1 of 1 Fumio Kishida during a memorial service for war victims — Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Pool via Portal Fumio Kishida during a memorial service for war victims — Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Pool via Portal
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has come under fire after his party proposed debt relief for students on condition they have children to try to stem the archipelago’s falling birthrate.
Kishida earlier this year promised “unprecedented measures” to tackle Japan’s declining birth rate, a chronic and increasingly acute problem.
Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, right) is working on several proposals on the issue, which local media said will be presented to the government at the end of the month. However, the proposal, which involves reducing student debt to fatherhood, sparked a wave of criticism.
“Demanding a child in exchange for student debt relief is a bad move to deal with the low birth rate,” Senator Noriko Ishigaki said on Friday during a debate in the upper house of Japan’s parliament in front of the prime minister.
Kishida gave little detail on the proposal’s content, insisting on the need to respect “a free and vigorous debate” on the issue.
Criticism also came from Twitter: “It’s like saying, ‘Pay with your body!'”, criticized one user, while another published that the PLD’s measures amounted to “treating people like cattle”.
Masahiko Shibayama, PLD deputy chairing the commission working on the issue, assured the TV Asahi network that the measure aims to provide financial support to families and not disadvantage childless households: “We present this as an extension of the support for early intervention as childhood education, not as birthrelated policies.”