Japan has fewer babies because young people aren’t good lovers, politician says
- Narise Ishida says the reason young people aren’t having babies is due to their lack of ‘romantic ability’, rather than the high cost of living
- A commentator says however young people are perfectly capable of flirting using modern technology, ‘which may be why Ishida cannot see it happening’
Narise Ishida, a member of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Mie Prefectural Assembly, said at a local government meeting on February 24 that it should carry out a survey to determine residents’ “romantic ability”, the Mainichi newspaper reported. He did not elaborate how an individual’s propensity for passion would be tested in wooing a partner or how that data might help to reverse the nation’s shortage of babies.
“The birth rate is not declining because it costs money to have children,” Ishida told the chamber. “The problem is that romance has become a taboo subject before marriage.”
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In recent decades, Japanese have been getting married later in life and are opting to have fewer children, primarily a result of financial pressures.
“He is correct in perhaps one way, that young people today lack traditional communication skills, but this is a generation that communicates very well online and through social media,” said Makoto Watanabe, a professor of media and communications at Hokkaido Bunkyo University in Sapporo.
“Among my students I see them constantly showing ‘romantic abilities’ through modern technology, which may be why Ishida cannot see it happening,” he said.
Young people still want to marry, to have more children, but buying a car or a house is so hard because of economic concerns
