2017 Volume 27 Issue 1 Pages 5-20
In this article trends of low fertility in Japan, its demographic, socioeconomic and cultural determinants and policy responses to it are overviewed in an internationally comparative perspective. While fertility has declined and stagnated below replacement level since the 1970s among almost all developed countries, they are currently divided into two groups, that is, moderately low fertility countries and very low fertility countries. Japan belongs to the latter, together with Italy and Germany. Fertility decline below replacement level has been caused universally among developed countries by the postponement of childbearing, but as the postponement has been so strong and its recuperation was so weak in Japan, the latest cohort completed fertility has already declined to just less than 1.5. Such postponement was mainly brought about by the postponement of marriage in Japan, because later and fewer marriages among women aged 20s were not compensated by the prevalence of cohabitation and the increase of extra-marital births which were observed in moderately low fertility countries. Marital fertility declined in Japan, but it was rather a recent phenomenon. Among background factors related to declining fertility, such factors as（1）the coming of an affluent society, accompanied often by rising cost of childcare and（2） social emancipation of women, reflected in their rising levels of educational attainment and labor force participation, which is commonly observed in the developed countries,（3） the phenomenal increase of non-regular employees, recently noticed in Japan, and（4） the traditional family and/or gender norms, common to very low fertility countries, are discussed. Lastly, the status-quo of such specific policy measures as economic support for childcare, measures for helping to balance work and childcare, policy options for reducing non-regular employees and ways for achieving gender equality are summarized and evaluated.
