ABSTRACT The shortage of public childcare in Japan – called the “waitlisted children problem” (taiki jidō mondai) – has assumed increasing visibility and salience over the last several decades. This essay analyzes how this “waitlisted children problem” has been conceived, narrated, and addressed within the specific political, economic, and historical context that is contemporary Japanese society. Going beyond discussions of gender inequality in the workplace and home, the paper interrogates the cultural logics underpinning the recent urgency of debates over public childcare provision in Japan. The key to understanding these developments is recognizing how Japanese women's reproductive desires have become objectified within official and popular discussions as obstructed and requiring emancipation. Correspondingly, promoting gender equality by expanding childcare provision has become a tool of bio-political intervention, a means to remove a statistically calculated inhibition of women's reproductive desire. This links childcare with Japan's national survival, and thus helps to explain how both official and popular debates have converged in seeing the issue as significant and pressing.

中文翻译：

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日本萎缩时代的育儿文化政治

摘要 日本公共托儿服务短缺——被称为“候补儿童问题”（taiki jidō mondai）——在过去几十年中日益突出。本文分析了这个“候补儿童问题”是如何在当代日本社会的特定政治、经济和历史背景下被构思、叙述和解决的。除了讨论工作场所和家庭中的性别不平等之外，本文还探讨了支撑日本最近关于公共儿童保育提供的紧迫性辩论的文化逻辑。理解这些发展的关键是认识到日本女性的生育欲望如何在官方和大众讨论中被客观化为受阻和需要解放。相应地，通过扩大托儿服务来促进性别平等已成为一种生物政治干预的工具，一种消除统计上计算出的对妇女生育欲望的抑制的手段。这将儿童保育与日本的国家生存联系起来，从而有助于解释官方和大众的辩论如何将这个问题视为重要和紧迫的问题。