Japan is faced with an unprecedented population challenge that will have social, economic, and political consequences for years to come.
Last August, I wrote an article for The Diplomat that discussed some of the issues Japan is facing in relation to population decline. As I noted, the population has dropped for three years in a row. Recently, the Japanese government announced that the population decrease for 2012 is expected to be 212,000—a new record—while the number of births is expected to have fallen by 18,000 to 1,033,000—also a record low. Projections by the Japanese government indicate that if the current trend continues, the population of Japan will decline from its current 127.5 million to 116.6 million in 2030, and 97 million in 2050. This is truly astonishing and puts Japan at the forefront of uncharted demographic territory; but it is territory that many other industrial countries also are beginning to enter as well.
Predicting the consequences of Japan's demographic shift is difficult. And it is important to remember that these are projections; it seems to me unlikely that this trend will continue for the next century without some sort of intervening political, cultural, or economic factors that generate increased immigration or more robust fertility rates. Indeed, there have been modest—very modest—increases in the number of foreign residents in Japan over the past twenty years, with a little over twice the number today (2,134,151) as compared to 1990 (1,075,317). Many towns have developed international centers where opportunities are developed and supported, creating contexts for interactions between local residents and foreigners such as a monthly English dinner hosted in the town where I have done fieldwork for several years.
Government officials have often explained to me that one of the goals of these initiatives is to create contexts in which Japanese people can interact, and thus become more comfortable with, foreigners. The widespread presence of foreign English teachers supported through the JET program and other English language programs has also meant that, unlike forty for fifty years ago, most younger Japanese have grown up regularly interacting with individuals from other countries. At the same time, there has been some immigration of women from other Asian countries, such as the Philippines, into rural parts of Japan for the purpose of marrying men who otherwise would have had difficulties finding a wife among the native population. These developments may allow for increased openness to immigration in the future, although for the most part, the Japanese government has remained lukewarm, at best, when it comes to allowing any significant increase in the number of permanent residents or immigrants. Naturalized Japanese citizenship remains difficult to obtain.
While predicting the future of these demographic trends is difficult, the causes are at least somewhat decipherable. The proximate cause of population decline in Japan are fairly clear: a low fertility combined with increased life expectancy has led to a population structure that is increasingly weighted towards older members of society. Currently there are significantly fewer people under 30 than there are between the ages of 30 and 60. As the population of middle-aged individuals grows older and dies, there will be far fewer people remaining behind. In other words, the current middle-aged generation of Japanese has failed to replace itself. The question, of course, is why?
Photo Credit: Flickr (d'n'c)
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Darek
This is a very good article focused on identifying the demographic problems in Japan, with some possible remedies. But the comments are absolutely attrocious.The author does not advocate immigration as this last dude thinks. Niether does it follow generally that pop growth is the solution to econ growth just because population decline is a problem for econ growth.
Michael Guy may be our modern Karl Marx, and I don't disagree with him, but he is working in a scope several magnitues greater than that of the original article, as if he wants to use the comment section to pronounce his ideas. Write your own article, or connect your rant to this one.
Mr. Kubo does make a valid point. His first point is partially addressed by the author though, whereas his second gets at the underlying issues affecting fertility in Japan, and deserves discussion. Many people in Japan, after decades of economic strength have to make a life in financial uncertainty. It is common for new workers to give their paychecks to their parents in thanks for the precious 21 years, and by then if a young person isnt working or making enough, they find themselves not meeting expectations in a society that excludes you unlike the west. Many think they need to make a certain salary to marry and afford a child, for whom a parent paid education is the norm.
In fairness, you cant expect the author to dig into this in the alloted space. Its an issue for another article. There you have it, my opinion that this is a well written thoughtful article of adequate depth.
Michael Guy
The decline in the population of the educated and productive is the inevitable result of western sociieties' love of Sybaritic socialism. The hedonism of the decadent West destroys the nation's sense of duty, self-sacrifice, honor and obligation to one's fellow citizens' This is understandable if the goal was to amalagamte all nations into a UN neo-feudal Holy Roman Empire ruled by Bolshevik bureaucrats a, elite liberal lords and progressive plutocrats ( like the International bankers and financiers).As the west made its culture based upon conspicuous consumption , the progressive politicians induced the citizens to trade liberty for licentiousness, sacrifice principles for pleasure and take away freedoms and incomes in exchange for promiscuity, profanity and pornography. Aldous Huxley gave us this template in Brave New World, Now the only fecund populations are the foreign immigrans who detest the culture of their hostst and welfare parasites that infest western societies.
BL
lol
Yuji.Kubo
This article is superficial analysis. Because Dr. John don’t explain and analysis two important problems.
1, How population change affect society and industry. I think more relation human activity to technology, nature.
2. This writer don’t analysis social environment in japan. Many Japanese lose confidence and don’t have hope by suffering from employ, social isolation, decline of economic growth.
Almost Japanese can’t afford to marriage and raise up child that is high expensive,
I think that this article’s only conclusion that fill a vacancy of worker by other country.
JAY LOVETTE SANTOS TOREJAS
Demographic Winter
neutral
Typical western thinking, the answer to everything is immigration, population trends everywhere including Africa point to lower birth rates, so when the total world population begins shrinking, will these idiots still put their faith in immigration, clearly not. Immigration is not the answer, its more stupid short term thinking. I population growth is the answer to economic growth then countries like Pakistan, Yemen or Nigeria should have the fastest growing economies in the world.