The wages of female education

Japan is demographically imploding and it's a great mystery to everyone who thought that educating women was going to create new prosperity there, not destroy the entire economy:

The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan – a country mostly free of religious morals – sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way.

The answer is pretty obvious.  The following is taken from a paper published in 2000 by Sawako Shirahase, entitled Women’s Increased Higher Education and the Declining Fertility Rate. The paper is more than a bit silly, in that she attempts to prove that the decline in fertility is not related to the obvious educational factor, but the unwillingness of Japanese men to do housework. This struck me as crazy, in that the only way my Japanese host-father would have considered helping out around the house would have been sending his mistress over to lend a hand. But the factual part Shirahase is attempting to explain away is sufficiently enlightening, especially considering the way in which the 13 subsequent years have exacerbated the consequences.

"Enrollment of women in senior high school increased dramaticalland by the end of that decade it even exceeded the rate for men by one point; from 1975, the advancement rate surpassed 90 percent and gradually rose to 97 percent by 1997. By the late 1990s, then, almost all young women entered senior high school after completing their compulsory education (junior high school). At the university level, the rate of women’s enrollment almost doubled between 1970 and 1975 (from 6.5 % to 12.5 %) and continued to increase slowly; between 1993 and 1997 the rate increased by 7 points. 

"Between 1965 and 1975 the rate of enrollment in junior colleges, which constituted an important part of women’s higher education in Japan, tripled (from 6.7 % to 19.9 %), widening the difference between the rates of advancement to junior colleges and universities—in 1975, 19.9 percent versus 12.5 percent. Later, enrollment increased in the form of a gentle curve. By 1996, however, the rate of advancement to universities surpassed that to junior colleges; in 1997, enrollment in universities reached 26.0 percent, as opposed to 22.9 percent in junior colleges. In this way, women’s attainment of a higher education increased rapidly between the late 1960s and early 1970s, and since the 1990s there has been a remarkable increase in advancement to a university.

"Throughout this period Japan experienced a sharp decline in the total rate of fertility. After a sudden downswing in the early 1950s, the birthrate continuously declined until the mid-1980s, when it began to drop rapidly, and by 1997 it fell to 1.39. In light of these findings, it is plausible to suggest that there is a relationship between the increase in women’s access to a higher education and the decrease in the fertility rate."

Of course, this is no mystery to the theoreticians of Game. As women achieve a higher level of education, their hypergamy cause them to increasingly focus on a dwindling pool of men with whom they are also competing. Those who cannot score an Alpha or a Beta tend to elect to remain single and devote themselves to their careers rather than settle for a Delta or Gamma as their mothers and grandmothers did. In reaction to their disdain, the lesser men are not only less attractive to these educated women, they are also less attracted to them as they learn there is no possibility of satisfying relationships with them.

Why is the problem more distinct in Japan than in the USA, where even more women are highly educated? Because Japan is a more rigidly traditional society and its people are less willing to embrace an equality paradigm that has already failed in the West.

Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.