaping norms, though in industrialized countries economic stability and stronger social safety nets are associated with reduced birthrates, “economic pressure” is thus more likely to be the opposite of the explanation.

I mean, in the sense that the birth rate used to be enormous because children were part of the subsistence farming labor force, yes. But the norm change here is pretty clear, and pretty clearly not a product of economic pressure; I'm being careful with my words so as not to set the thread off on a bleak tangent.

Subsistence farming has been a marginal activity even in colonial North America, and that was even more true in United States. It was mostly restricted to native Americans. The rest were overwhelmingly engaged in market farming, not subsistence — either as owners, hired laborers, or slaves. In any case, by 1960, US society was overwhelmingly urbanized, and subsistence farming has faded from living memory.

I'm just saying that if you look at the birth rate chart, the further away you get from modernity, the higher the birth rate goes. Substitute whichever more accurate words you prefer.

This might seem like nitpicking, but it is hugely important distinction for people interested in demographics. The simple fact is that societies engaged in subsistence farming are, in fact, stable instead of growing, and their TFR is not very far from 2. This has been true about, say, most of pre 1800s Europe, or pre 1900s sub Saharan Africa, but has not been true about North America for last 400 years until very recently.

> I mean, in the sense that the birth rate used to be enormous because children were part of the subsistence farming labor force, yes.

No, its true among countries in the developed West, both across countries at the same time and within countries over time, without subsistence farming being a significant factor. There's theory as to why speculating in the role of family as disability/unemployment/old age support being more critical with relatively weaker social support networks and less so with stronger ones.

(My personal pet speculatio is that its more subrational, and that humans are loosely biologically programmed in a way that generalized insecurity — perhaps signalled through accummulated effext of stress hormones — mitigates the degree to which humans are inclined to K-strategy in reproduction, and that’s an important factor in adaptability to environmental change on timescales shorter than evolution; lots of things in nature have a stress/reproduction response like that.)

No, in Asia the population control efforts started back in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan’s birth rate has already dropped to replacement levels by the time the birth control pill became prevalent in the 60s and 70s.

What kind of population control did Japan engage in in the 60s?

The really terrible kind.

Japanese doctors made a big chunk of their money performing abortions. They lobbied to outlaw most forms of birth control, because it interfered with their abortion revenue.

There are plenty of stories of Japanese doctors saying, “Your pregnancy test is positive, when should we schedule the abortion?”

This wasn’t formal government policy, but the government did support it.

The birth control pill wasn’t legalized in Japan until the 1999. Plan B wasn’t legalized until 2011. Abortion by medication is still illegal.

I agree if there would be more birth control there would be fewer abortions and I agree it sucks that abortion by medication is still illegal. It sounds inhuman. I'm missing though the jump you're making as to how that would result in more births unless you're suggesting that you ban birth control and abortions but that doesn't seem like your position.

> I'm missing though the jump you're making as to how that would result in more births

Did I say that it resulted in more births? I don’t think it did.

Here's the conversation I read.

>>> Asian societies turned population control into a quasi-religious endeavor in the 1960s and are now paying the price

>> What kind of population control did Japan engage in in the 60s?

> Your response about no prescription abortions and birth control but instead doctors push abortions.

I'm totally missing your point about how Japan is engaging in population control. For example, if prescription abortions were legal and they pushed birth control instead, is the net effect a meaningful change in policy that would prevent them from "now paying the price"? I guess I'm totally missing how your criticism of their policies relates back to the original discussion that Japan's low birth rates are a result of population control and how addressing the critique you wrote would in any way change their birth rate.

A culture where doctors respond to a positive pregnancy test by asking when (not if) to schedule an abortion is likely to lead to fewer births.

Wow that's insane, is there any references or reading on this? Tried to find sources and having difficulty.

here let me google that for you.

"japan birth control policy" came up with this VERY detailed NIH discussion of Pst-WW2 Japanese birth control policy. literally first hit.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK402326/

Sadly, many of my sources, including the story of a western woman who was asked by her Japanese doctor when she wanted to schedule the abortion, are no longer googleable.

Even specific very specific queries aren’t returning anything.

It seems search engines are focusing more on what they want to show you, rather than what you want to see.

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