Duvniask wrote:Tarsonis wrote:
And this dismissal is the kind of nonsense you get from someone blowing smoke up their own hindparts. You try to handwave it away all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a factor. It's not the only factor sure, but it's a factor non the less. Between awkward social relations, heavy work weeks, negative views of marriage in younger generations, and the availability of pornography and legal prostitution, it's fairly obvious why men and women rarely interact.
Roughly half the population doesn't copulate regularly, and 2/5ths of men under 40 are virgins. Men are increasingly more likely to find companionship through alternative means than through dating. Call it whatever you want, but social awkwardness is basically what it is.
Nothing of what you said suggests social awkwardness, i.e. lack of social skills and the idea that Japanese men and women don't know how to communicate properly. The availability of pornography and prostitution is not unique to Japan and never has been. Far more prominent explanations are the decline of job security for the young, and the continued prominence of patriarchal gender relations in both the public and private sphere which exert downward pressure on working mothers and fathers. And, as you mention the heavy workload.
The low birth rate is caused by a collapse of the traditional male breadwinner family model, with a lack of institutional re-alignment to make up for this. The collapse in social relations between men and women is tied to the pervasiveness of the old norms - the expectation is still to find women who are (more or less) willing and able to let go of their careers to become housewives, along with finding men who are capable of supporting the family as the primary breadwinner. It is a society of uncertain expectations and norms, maladapted institutions and super heavy exploitation of the workforce. To suggest it comes down to men and women just being socially inept is ridiculous. This social ineptitude, to the extent that it exists, is more of an effect of these other factors, which are ultimately the ones preventing family formation and thus, births.
Many women forego marriage and relationships for the above reasons, because family life would be a burden for them, especially when they are going to be subject to the "double shift" of both working and being a housewife who takes care of the children. And then there are many men who forego marriage because they cannot live up to the standards expected of them either. That is also why, in studies of virginity, it is actually those men with permanent full-time employment that show up as having more sex, whereas men with less income and less connection to the job market are far more likely to be virgins.Japan isn't a Christian nation, and has pretty casual moods toward sex. It's trends rivaling other western countries is evidence that Christianity is not the cause of declining birthrates, rather other socioeconomic factors are at play.
It's not as simple. Christianity is connected to a decline in birth rates to the extent that it is tied up with patriarchal and familialist values, which are increasingly inapplicable (and destructive) in our modern society where both parents are required to work and have stable incomes to support a family. It's one the reasons why you find, in Southern and Eastern Europe, despite their seemingly greater religiosity, lower birth rates and a dearth of family formation compared to the less religious and more gender egalitarian societies of Western and Northern Europe.
Idk where you got that info but in romania the families seem to do great(in my personal experience)
Also it is not a great gap between the west and east