Choosing between a life in Japan and Germany

[allThatMoney]

Hello,

I would like to hear opinions from other people who at some point had to make a decision to settle and raise their children in Japan vs their home country.

I had good 7 years in Japan, got my PR, married a Japanese and had a baby. I was happy and was planning to stay there for good. That's when my wife brought up the idea to move to my home country Germany for a few years while our daughter is still young. My wife wanted to experience to live outside Japan, our daughter could build a little foundation in German, I also didn't mind going back for a while and when I saw that I could sell my crypto tax free in Germany it also made financial sense.

Fast forward, we are in Germany for 6 months now. The international move took a good amount of effort and money but we are here and our life is fine. Both my wife and I miss Japan and with us wanting to buy a house in the next few years, the topic of where we will settle is coming up again and again.

Both of us prefer Japan for many reasons (food, public transport, convenience, safety, manners etc.) but there are several subjects that make us reconsider.

Education

My wife's issue with Japan is the cost and strictness of Japanese education. We probably cannot afford international or private school, so our kid(s?) would probably have to go the public route. I can't really compare the countries but my wife said her schools were strict like military schools and she doesn't want that for our kids. I heard about kids having to do a lot of cramming after school or being pressured to spend a lot of time at club activities. I wouldn't want my kids having to spend more hours studying than I spend working. I don't think Germany's education is particularly good but it's cheap and I don't remember having much stress with cramming and I still turned out fine, I think.

Housing

I want what everybody wants. A reasonably spacious, well insulated, at least 5LDK with small garden and not being wall-to-wall with the next house.

A lot of houses in Germany check all those boxes but they cost 1 oku yen where we live, it's just too expensive. But let's say I could spend that much, how does it compare to Japan? My wife's family is in Tokyo so that's where we'd go again. Land prices inside 23 ku in Tokyo can easily be upwards of 7000 man yen but further out the land prices are much more reasonable. With 7000 already spent on land, the remaining 3000 wouldn't buy enough house to check all the boxes. Going out some 30-60 minutes by train, land prices drop to half, so now that's 3500 for land and 6500 for the house. I think that could buy something nice (if we forget for a moment that I don't have 1 oku).

The thing is, German houses are built to last and are good at keeping the value or even appreciating. In Japan, I would expect the land to keep the value and the house to become worthless so spending only little on the land and much on the house seems not so smart. How bad is the depreciation of high quality houses really? I mean shouldn't those houses have a much longer life time than those 30 years that you often hear?

While Japanese housing is more affordable (if you can compromise on quality or location), the depreciation of the house combined with the high cost of education, might actually be overall more expensive compared to the costly house in Germany that keeps the value and where education is cheap.

Disasters and climate change

Spending the next 30 years or so has a non-negligible chance of encountering the big quake or a Fuji eruption. Even if you make it out unharmed, your house might take significant damage. I'm not too concerned but it's still it's something to keep in mind between choosing a country with many earth quakes and one with none.

Another worry I have is the climate. Japanese summers can be unbearable outside already. I'm not hopeful at all about humanity stopping the climate change. If I had to take a bet, then I would say we will miss the 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius goals. I'm no expert here but I've seen on TV that Japanese summers could get even more hostile with days over 40 degrees and stronger typhoons. Imagine your life actually depending on your air conditioner working. Also think how many blackouts there are in Japan, especially after typhoons/quakes. This won't be a problem tomorrow or next year but over the course of 30 years we might see some big changes already.

There are many other subjects as well like ageing population, economics, relation to "neighbouring" countries (China, N Korea, Russia) etc, but I wouldn't want to take a bet on how things develop here vs there. I didn't think we'd see a war in Europe in my lifetime...

I would love to hear your reassurances that in Japan education is not necessarily that expensive, and kids who aren't cramming at Juku still stand a chance to have a good life, and that you found a great house for you and your family that ticks all of your boxes. I would like to move back to Japan as it's just the nicer place to live for me personally but man, having children just changes all your priorities upside down. It's always easier to stay where you are and moving back to Japan would take a big effort again. I want it to be worth it and for it to be the right decision.

