WEBVTT

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[Japanese chanting]

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[Narrator:] Bustling Japan, one of the most crowded places on Earth,

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is unique in Asia.

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Japan is industrial, urban, literate, prosperous.

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Japan is a modern nation.

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[Chanting]

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[The Population Problem]

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[Japan
Answer in the Orient]
Answer in the Orient

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will examine how the people of this nation,

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without enough land to supply all of its need, without enough food,

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although its farmers are among the most successful on the globe,

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with too few natural resources for its burgeoning industries,

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with some of the world's largest and fastest-growing cities,

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how the people of this crowded island nation

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solved the menace of runaway population

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and so gave themselves the rewards of mid-20th century life.

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[Music]

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Japan is the first Asian nation to do so in this century,

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the only Asian nation to do so,

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and the only nation in history to do so in such a short period of time.

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For many reasons, it was imperative for the Japanese people to limit their population growth rate.

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Japan's 98 million people are packed into a narrow 1,500-mile string of islands,

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an area the size of California,

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less than five percent of the land mass of the United States

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for a population half as large as this country's.

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Because there is little land for cultivation,

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Japan has always turned to the sea for almost all of its protein.

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Japanese fishermen, following ancient ways,

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fish coastal and domestic waters for most
of their massive catch.

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For the rest, modern factory ships go thousands of miles,

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processing their haul as it is brought aboard.

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But the sea cannot supply this populous nation's total needs.

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To survive, Japan must exploit every natural advantage:

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its hills, its mountains, its plains, its valleys,

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its rivers.

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With only fifteen percent of the land fit for cultivation,

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even the rugged hillsides, soil most other nations would not farm,

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must be used.

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The lowlands are used for rice, the precious mainstay of the Japanese people.

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Intensive cultivation of very small wheat farms

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and heavy use of chemicals

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brings the Japanese farmer higher yields per acre than his American counterpart.

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However, scarcity of land keeps Japanese production far below population needs.

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20% of Japan's food still must be imported.

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Each year, 700,000 men, women, and children replaced by mechanization and lured by the promise of greater reward

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flow to the cities.

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Migration from the farm to the city

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is one of the marks of a heavily industrialized society.

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Tokyo, the largest and most chaotic sprawl in history,

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now has more than ten million people.

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And still they come, nearly 60,000 each month, choking cities

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in search of a place in the country's burgeoning industries.

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It is Japan's enormous industrial progress

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combined with population control

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that keeps her economic growth far ahead of population increases.

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Nowhere is Japan's economic power more apparent

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than in shipbuilding.

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[Music]

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Among Japan's vessels are giant tankers bigger than aircraft carriers,

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the largest vessels ever made by a man.

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[Music]

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Sophisticated industries involving precision manufacture by skilled and educated workers

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have created much of the industrial success.

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Japan has been able to compete as an industrial power

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largely because her labor force is almost 100%literate,

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one of the highest literacy rates in the world,

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with immense technical skills.

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However, for a major industrial giant,

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Japan has remarkably poor natural resources.

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60% of its industrial materials comes from foreign ports.

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To succeed, Japanese industry must export.

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With exports increasing to three times the world average,

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Japanese trade is leading the nation to new prosperity.

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Productivity has been rising sharply, as have earnings.

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While still low by US standards,

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per capita income has doubled in the last decade.

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It is by far the highest in Asia.

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National wealth is the greatest in Japanese history.

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[Japanese speaking]

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[Narrator:] Older people have accepted the fruits of the post-war years

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but have been slow to reconcile themselves to the accompanying social changes.

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The shattering effects of this urban society

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should not have been totally unexpected

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since the Japanese have been building in this direction for nearly a century.

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And the story of Japan's population control miracle

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has even earlier beginnings.

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Under a rigidly fixed social order,

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there were eighteen million people in this island nation when the Tokugawa shogunate was established in 1603.

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Peasants were important.

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The agricultural economy rested on them.

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Priests and the very powerful samurai

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were atop the feudal social order.

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Merchants, traders, and bankers were considered unproductive and useless citizens.

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By the 1630s, fear of European colonizers turned the nation inward.

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Under government encouragement, agriculture,

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the continuing basis of the economy, expanded.

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And the population increased

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from eighteen million at the start of the 17th century to about 30 million in the middle of the 18th,

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an increase of 75% in 150 years.

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This isolated, limited, land-hungry agricultural nation had reached its population limit.

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It could support only about 30 million people.

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The birth rate was high,

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but the traditional levelers,

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poverty, malnutrition, famine, disease,

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kept the death rate high.

