The official announcement made in July, 2004, reported that the average number of times a woman give birth during her lifetime fell to a new record low of 1.29. As far as I remember, the term "1.53 shock" was all over the newspapers in the beginning of 1990's, and the intellectuals were literally very shocked that they could not even hide their disappointment:"now the declination of Japanese population is undoubted." It is to my surprise that almost nothing had done by taking advantage of "useful women's opinion" against such serious social problem of human reproduction in more than a decade since then. Certainly, it is a matter of congratulation that making choice of not to have any children has been becoming approvable in society. However, here I dear to focus on the circumstance that makes women who are "interested in having one or more children" feel "they cannot" in spite of their thoughts.
At the time of "1.53 shock", teaching at the junior college after passing the master course, in my heart, I was thrusting my fist in the air making a victory pose. In spite of my "abundant" age, late 20's then, intentionally, I was trying to lower the number of population in Japan.
After a while since an enforcement of Equal Employ Opportunity Law between Men and Women, there were echoing voices of middle-aged men claiming, through high buildings: "don't let women be selfish (in the sense, the term selfish referring to women doing things other than housekeeping and rearing children)." Housekeeping and childbearing were also used as a way to threat women at job interviews: "Would you be really able to continue working even after your marriage and bearing? Do you think you have such energy, competence, and vitality?" Although I did not choose to get employed in company, I had to catch such phrase by my ear.
Without the energy and vitality (I somehow believed that I have a competence in a particular area), I decided to abandon household chores after marriage and childbearing: "you are right. I will not be able to manage." Consequently, I was hoping that more women of my generation would think same and work together to give Japanese middle-aged-men leding society a scare by decreasing Japanese population. Therefore, "1.53 shock" was my case of dreams come true.
There also exist many women of my generation who chose to deal with their limits of energy and vitality and to balance both job and marriage life. Thankfully, they brought to light the specific social circumstances that make women "unable to give birth in spite of their will", such as shortage of day-care centers and difficulty in taking maternity leave. I am of the opinion that there are two major groups of women among the first generation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law who contributed, in spite of being blamed as responsible for the lowering birthrate, to the elevation of the importance of giving birth from the level of women's nature or happiness to that of social issue.
On the other hand, there are people who have been absent in above discussion, even a blind spot; that is husbands of the first generation of the equality law. You could sadly sympathize with middle-aged men who, with a hangover from the days of high economic growth, would say, "Women should take care of households and children at home." But what would our husbands say? I have long suspected many of them could be called "a new generation of traditional middle-aged men" on account of essentially reproducing their fathers with vaguely considerate expressions like "You could work outside, but will surely take care of the household and the kids."
Under such circumstances these days, two letters were posted to Asahi News Paper by different women both age 33: "Men's Housekeeping Skill Raises the Birthrate" (20th, July) and "Attractive Men Improve their Ability For Household Chores" (24th, July). Firstly, in the former letter, the nurse students shares what she has heard from her friends who is in their 30's and have children: "It seems that the heaviest burden on their shoulders is taking care of their husbands. The husbands try to get the wives to look after them. The wives cannot share household chores because men luck the skill." And she claims that "the key to solve the problem of declining number of birthrate is developing men's skill to do household chores more than raising men's awareness", and thus she proposes the educational system that will not allow students to be promoted or to proceed to the higher education without the ability for household chores. In response to this letter, a housekeeping wife post the latter letter, to explain one of the things she, as a mother, wishes her a year and 7 month old son to be like is to become a "person who can do the household chores." According to her letter, her husband can do "anything other than giving birth to children and to produce mother's milk", and she appeals, "Gentlemen, what you have to improve is an ability for household chores."
It is true. Men without housekeeping skill are doubly responsible for decreasing number of birthrate. Let alone rearing children, even when women have to take time giving birth to the baby and feeding them, men cannot take on the daily needed chores. What is more, because the husbands are categorized as something the wives have to take care of just like their own children, those husbands increase women's task, exhaust them, and make them thinking "with my husband and one more children, I will not be able to continue working outside."
These two points I made above are crucial in terms of cultural-anthropological approach. That is to say, men who lack the skill necessity for living, obtaining food and hygienics, and will not live healthy without the care from women can be included in the category, social-immature group, just like children (interestingly, there was an expression on female magazine "sweets to delight your boyfriend and children." It seems that categorizing men and children in a same group is obvious to some women.) Such social-immature group should not work and get paid for as under-15 year old children are not allowed to. In the case of they still begging to work, they can chose to become semi-social-mature by supplementing their deficiency in viability by the money they earn: have every meal outside, go to a Laundromat to do their laundry, and hire cleaning person. However, they should never think that hey are qualified to have a mate and leave offspring as well as social-mature group.
There is no need to be an expert of doing household chores or even love them (such expression, to love and to be good at household chores seems to be a special phrase that housekeeping wives in high economic growth era created.) The skill for household chores should be considers as "a natural skill as a grown-up", such as making arrowhead, cooking fried ostrich egg on the heated stone, and distinguish edible plants from inedible, in the gathering and hunting society.
Seemingly, there are not a few women who refuses getting married itself to avoid taking care of immature grown-up men, and women who are not capable, in terms of energy and vitality, for addition of taking-cares by bearing. It is nonsense to think about increasing the birthrate, unless there is an increase of the husbands who women can leave in care, and who can take part in household chores while women work outside or spent their time with children.
(ICU Division of International Studies : Kato, Etsuko)