Japanische Geburtenpolitik in Geschichte und aktuellem Diskurs

Limits of Political Feasibility: Birth Control Policy and the Low Birth Rate in Japan

In Japan, fertility had been declining for more than three decades, when the government first decided to consider measures to stop this trend. At that time, people did not seem to be very concerned about it. What was the reason behind this lack of concern, and why did the reaction in Japan differ so much from that of other industrialized countries?
This paper investigates the history of birth rates and policies from the early Meiji period to the present, paying particular attention to the time before, during and after the Second World War. It shows quite clearly that in Japan, fertility did not decline just because of societal changes or as a side effect of industrial and medical development, but that the decline was very actively promoted by the government policy after World War II and in the early 1950s, when nurses and midwives made concerted efforts to effectively persuade women to reduce the number of children they would bear. Through these activities, the Japanese government’s policy turned out to be surprisingly successful. The methods the government and local authorities are currently using in an attempt to raise fertility have come to resemble more and more those used in the past, but their lack of success underscores changes in attitudes and feelings of people in Japan. Analysis of current discourses demonstrates how politicians and bureaucrats try to divide people into categories depending on sex, age, and other criteria, and then assign to them »social duties«, which they are no longer able or ready to bear. The article presents a critical assessment of these discourses and shows how the present fertility rate is influenced by the past, not only directly through specific policies and initiatives, but also through the thinking and the emotions of ordinary people.