The ruling Japanese Liberal Democratic Party has proposed that relief on student loans be linked to having children. This is intended to help address the country’s low birthrate and demographic decline.
The party is reportedly preparing formal proposals on the matter.
In January, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan’s demographic problems demanded a focus ‘on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed.’
The proposal has sparked controversy and anger, for conflating separate issues and the implied disregard for individual’s choices.
One opposition lawmaker commented: ‘Scholarship debt reduction and whether an individual would have a baby or not are completely different issues, aren’t they?… This is a policy that requires a child in return for reducing scholarship debts, (it’s)… a bad, unprecedented measure to tackle the low birthrate.’
Masahiko Shibayama, an LDP MP, described the policy as one to assist families with children rather than to punish anyone. In a media interview he said: ‘We are discussing this as an expansion of support for child-rearing rather than a policy linked to childbirth.’