About 7.3 trillion yen is allocated to the Children and Families Agency, while more than 10 trillion yen is directed to gender-related programs.
Yet despite this enormous annual spending, Japan’s declining birthrate has not been reversed, and the birthrate has continued to fall rather than rise.
This essay criticizes the distorted budget priorities that expanded under the LDP-Komeito governing framework and argues that redirecting such funds toward direct childbirth and child-rearing support for families settling in regional Japan could simultaneously address low birthrates, rural depopulation, and Tokyo overconcentration.
Not only would the declining birthrate problem be resolved in an instant, but consumption would also expand enormously, and Japan’s GDP, which has remained stagnant for thirty years, would begin to surge all at once.

The annual budget being poured into the Children and Families Agency is about 7.3 trillion yen.
The annual budget being poured into gender equality programs exceeds 10 trillion yen.
These two programs are the very embodiment of foolish policy and the height of stupidity resulting from the Liberal Democratic Party having formed a ruling coalition with Komeito.
After pouring an enormous 17.3 trillion yen of tax money into them every single year, has the birthrate risen by even 1 percent?
Far from rising, it has continued to decline.
These two matters are the result of the Liberal Democratic Party having formed a ruling coalition with such a foolish party as Komeito.
They are also the result of Japan having remained under the domination of the Asahi Shimbun, the very extreme of folly, until August 2014.
Needless to say, if this sum of 17.3 trillion yen were invested in the costs of childbirth and child-rearing, Japan’s declining birthrate problem and the depopulation of the regions could be solved overnight.
The present overconcentration of people in Tokyo could also be resolved.
Japan’s regional cities are all splendid.
There must be many citizens who wish to live in the region where they were born, or in the prefectural capital of that region.
First, that money should be directed to families who marry and settle in regional areas.
If they have their first child, 5 million yen should be provided as childbirth and child-rearing support.
For the second child as well, 5 million yen, and for the third and fourth child, also 5 million yen each.
A total of 20 million yen would thus be paid.
The number of women of childbearing age in Japan, under the general statistical definition of ages 15 to 49, is about 23.2 million.
Even if one were simply to provide all of them with 1 million yen each as childbirth support, it would cost only 23 trillion yen.
It is more obvious than fire that one can foresee how many people would choose childbirth.
In reality, however, the following figure would be the practical target standard.
The annual average number of marriages, based on the most recent five years, is about 500,000 couples.
In other words, even if 20 million yen under the above system were paid to 500,000 households, it would cost only 20 trillion yen.
The annual budget being poured into the Children and Families Agency is about 7.3 trillion yen.
The annual budget being poured into gender equality programs exceeds 10 trillion yen.
Abolish these two, and set aside 20 trillion yen as a childbirth and child-rearing fund for 500,000 households each year… if it were managed through the stock market and other such means, it would go on expanding more and more.
Not only would the declining birthrate problem be resolved in an instant, but consumption would also expand enormously, and Japan’s GDP, which has remained stagnant for thirty years, would begin to surge all at once.