Tazeen Hasan
While most of the industrial world is facing demographic challenge, the researchers have found a direct relationship between population decline and economic stagnation. Tazeen Hasan highlights the catalyst factors behind the crumbling population which is leading the developed world towards extinction.
Contrary to the third world where sex before marriage is considered a taboo, extra-marital sex is legal and culturally acceptable and even highly appreciable in the developed world. As a consequence, the industrialized world is facing a terrible demographic challenge in the form of birthrate shrinkage which is threatening their national survival in near future.
As a leading industrialized country with one of the highest GDPs in the world, Japan is no exception. I do not want to use rash words, but the Japanese nation is also enjoying the fruits of extra-marital sex i.e population collapse. For the last 25 years, the country has witnessed declining birthrates, along with widespread aging. And although they are not as threatening as Germany which has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, Japanese think tanks are alarming the nation that if this trend does not reverse, Japanese race will be extinct. Japanese women are having so few children that the country’s population could drop by half in 24 years. To alarm the nation about this population crises Tohoku University in Tokyo has installed a doomsday clock which is constantly updating the nation about the estimated extinction date, a date Japan’s population will dwindle to one.
Akin to European and North American societies, the overwhelming majority of Japanese citizenry do not believe in marital bounds. According to a survey by Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, about 48.6 percent of men and 39.5 percent of women are found to be unmarried.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed the desire to raise the nation’s fertility rate from 1.4 to 1.8 by 2025. The government is offering better child-care services and tax incentives for married couples, though such programs have yet to bear statistical fruit.
As a caveat, another obstacle to the growth in fertility rate is the society’s increased pressure on women to join the labor market. No doubt, when it come to professional obligations outside the home, a woman’s performance is no less than her male counterpart. Yet, whether it is an industrialized society like Germany or Japan or a conservative society like Pakistan or India, most of the burden of home-building and child rearing has to be borne by her. As a consequence, a working woman in industrialized society simply avoids childbirth. Even if she chooses to balance between work and family, she is called evil mother in Japanese culture. Same is her fate in Germany.
Things become worse when the dwindling population is found to be directly linked to economic decline. There has been scarcely any nominal GDP growth over the past 20 years in the Japanese economy,” according to the recent data and the most commonly cited catalyst for this economic stagnation is decaying population.
A family is a basic building block of a nation. Yet, it demands huge sacrifices from both partners and the marriage is a glue that keeps a man and woman together to carry out the responsibilities of rearing a child. Nonetheless, despite billion of dollars spent on demographic research, the industrialized world is unable to find the answer to a simple question; why would unmarried couples be interested in childbirth when sex is freely available without the complex set of liabilities and obligations as a result of wedlock and childbirth?
Media Bites Editorial – Tazeen Hasan
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