It is way more expensive for households with two working parents to raise children than it is for households with one working parent, and as a result it is possible that even fewer Japanese people would elect to have children.
Firstly, this is a small and modestly exclusive institution. So much so that it could hardly be a causal factor in motivating women to decline to have children in preference to their career. Simply declining to let qualified women be doctors to make room for privileged rich sons is a repugnant insult to human intelligence, and should be viewed as the sexist attitude it is.
Secondly, if the "force women to stay at home by disadvantaging them in the workplace" were such a great strategy, Japan wouldn't have a declining birthrate because until very recently (and ongoing, to a marginally lesser degree) this is the case.
OTOH I'd guess that low natality in Japan has other factors, as other comments pointed, even for men: long, long hours of work, living in a cage called "apartment", probably no leeway in the work to handle domestic problems (yes, even living under the most conservative marriage arrangement possible, there will be domestic emergencies all the time, where a man needs to step in).
Also, once you're in, you'll have to pick the kid before 6pm in most daycares which means you must leave the office at 5pm and since a lot of companies do not have flex time, that single hour will push you to a part-time position. Then the daycare will refuse to take your child if they have a fever of 36.8℃ and do regular temperature checks during the day and force you to drop your work and come pick the child straight away if they go above 36.8℃.
Unless you work close to home and have a very flexible and comprehending employer (or have grand parents close by and ready to help), even with a lucky spot in daycare it is extremely complicated to continue working.
Let's not even talk about elementary school where mandatory partake in time-consuming useless PTA activities basically assumes one of the parent does not work.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/how-to-take... says:
> A normal temperature in babies and children is about 36.4C (97.5F)
The temperature elevation that is considered "abnormal" depends upon the age of the child and the site of measurement. The temperature elevation that may prompt clinical investigation for infection depends upon the age of the child and the clinical circumstances (eg, immune deficiency, sickle cell disease, ill-appearance, etc); in most scenarios, the height of the fever is less important than other signs of serious illness (eg, irritability, meningismus) [35-38].
●In the otherwise healthy neonate (0 to 28 to 30 days of age) and young infant (one to three months of age), fever of concern generally is defined by rectal temperature ≥38.0°C (100.4°F). (See "Febrile infant (younger than 90 days of age): Definition of fever", section on 'Definition of fever'.)
●In children 3 to 36 months, fever generally is defined by rectal temperatures ranging from ≥38.0 to 39.0°C (100.4 to 102.2°F) and fever of concern by rectal temperatures ≥39.0°C (102.2°F) if there is no focus of infection on examination. (See "Fever without a source in children 3 to 36 months of age", section on 'Fever of concern'.)
●In older children and adults, fever may be defined by oral temperatures ranging from ≥37.8 to 39.4°C (100.0 to 103.0°F) and fever of concern by oral temperatures ≥39.5°C (103.1°F).
Oral thermometers average one half of a degree Celsius lower than rectal.
The above is pretty much straight out of UTD, as I am far too lazy to retype it for anyone’s benefit.
But the real issue is the women were artificially denied an opportunity to decide by themselves.
Total paid on childcare is higher in a family without a stay at home patent, though the two earner family generally will have more net disposable income (After child-care)
If you begin to optimize social and political decisions on the basis of having more tax payers, you'll get weird results. For a second example, cutting reproductive education funding in schools will lead to more tax payers (though arguably tax payers who pay less, so then the question becomes are you optimizing for tax payers or for future taxable income in total).
Do you have a citation for this? One with "cutting funding" in it and not the generic comparison between Somalia and Germany.
Your primary fallacy here is that you think you can always "mince the meat back". You usually can't. It doesn't work that way.
Actually, it is a correlation between educated women having educated partners that know how to use contraceptive methods. Educate all men and women's education will be less relevant. Or stop any education of men, contraceptive methods will decline and fertility grow.
> Is this, in the long run, also good for the taxpayers?
It all depends. Is it good for "taxpayers" that humanity does not go extinct? Is taxes the only moral compass for our society?
Each time someone mentions a social advance for our society there is a big reaction against it because "costs money". Yes, it costs money, and it is money well spend in the citizens well being.
Is the legal system, schools, the police force, firefighters, etc good for taxpayers? Yes.
Does it costs money? Yes.
And that is why there is taxes. To pay for our needs.
Quality is more important than quantity. More educated people will produce better product and improve everyone's lives. Not saying that denying 50% of population a chance to live their lives as they want is plainly wrong and immoral.
Not everyone wants to have kids and family. Some will work, some will stay at home. Same goes for men btw.
Child care is subsidised heavily by other taxpayers, but only government childcare - get a grandparent round and there's no tax break. The tax system works hard to discriminate against single parent families too (two people with two kids on total £80k pay a marginal tax of 32%. One person on £55k pays marginal 60%)
The observation is that they will cling to worse opportunities, delay having children or avoid having them entirely.
See e.g. France vs. Italy.