Here's the Chronic Situation of 'Sex Recession' in Japan

The birth rate in Japan has dropped dramatically. The birth rate in Sakura Country is only 800 thousand in 2022.
While the government has promised more financial assistance to reverse the situation, many parents say having children is still too expensive.

"We are surviving by cutting our savings now," said Katahira Kazumi, who is already the mother of a 4-year-old child.

"A second child was not in our minds," he told NHK .

Katahira is cutting her work hours to spend more time with her family and plans to have at least two children. But after years of expensive fertility treatments, she says they can't afford to support a larger family.

"Part of me still thinks it would be great to have a second child, but realistically, it's too expensive," she said.

Japan has seen record low birth rates for the last six years. As of 2021, the number is just 811,622 - the lowest since records began in 1899.

The decline is happening faster than demographers projected in 2017, when the National Institution of Population and Social Security projected that births in Japan would not fall below 800,000 until 2030.

A 2021 survey of 5,800 married couples found they wanted more children than they actually planned. But they ended up childless for financial reasons.

"Government financial support in Japan is only about half or even a third of what the major Western countries provide," said Matsuda Shigeki, Professor of Sociology at Chukyo University. He said the official push to have more children had little effect.

"Japan has been expanding measures to deal with the low birth rate over the years, but it has not yet reached a level that can convince people they can have and raise children," he said.

The population in Japan is currently just under 125 million, according to official data. Factors contributing to Japan's sex recession include:

Cost of living is expensive
Women are more focused on education and career
Easy access to contraception
Women prefer to have few children or even no children at all (childfree)