China, Japan take aim at declining birthrates with new pro-family policies. Will they work?

The two most powerful countries in Asia are trying to tackle low fertility rates in differing ways, and their efforts may have lessons for America.

For decades, both China and Japan have been plagued by low fertility rates, a malady now affecting other industrialized nations, including the U.S.

Japan’s fertility rate, at 1.26 children per woman, is the lowest among the G7 nations, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). China’s fertility rate is even lower at 1.18, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain a stable population. 

This week the city of Tokyo announced it would reduce the work week to four days as an incentive to women to have more children by providing more family time, CNN reported.   

“We will review work styles … with flexibility, ensuring no one has to give up their career due to life events such as childbirth or childcare,” said Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike when announcing the work week, CNN reported.  

It’s not the first time Japan has attempted to incentivize childbearing.  

Last year, Japan’s national government introduced the Children’s Future Strategy that gives Japanese families with three or more children tax credits, “free” university, allowances for higher incomes and a monthly payment of 30,000 yen ($197) for the third and each subsequent child, reported the Asahi Shimbun.  

Experts consulted by CNN blamed Japan’s work culture, which encourages overtime hours, for the low birthrate. 

China is trying a more empirical approach, befitting a top-down society where people must, under law, take cues from its leaders. 

In the 1970s, the Chinese Communist government, or CCP, raised the legal age to marry to 23 for women (25 for men) and limited births to just two children because it worried it would not be able to supply enough food for a population rapidly surging towards a billion people. By 1980, a strict “one-child policy” was put in effect. 

Those who did not adhere to the regulations faced penalties, including jail time.  

But now, in order to raise fertility rates, the CCP reversed course. It lifted the one child limit in 2016 and is taking other steps to encourage families. 

The government recently told universities that since their students are the future bearers of children, the colleges have to provide more marriage and “love” courses, to create “healthy and positive marriage and childbearing cultural atmosphere,” reported Reuters. 

“Colleges and universities should assume the responsibility of providing marriage and love education to college students by offering marriage and love education courses,” said Population News, a Chinese state publication, according to Reuters. 

While China has also added financial incentives for having children, it has relied on state propaganda to provide moral and social support for increased childbearing.  

“China has responded by providing generous financial incentives to parents, strong cultural messages with lectures on ‘family values,’ and in some regions, changing family law to remove financial and social penalties for children born to single parents,” writes Emma Waters, a senior research associate at The Heritage Foundation.   

The reforms in China and Japan are worth watching as the U.S. grapples with declining birthrates. 

The approaches of China and Japan offer valuable lessons as the U.S. grapples with declining birthrates. 

According to the federal government, fertility rates in the U.S. continue to decline. In 2023, the government reported 1.62 births per woman, below the stable population target of 2.1 births.  

Elon Musk called the worldwide population decline one of the greatest risks to human survival. 

“If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble,” the tech billionaire said.  

Waters said the Chinese examples from the 1970s and today provide a powerful lesson to America about its own birthrate crisis. 

“[T]he law is a teacher, and the social policies that govern the United States will shape the values, desires, and interests of its people,” Waters said. “A culture that celebrates abortion as a necessary ‘choice’ for female empowerment will one day find itself encouraging an unsympathetic audience to have children earlier in life.”