Decent first step, but it’s going to take an actual investment in making parenthood desirable.
Parenthood is already desirable. There’s a biological drive and social conditioning to desire it for most people. The disincentives have just become overwhelming. Children take a hell of a lot of resources. Every aspect of modern society has drained all the time, money, energy, emotional resiliance, social support, etc that people need.
I’m logically aware that’s the case for other people, but I find it perplexing why often times. I was sterilized in my mid 20s, and I haven’t ever regretted it.
four-day workweek
/me franticly googling rents in Japan
Housing in Japan is treated the same as a car, it depreciates as soon as you move in.
rent is cheapish, it’s everything else that will get you. if you’re fine with crushing and all-permeating conformism, ridiculous degree of nationalism and misogyny, how you won’t be ever accepted as one of their own as foreigner and famously toxic work culture, feel free to give it a shot
The way I’ve heard it said is “if you live in a developed country, you could probably afford to move to Japan right now. If you get a job in Japan, you’ll never afford to move back.”
Japan’s cost of living is low compared to developed nations, but their average income is also low for a developed nation.
When you move from the US you lose like half your salary for an equivalent position (more now cause of the relative power of the dollar to the yen).
The people that live like kings are the ones that are in Japan at the behest of American companies on American salaries living at like a third of their American costs.
Wait until they will discover affordable housing thing.
ya it’s funny when you watch some videos about “small apartments” in tokyo and only to realize they are still more cheaper and spacious than some NA options in big cities.
Not in Tokyo, but farther out in Tokyo’s residential cities (outside the 23 wards like Chiba and Saitama)
It’s even cheaper the farther you get from train stations. There’s a 30 minute walk “cliff” where residential land prices plummet when you’re more than 30 minutes walk away from a train station.
If I lived in Tokyo, though, I certainly wouldn’t want to be a 30+ minute walk from a train station. That makes leaving home a pretty big task.
Wait until you find out it is normal to tip your landlord there
Only once in my life have I got my damage deposit back. That is tipping the landlord a lot of money. The time I got it back was in a terrible situation and I had leverage over the parasite.
Housing is pretty affordable in Japan since housing in Japan is not an investment, it depreciates like a car (only the land has value, the house ontop of it has literally negative value since it’s assumed anyone will want to bulldoze it), and their lax zoning allows for continual densification to happen.
Affordable housing, better working conditions, less working hours, efficient healthcare and better pay. It’s not hard goddamn it.
That would be a hit in the US
