There are some economic factors. I have been reading and researching about 
Japan's demographic crisis for about a decade and have done considerable field 
work there on the topic of IT professionals; most recently a few days ago. 

Costs, apartment space, salaried men not returning home until very late, are 
some of the reasons for remaining single, deferring marriage, or divorces. 
Anecdotally there is  little interest among professional women to marry 
Japanese men because probably of the work schedule. Also women once they get 
married lose their permanent job if they had one or they generally do not find 
one to begin with because having children does not mesh with the long hours 
demanded by employers. Lastly there is something to be said about social 
modernity, which has accompanied capitalism pretty much in all the oecd and 
among the upwardly mobile classes in the non oecd, which gives men and women 
options that are not circumscribed by conventional, conservative social norms. 
That is fertility rates in the oecd and among the upwardly mobile classes in 
the developing world are on the decline, in fact many below or close to 
replacement rate.

Cheers, Anthony 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anthony P. D'Costa, Chair & Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies
Australia India Institute and School of Social & Political Sciences
University of Melbourne
147-149 Barry Street, Carlton VIC 3053, AUSTRALIA
Ph: +61 3 9035 6161
Visit the Australia India Institute Website http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/ 

Recent Conference (The Land Question)
http://idsk.edu.in/program.php
New Book Series (Dynamics of Asian Development)
http://www.springer.com/series/13342

Recent books:
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198082286.do#.UI5Wzmc2dI0
http://www.oup.com/localecatalogue/cls_academic/?i=9780199646210
http://www.anthempress.com/pdf/9780857285041.pdf
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=295354
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 16, 2015, at 04:26, raghu <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 11:04 AM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
>> What's a good Marxist take on Valentine's Day?
>> .========
>> What's a good chemical explanation of skipping rope?
>> 
>> MARSISM IS NOT A TOE.
> 
> 
> 
> I wasn't being flippant. In case you didn't know, Japan appears to be in the 
> middle of a sexual/demographic crisis:
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex
> 
> Doesn't some of this have to do with economic factors, alienation and/or the 
> commodification of human relationships etc? I don't know, but it was a 
> serious question.
> -raghu.
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