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And people found other ways to balance population.

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Often, younger sons were discouraged from marrying.

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Some used folk methods of contraception.

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Infanticide was common.

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Upper classes used abortion.

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The traditional use of abortion as a legitimate and moral method of family control

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has assisted in Japan's control of modern population growth.

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During the 18th and 19th centuries,

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the merchants gained greater control over the economy,

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especially in the cities.

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Dutch traders brought news of the Industrial Revolution

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and of the great political and scientific changes in the West.

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In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry demanded and received a limited treaty.

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A more ambitious treaty calling for trade was signed in 1858.

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Japan's doors opened.

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In the last century of Tokugawa rule,

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the population had stabilized itself at 30 million people.

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[Music]

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[Explosion]

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Western strength pointed up the weakness of the Tokugawa regime.

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[Music]

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[Horses neighing]

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The shogunate slowly crumbled.

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In 1868, the enthronement of the young emperor Meiji

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began a 44-year reign that would carry Japan to world power.

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His advisors were impressed by Western military strength.

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His empress gave attention to the farmers.

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The government leaned heavily on the peasant for tax revenue.

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She supported the new policy of compulsory education.

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Japan would soon need a literate workforce.

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The Western world became Japan's school.

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[Music]

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Japan was becoming a modern industrial state.

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The government supported industrial expansion,

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developed new systems of transportation and communications,

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encouraged ever-increasing trade.

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As a result, better farming increased food supplies.

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Modern medicine cut the death rate.

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Standards of living improved.

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What had been a stabilized population

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by 1898 zoomed up ten million, a 33% increase in 30 years.

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Japan lacked almost every necessary resource to meet the needs of the growing population.

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The militarists said they had the answer:

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[Gunfire]

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expansion.

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Formosa and the Pescadores.

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[Military drumming]

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All of Korea.

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A foothold in North China.

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[Military drumming]

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For the first time, but not the last,

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population pressure was an excuse for military conflicts.

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[Music]

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In spite of her fast-moving armies, Japan's population pressures kept increasing.

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By 1920, her population was 60 million,

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a 100% increase in 50 years.

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The militarists wanted still more territory.

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[Music]

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The seizure of Manchuria in 1931 led to a Japanese gamble for the whole Asian Pacific area.

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The American fleet at Pearl Harbor was the only obstacle.

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[Planes flying, explosions]

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The first six months beginning in 1941 were fantastically successful.

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Japanese armies overran the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaya,

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Singapore, Burma, the Dutch East Indies,

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strategic islands from Guadalcanal

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in the South Pacific to the Aleutians in the North.

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For a moment, the Japanese Empire was one of the largest in history.

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But the tide turned in 1942.

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Allied forces began pushing back,

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finally bringing the war to Japan itself.

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Thrown back on its own ruined islands,

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threatened with famine,

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the nation was crushed and demoralized.

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[Music]

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For the first time in history, Japan was occupied by a foreign army.

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The people expected a vengeance that never came.

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In those desperate years, the conquerors supplied the margin of survival.

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To aggravate the problem,

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more than six million troops and civilians returned.

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[Music]

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A massive baby boom followed.

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The emperor renounced any claim to personal divinity.

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The old order was gone.

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Remaining was a demoralized and conquered nation,

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the skeleton of what had been a mighty industrial giant,

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and a frightening population problem.

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In the post-war baby boom, the birth rate soared

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while peace and medicine cut the death rate to new lows.

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Yearly population growth tripled from half a million in 1946 to a million and a half in 1947.

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But in 1948 and 1949, the birth rate dropped slightly,

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then sharply in the '50s.

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And by 1957, the birth rate was half that of ten years before.

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In a single decade, the Japanese people completed their demographic transition,

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the changeover from the high birth and death rates of the past

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to the low birth and death rates which characterize today's modern nations.

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How had they done it?

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The heart of the answer lies in the deeply personal decision of parents

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to limit the size of their families.

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There were other catalysts.

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Under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur,

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sweeping programs of social, political, and economic reform were instituted in the first post-war years.

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Drastic land redistribution programs led to remarkable increases in food production.

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[Music]

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The people became sovereign over their government.

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[Music]

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Women had the right to vote, legal equality,

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and equal opportunities in education.

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As a result, women today enjoy a new independence

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and are able to pursue education and careers before marrying.

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[Music]

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The average age at marriage for women is almost 25,

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nearly ten years higher than in India.

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Later marriages cut years from a woman's childbearing life.

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Because of the extensive educational demands made upon Japanese men,

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the average age for men at marriage is 27.