[captainspoke]

Our kids went thru public schools--from daycare at about two months old, thru university. They went to public/national uni, but neither one ever set foot in a cram school--not in elementary, middle, nor high school. (Primary was a private of sorts, but followed the gov't curriculum guidelines, so it wasn't much, IIRC about ¥25k/month per kid. Also, first kid didn't make it in to their initial uni choice, so studied for a year and tried the uni exams again)

Our power has virtually never gone off. I'd have to think hard and talk to my wife to begin to recall when that happened. I guess there was mild panic after 3/11, but apart from my school leaving a/c and lights off, no outages or rationing.

Public uni here is a great deal, in terms of cost. Not as good as free (germany? and some others), and the student does have to test in, but a very good all round deal.

You seem to be thinking about more potential negatives for japan (the list is longer).

One thing you only briefly mention is your wife's family (tokyo area). If caring for or being close to aging parents is a concern, all possibilities should be there on your decision tree. A single health event could rearrange/rebalance a lot of other factors.

[Ax6isB]

A quite difficult question. Can you do both?

Schools: I don’t have kids. I have only know one foreign parent with kids in public schools here in Tokyo. Most leave when kids get into middle/high school. I’m a terrible sample size to build any case from regarding schools. However, as a hiring manager, I can share that new grads are not equipped for work and in my experience, require 6-12 months training. I think that’s the model here but multi-national companies embrace this aspect in varying degrees. For example, I hire a lot of new hires from overseas.

You summed up housing very well and it’s great your wife is getting an experience of a quality home in Germany. I’ve been here 10 years and still struggle with the concept that the house is pretty much throw away cost. We’ve settled on condo-life and given up the yard/garden until we move abroad. Not saying it can’t be done, we’ve just not sorted this out in the Tokyo area.

Regarding disasters, Japan’s pretty good compared to where I come from (USA). Typhoons and earthquakes just happen here. In the US, will they ever learn? They get hurricane’s every flipping year and yet each one is an unmitigated disaster. So I’m super impressed with Japan. I don’t think Japan is to good when a disaster actually happens but that’s a different issue. I tend to think with climate change will have technologies to help mitigate issues that we’ll encounter. Maybe I’m sticking my head in the sand but thanks to whoever it was on the forum that recommended Lomborg to add some perspective.

It’s a thorny complicated issue you’re sorting out and I’m not sure how it also plays into your longer term plan of retirement. Population here is decreasing and at quite a clip. This is something that concerns me. How am I going to get the services I need in 5-10 years from now? Who’s going to educate the kids? Who’s going to reform the current education process? I don’t see a plan being formulated by the government and this concerns me a lot. As a foreigner, acclimating to Japan is not something that happens overnight and I like that we (foreigners) acclimate to preserve the wonderful aspects of the culture. If we can’t clone kids soon, how does this get remedied? Just a random thought that rattles around in my brain.

Just keep in mind, I’m a mighty small sample size and I’m sure more folks will join in with sagely opinions.

Ax6isB

[RetireJapan]

It's a great and important question, and one so nuanced that it can only be answered by each individual, only to see future events make a mockery of our choices

For me and my wife (my stepkids are all independent now and two of them live abroad in Canada and Sweden) we like Japan and are comfortable here. Her parents live nearby, and there is no question of us leaving while they are still alive (in their 80s, but I am convinced my MIL will outlive me).

Having said that I am slightly paranoid and we have 5+ years' of living expenses invested abroad as an emergency emergency fund. At one point shortly after 3-11 I was making plans to leave the country suddenly, so can't rule that out completely in the future either.

I would also say that I have been extremely impressed with Japan when dealing with natural disasters. Society is well-organised and people react/behave sensibly. I can't think of another country I would have preferred to be in for Covid, nor 3-11. I think Japan will adapt well to climate change (seeing the floods and heatwaves in Europe, I am not convinced it would be safer there).

