These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Japan's declining fertility: "1.53 shock".
    Author: Yanagishita M.
    Journal: Popul Today; 1992 Apr; 20(4):3-4. PubMed ID: 12285109.
    Abstract:
    In 1990, the Japanese were upset over the low 1989 total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.57 and continued to be so when they learned that the 1990 rate was even lower (1.53). This meant an annual population growth rate of only 0.33% with population decline beginning after 2010. In the early 1990s, Japan began to feel the demographic effects of such low fertility: a shortage of young workers and rising costs of health care for the elderly. Further, this shortage resulted in increasing business closings between 1988-1990 (1-6%). In 1990, the government began a survey to monitor the beliefs of the population on demographic concerns. The survey revealed that people wanted 2.2 children. Ideal family size was 2.6 which remained the same since 1977. Almost 40% found the falling TFR to be undesirable, especially because the population was aging. Moreover 65% of them though the government should undertake efforts to increase births. The major suggestions included reducing economic costs of raising a child (53%), a more favorable environment to have children such as affordable housing (29%), and developing child care facilities and child care leave (13%). 38% of 25-29 year old women were still unmarried, yet only 2% intended to never marry. Women in their late 20s and early 30s were critical of the 3 generation household with women doing all the housework. Women were more likely to be against premarital and extramarital sex than men. 25-33%, especially women 45 years old, felt the abortion law should be restricted. The 1990 abortion rate was 37.4/100 births. 7% relied on sterilization, yet 25-30% felt it to be an acceptable means of contraception. 75% of those that used a contraceptive used the condom. The government continued to ban oral contraceptives (OCs) claiming they would spread AIDS. Men were more in favor of OCs than women. 48% of those who found the falling population undesirable favored a pronatalist policy over importing foreign laborers. 41% wanted Japan to still help developing countries with family planning.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]