Yah its my understanding that the jobs are harder and harder to find and when you do get one it doesn't begin to pay enough to consider raising a family on.

Then add on top that Japanese culture demands a very extended and arduous courtship process if one actually wants to get married. I'm sure casual sex is common, but if one wants to start a family the long work hours simply do not support the extended courtship.

That and Japan is the land where women are let go from their jobs when they are married, because mothers are expected to be housewives. Add in the low wages and couples cannot afford to live on 1 person's wages. Again...no kids.

Also apparently there is a thing about people over 25 who are single being considered utterly unacceptable for dating.

Though I imagine with their less than 1 kid per 2 people birthrate, a lot of these old customs are being challenged. I think Japan's demographics are already so skewed that in the next 20 years 60% of their population is expected to die off of old age. Which is going to introduce new problems as the nation tries to figure out how to maintain an infrastructure made for far more people than than will be running around and paying taxes.

The USA's middle class birthrates are in freefall for the same economic reasons, but the Japanese kind of have a few extra layers of cultural stuff on top. Europe too, its just too expensive for many in the post-industrial age to afford kids