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Comment by iteria | Hacker News Reader

I will tell anyone that there are two truths about children 1) they cost exactly as much money as you have and 2) the heaviest cost is time.

I'm a high earner. I have no money issues, what I have are time issues. I'm a single parent with high flexibility and every single struggle I have with my child could be relieved by having a homemaker to distract my kid and take care of the impacts of my kid. I do more than double laundry and clean more often and burn hours at places I don't necessarily want to be but the kid does. My career has stalled out because I don't have the extra hours it takes to get promoted.

Now imagine this in Japan where they're not just working 40 hours a week, looking at add 5-10 more for advancement. That's the issue of children in my opinion. It's why very wealthy people hire nannies. It's the only way to free the most value resource you spend on children: time.

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This. I'm not a single parent and I'm a high earner but my wife has chronic medical issues. I spend a lot more of my time on home things now because I have a kid and it's demanding. When our kid is school, I can focus. When they're not, I struggle to perform. If I had enough spare money to have a full time nanny/housekeeper, my live would be much easier and my kid would probably be happier because our time with them would be higher value. I can absolutely see why people would opt out. It's hard.

I fully agree with your point about time being the heaviest cost - and if you are a person that equates time with money (not every person can transform their time into a lot of money), then yes, it's also expensive in raw dollars. However, for some people in occupations who don't pay a lot, kids aren't THAT expensive in raw dollars, at least in the US South.

That was my point. Which is that Japan being cheap doesn't mitigate anything. Time is the critical factor there. Until they have more free time, no one is having more kids.

that really doesn't explain why they keep having less kids, not more. Since the 80's their fertility rate dropped by some 30% but i doubt the 80's there were any less cutthroat or careerist than today.

Because women entered the workforce. That's it. A couple has collective time. Before one partner has a lot of time. Right now that is not true and every year more and more couples have two workers. Honestly women working accounts for declining birth rates everywhere. Japan just has it the worst because of their work culture and regular culture. A woman knows that the moment that she gets married, she'll be discriminated against and perhaps just forced out of the work place, so she doesn't. In Japan no one has kids out of wedlock. There you do. Continously declining birth rates from women marrying less and more couples with dual incomes.

so according to what i actually looked up, women's involvement in labor force in Japan stayed around 40% for the last 3 decades. So what are you talking about? "women entered the workforce"? "That's it" what, exactly?

[*] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS?locat...

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