This is a small town in Japan called Nagoro. There are no children in this town since 2012. Only about 30 adults still lives there. An artist, Tsukimi Ayano decided to fill the place with dolls.
These pictures captures one of the worst problem that Japan is facing : a shrinking society. Since 2007, the birth rate in Japan has fallen significantly. There is an imbalance in the population. With less young people, who will work to support old people which occupy 30% of the population.
All of this happens because 20 years ago, many male workers were either fired or their salary diminish significantly which makes the women go to work. Women started working instead of staying home to support the family. No one thought it was a problem at the time since the population was huge at that time. The economy was back on the track after women entrance into workforce. But a lot of men started to think that they shouldn’t get married because of their low wage which can’t support a family.
Japanese men should learn to help women at home
Japanese society has changed a lot but the situation at most nuclear family in Japan is the same: Women do everything at home. Japanese men do fewer hours of household chores and child care than in any of the wealthiest countries. If you go to any home in Japan, you will notice the wife is always moving and doing little things while the husband is sitting at the table. She ‘s cooking or doing laundry or clearing the table. Intense working all day makes young Japanese girls think that I don’t want to be in that situation. They decide that they will not get married or have children. They can work for themselves, get all the money and enjoy the life without motherhood pressure. This results a rise to 25% unmarried women between the ages of 35 to 39.
The only way for Japan to get out of this crisis is to that men should be forced to share housework with women in the house. Married couple should be provided a variety of benefits by government. Otherwise, Social security system will fall apart because there are not enough young people working to support it. Even now, Japan is in need of huge number of workers, especially in nursing home. Borrowing workers from other countries is not a long term solution as the number of Japanese people is projected to decline under 100 million in 20 years. Japan is dying off slowly and if no change, surely.
