Two Ways to Encourage Japanese to Have Kids

Japan would like to stabilize its rapidly aging population, and there are really only two ways to do that. It can let in tons of immigrants, or it can find some way to raise fertility. Otherwise, it had better resign itself to decades of sluggish economic growth, as hard-working young people are required to carry a larger and larger pyramid of retired old people on their backs. Its social security system will go bankrupt, the health care system will struggle, and interest rates might stay at zero permanently.

So, if Japan wants to avoid that, does it go with immigration or does it promote higher birth rates? The U.S., Canada, Australia and most of the other large countries of the Anglosphere have gone with the former, as have a few city-states like Singapore. But given the backlash against mass immigration in Europe, and the general turn against globalization in the developed world, a giant wave of imported population seems an unlikely solution for Japan. That leaves fertility as the main option.