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[Music]

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Newly married couples are not anxious to give up participation in Japan's good life.

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The participation built around two salaries in a marriage is beginning.

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Breaking from tradition,

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newlyweds strive to have the privacy of their own apartment,

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belongings of their choice.

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[Music]

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Couples with a new sense of independence delay having children,

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often until the husband is in a sound enough financial position to guarantee continuing involvement in the good life,

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cutting additional years from a woman's childbearing potential.

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[Music]

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Japanese parents, themselves well-educated,

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know the importance of an education in an industrialized society.

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They also realize that in such a society,

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children are an economic burden for many years.

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[Music]

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With the growth of a more humanistic approach to life,

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children have attained a great deal of value as individuals.

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[Children playing]

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Even little girls.

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Once past elementary school age,

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children begin involvement in one of the world's most competitive educational systems.

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[Music]

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Although the great majority of Japanese children complete high school,

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acceptance to further education is not guaranteed

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because of the great numbers who want to continue

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and the very high standard set for entrance into higher education.

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But Japanese youngsters know the value of higher education in an industrialized society,

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and many of them, like this boy,

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attend special cram schools in an effort to meet academic requirements

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and to pass entrance examinations.

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That education is essential to the well-being of an industrialized nation is apparent to Japanese parents.

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As a result, the necessity of adequate education for children and its costs

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are an important factor in controlling family size.

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[Japanese speaking]

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[Narrator:] Post-war industrial development has been phenomenal,

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pushing the economy upward at the highest rates of any advanced nation.

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And since the war, industrialists have been taking a deep interest in fertility control.

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As a part of industry-sponsored programs,

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health and welfare specialists go to workers' homes.

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[Music]

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Practical nurses bring advice on child care and family health.

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[Music]

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Some industry-sponsored programs even show wives how to shop more economically.

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[Music]

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Gradually, these programs break down shyness,

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until at neighborhood meetings, birth control instruction begins.

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Here, wives are urged to substitute contraception for abortion.

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As a result, the national abortion rate is on the decline.

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Though, with almost a million abortions each year,

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it is still one of Japan's most common ways to prevent birth.

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[Music]

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When their contraception practices fail,

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Japanese women can discuss abortion with a qualified doctor.

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Since abortion is traditional, people have no moral or religious qualms about its use.

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[Music]

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The government discusses it openly in magazines, newspapers, and films.

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As this government film shows,

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there were often distressing results in the rapidly rising number of illegal abortions in the desperate post-war years.

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[Music]

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[Siren]

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Japan therefore passed the Eugenics Protection Law,

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making the best modern medical techniques available to women

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who, for economic or medical reasons, want an abortion.

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[Japanese speaking]

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[Narrator:] Today, this young woman can find sympathetic attention

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from a doctor who promotes contraception as a substitute for abortion.

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The doctor explains the facts of abortion.

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She may even advise this woman to have her baby on emotional grounds.

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[Japanese speaking]

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[Narrator:] The doctor has helped the couple understand their problem.

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Their decision can be the most important of their young lives.

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A child will certainly change their way of life.

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A child will mean loss of the wife's income,

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loss of their apartment, loss of their new freedoms,

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and an eventual return to living with their parents.

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[Japanese speaking]

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[Music]

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[Narrator:] The choice is difficult.

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[Music]

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The literate Japanese people are aware of the new problems their highly mobile industrial and urban society is presenting.

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And they are as aware of the difficulties of rearing large families in such a society.

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[Children laughing]

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[Music]
[Children playing]

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Aided by interested industrialists, by a wise government, and by their own educated choices,

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they are deciding to keep families small.

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In China, India, indeed almost across the globe,

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population is expected to double by the end of this century.

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Not in Japan,

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where births are below long-term replacement needs.

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[Music]

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The Japanese answer has demonstrated that a people

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not inhibited by religious or moral restrictions,

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a people acting in its own interest and the interest of its children

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can bring about population control

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and can do so in a relatively short period of time.

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[Music]

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The results of Japan's answer are greater opportunities for the individual

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and a fuller life for everyone.

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[Music]

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[Produced by In-Sight Productions, Inc.
Charles Vaughan, President]

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[Writer: Edward Pfister]

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[Narrator: Ron Allen]

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[Produced under a grant from Cordelia S. May]

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[Hour version produced in association with United States Productions, Inc., Francis C. Thayer, President]

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[Filmed with the cooperation of International Motion Picture Co., Tokyo]

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[Music]
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[Announcer:] This is NET, the National Educational Television network.