The falling population/economic decline is a concern, but my wife and I are transitioning out of employment so my hope is that our (mostly international) investments will support our spending power in retirement.

I think the public educational system here is what you make of it. It is fairly good in elementary, can be more rigid in JHS but many students enjoy those years, and high school gives much more choice.

In my experience the best students don't bother with juku, maybe hit a yobiko for a year or two in high school if they are aiming for a top university.

At the end of the day I like it here and imagine I will stay unless something extraordinary happens to make it unlivable. If we had to leave I would consider moving to South-East Asia, Europe, or Central/South America

[Roger Van Zant]

I don't have kids, and never would in Japan. I would never put my kids though a system where education takes second place to simply churning out unquestioning little worker-robots.
Having also lived in Germany and Austria before, the quality of general life compared to Japan is far higher there in my opinion.
Better housing (with insulation and space!), better climate (no earthquakes or typhoons), better doctors (trained to a much higher degree), better education (it's well known in international academic circles that even a PhD from a Japanese university is a joke).
Thinking of your kids' future, I truly believe Germany would be better for them in the long run than Japan.
You and your wife could always come back to Japan for retirement, once the kids are grown up and flown the nest.

[runmanTX]

A very tough question, indeed. Everyone has an opinion about the "best" place to live. Where do you really want to be? That is the million dollar question. There are many great points about Japan (safety, economic opportunities, food, different cultural experiences to be had) but also bad points (high cost of living, studying to pass a test-type of educational system).
Raising (or almost there) 2 kids in Japan has been quite an experience for me. Both went to public schools up through high school. One will go to UK for uni this year and the second probably the same next year. They both went to juku for 2 years to enter decent level high schools. I am very happy they went to IB programs in their high schools as this has allowed a wider choice of universities to attend.
I could retire in Japan very easily (been here 20 years now) but the wife wants to retire in England even though I'm American.
I am still thinking about "where to be". I would say to think about it very deeply before making a decision as it's an expensive one to make.
Best of luck!!

[beanhead]

I wouldn't worry too much about education in Japan. Public education is good here. Levels for maths and sciences are high.
English, obviously, not so much but there are ways to push them on English and encourage a global outlook.
Our kids have done fine in the public school system. No bullying. No depression.

The club activities can be a bit full-on, but they seem to enjoy that, to be honest. I can think of worse things for teenagers than being in an organized group or sports team trying to get into a tournament or improve themselves.
A lot of kids I knew used to hang around at night in parks smoking and drinking from the age of 14 or 15. The bukatsu here means there is not much time for that!

[Bubblegun]

Well that's a hard question.
I think the best person to fall back on is the wife and her experience. She will be the best person to decide, probably because if she stays in Japan, she will be the one dealing with all the school stuff. Not just homework, but PTA, bureaucracy, city all, local offices etc etc, and she may be happier in Germany. My friends moved to Germany for a few years and loved it, then came back to Japan and had culture shock, especially with the school ranking system, comparing kids grades, and ranking them from 1 to 300

One of my kids is OK with school, but my other kid absolutely hates it. Bored to death.
Depending on where you live the rules on clubs are changing.
There is also another element here, and that is the relationship between your wife, and yourself.I'm not sure how good your Japanese is,reading writing and talking, but that can put a lot of pressure on the Japanese partner to pick up that. Also as the kids grow up, they have relationships with friends.

So I think it might be easier to think of, where is the best place for your relationship and which is going to be easier to live in years down the line.

I have no idea why my wife is still with me after 19 years but I can say it has been one hell of a roller coaster and she had had to deal with a ton of........
from me, school, city hall,hospitals, etc etc. things we take for granted in our own native tongues but can be doubled when a partner can deal with situations here.
I think it will be easier for your wife to pick up German than it will be for you to learn to read and write Kanji. That it an important element. ( just my opinion) I know people here for years and they can barely go to the doctors, fill in a forms, and communication problems. etc etc.

