Two and a Half Kids

06/02/2025

Listen "Two and a Half Kids"

Episode Synopsis



Bumble, 4:50 PM
Julia
Everyone here wants to get married and have 2.5 kids.
me
TELL ME ABOUT IT



In Japan, there’s a constant reminder from the government—by way of media amplifying it—that the population is in decline, that birth rates are dropping, and that the aging population will have no younger generation paying enough into social insurance to support them. Japan is a collectivist society, so it’s possible that people feel a responsibility to have children.
I’ve never seen so many people dying to get pregnant. It really is shocking to me that I see more babies here than I ever have before in my life.
But for this system to work, it means every generation has to be bigger than the last. For any of you watching how businesses around the world are chasing infinite growth, you know this is impossible. This is not a sustainable model by any stretch of the imagination.
I think by the very nature of time itself, the responsibility always rests on younger generations to solve the problems caused by older generations.
When will the focus shift to implementing alternative solutions for social security that don’t effectively require everyone to have at least two children? That seems like the actual issue to me.









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