While I don't disagree with you that economics and the plight of the working woman in Japan is a major cause of the dismal birth rate, there's definitely more to it than just that. In particular, the "herbivore man" phenomenon is definitely A Thing in Japan, and the WP article claims that anywhere between 36% and 71% (!) of Japanese men under 30 now self-identify as herbivores:
Can you imagine a survey in any Western country where even 36% of young men would willingly fess up to voluntarily avoiding any romantic relationships?
(And FWIW, I'm married to a Japanese woman, and our contribution to the birth rate is already above the national average.)
"turn their backs on typical "masculine" and corporate roles"
So they're basically hippies, although for cultural reasons the girls don't think their hippies are cool, so they get less sex not more.
One interesting effect of huge rates of freeters and neets is some segment of the salarymen feel they're just one bad review or whatever from permanent downgrade into freeter / neet status, or at least the girls may think that about them. So the percentage of people behaving like freeters / neets probably is somewhat larger than the demographic percentage of freeter/neets.
Well, no girl my age would ever have anything to do with me because I'm poor and have no future, so, uh, yeah I'm not looking thats the story I'll tell so I feel a little better. Pout and quit is hardly unknown in the west "Oh so you guys are cheating and stacking the game against me, well F you I'm taking my (two) balls and going home". Although with the decline of casual neighborhood play this might be an unknown social situation for our young... In the past it was not unheard of, screw over the kid who brought the tennis ball and he takes it and goes home and no one plays...
Don't end up like a teen parent, don't have relationships and kids until you can afford it... well, what if the economic deck is stacked such that 25% will never, ever be able to afford it? Well, until the inevitable revolution, you'll get weird things like young people not having sex.
Finally the whole topic is super hetro-normative so I think we can all safely assume at least 5% or so are in the closet.
So 5% in closet, in 2000, in better times, 10% were NEETs per govt figures, in better times 30% were freeters (some of whom do get some...) maybe 10% of salarymen (or more precisely, the girls checking them out) accurately or inaccurately believe they're one unlucky event away from permanent downgrade into freeter/neet (is there significant upward mobility in Japan from freeter/neet? Not that I've read/heard?) So that's 55% right there although some of the freeters ARE probably getting some. Of course not everyone reacts to being screwed over by withdrawing; in the US they sometimes go out shooting, etc. Fixing the withdrawl problem without fixing the economic stressors is likely just to result in different negative social reactions WRT weapons etc.
> Can you imagine a survey in any Western country where even 36% of young men would willingly fess up to voluntarily avoiding any romantic relationships?
Well I'm from Australia and according to the sensationalist press some not insignificant proportion of men are actively avoiding marriage, and Sydney is supposedly seething with 30something year old women unable to find a mate (despite their willingness to go out hunting in packs on a Saturday night).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men
Can you imagine a survey in any Western country where even 36% of young men would willingly fess up to voluntarily avoiding any romantic relationships?
(And FWIW, I'm married to a Japanese woman, and our contribution to the birth rate is already above the national average.)