Maybe better to see how thing are in the future, and enjoy Germany.
I don't wanna be a spoil sport but we also might want to think about what if things turn bad in the marriage later, what are divorce laws like, and child access. Japan has a reputation. Thing are great now, but something to think about.

[allThatMoney]

> captainspoke
Thanks, that's good to hear you found the education costs reasonable. I might have exaggerated about blackouts and I hadn't experienced them much in Japan, but with all the power lines above ground and lots of typhoons it was quite common to hear about blackouts in the news. I'm thinking about the negatives of Japan so much because other than those few issues, I prefer Japan. You have a good point about family. That's a difficult issue in all international marriages I imagine where the parents live in different countries...

> Ax6isB
That's very true about Japan dealing very well with disasters. I was always impressed with warning systems, excellent TV coverage and good education about what to do/regular drills. The decreasing/ageing population is a concern indeed but it will be like that in many countries. I always thought Japan should do more to encourage more kids. Here in the south of Germany I get 60k yen childcare allowance (half of it is only until age 3). That dwarfs the 15k I got in Japan.

> RetireJapan
Wow you are well prepared with your double emergency fund. It makes sense, life can change in an instant if another 3/11 kind of event were to happen. You are right, I was highly critical of Japan's gov dealing with covid but then I came to Germany and must admit the situation was much better in Japan. I still wouldn't attribute that to the government though but more to the people (wearing masks being common sense, less vaccination conspiracies etc). Economic decline is a concern but regardless of country I wouldn't want to rely on a public pension. I imagine by the time I retire the unsustainable pension system in Germany will have collapsed already. But that's why we are in this forum right
Maybe I'm overthinking the school stuff, at this point I don't even know if my kid will be smart enough to go all the way to university. I mean you can plan all you want but reality might turn out differently.

> Roger Van Zant
Thanks for your opinion, you seem to share my feelings. My wife actually suggested the same. Live in Germany until kids are grown up, then move to Japan. It's an option for sure, although working in IT I imagine it will only ever get harder changing jobs as you get older.

> runmanTX
Before having kids Japan was the clear winner for me in the sum of all the good and bad points. It's an excellent country to live when you are single and a rented 1K is big enough. It's only now that some of those bad points might start to outweigh the good... Congrats on getting your kids all the way through school and to University, you must be proud! You don't sound bitter at all about the education, so I guess your experience was not so bad. I see that even further down the road the question of "where to be" remains relevant.

> beanhead
Thanks for your reassurance that education is not as bad as people make it out to be. I mean I guess every person's experience can be different, but it's important to hear that from people who successfully put their kids through school. I see, the club activities are not necessarily a bad thing or maybe even good.

> Bubblegun
You are right and I will listen to my wife about it. It's kind of reversed now in that in Germany I have to take care of everything regarding bureaucracy, taking the kid to the doctor etc, until she can hopefully learn enough German. I'm ok to deal with most every day things in Japan but of course I'd shift a lot more to her as it's still much harder for me. I can read Kanji but I cannot write and I felt like a preschooler every time I went to the doctor and filled out the form in all Hiragana I'm always impressed when I read this forum about other people buying houses in Japan, asking the right questions to the bank about loan details, etc. Those things are even hard to navigate in your native language and I think I'd have to rely a lot on my wife for that (or take it as a reason to study more now).
As for divorce etc, honestly I just expect the worst, like child access being entirely up to my wife, if it ever came to it. I think that's just the reality of having kids with a Japanese.

[TJKansai]

H

Education


Housing



Disasters and climate change

My kids were born here and had public schooling up to uni. Elementary was fine, junior high strict but they made great friendships via sports, high school also strict and too test focused, but both got to escape a bit and spent a year studying abroad.

Housing can be cheap if you are in the suburbs or get an older home. Homes built in 2000 will probably last till 2050. A 1970 home might not last 50 years though. You can also find larger places if you look hard.

I experienced the Hanshin earthquake and it was shocking to see the destruction up close. Disasters happen all over the world though. Given where I live now, it is unlikely climate change will cause much change in my lifetime. I do what I can to be eco/low energy usage, but that is for future generations.