Low fertility rates affect many developed countries, which struggle to find appropriate measures to counter this phenomenon. Japan has particularly drawn a lot of attention to this issue as one of the countries with the lowest fertility rates globally. Since the “1.57 shock” in 1990, during which the public opinion started noticing the demographic problem, various scholars have discussed the reasons for the “shôshika” (low birth rate) phenomenon in Japan, leading to a vast literature on the subject. While some people identified the “work-life balance” difficulties as the leading cause for the low birthrate, others have seen the economy’s deterioration as an important issue. However, those assessments only refer to problems related to married couples, which the author of this paper proposes to call the “post-marriage theory.” Even though one should not ignore the struggles for married couples to have children, they may not be the main aspects that explain the shôshika phenomenon. This paper is an attempt to refocus the shôshika issue on the pre-marital difficulties of building a family. Based on a review of the academic literature since the 1990s, this paper argues that the leading causes of the Japanese demographic crisis are the difficulties single people face to meet a marriage partner. Although whether the coronavirus pandemic will worsen a situation that is already critical for Japan is yet to be seen, it is crucial to understand the causes of low fertility in the archipelago.
Sonny Bardot (Thu,) studied this question.