Yusuke Slayer retweetledi
A Japanese parent's tweet just blew up on X. It pretty much sums up why Japan's birthrate keeps falling.
The post:
"Daycare costs me ¥80,000 a month ($530). Add a second kid and it jumps to ¥120,000. A second child? Yeah, no thanks."
The replies were brutal:
"Work penalty + parenting penalty."
"The more you earn, the more it hurts."
How daycare actually works in Japan:
∙ Fees scale with household income — not flat
∙ High earners (¥9M/year+, around $60K) can pay ¥80,000/month per kid
∙ Ages 0–2 are the priciest. 3–5 have been free since 2019.
∙ The gap between cities can hit ¥1M ($6,500) per kid, per year
∙ Tokyo made the first child free in Sept 2025. Almost no one else has.
A couple making $60–80K/year already gets hammered by income tax, residence tax, and social insurance. Tack on $6,500/year per kid in daycare, and a lot of families just give up on a second one — or pull back at work.
Tokyo keeps calling the falling birthrate "a national crisis."
The system keeps making parenting feel like a punishment for the people who work hardest.
The top reply:
"Just make daycare fees the same nationwide. Please."
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