Japan Shrinks
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on January 19th, 2007
Article:
Japan Shrinks (Nov 20, 2006)
Author:
Fred Hiatt
Source:
Washington Post
Comment:
What I don’t like about this article is one is left reading it and thinking that immigration won’t even play a role in Japan’s future, but the population will be allowed to slide to lower and lower levels while the country some how copes. Also, the article repeats the fallacy that Japan is ethnically cohesive.
Notes on article:
1. Quote:
Japan has embarked on a path no developed nation has ever followed — of sustained and inexorable population decline.
Comment: Well, has it? I mean it’s a done deal, then? No immigrants?
2. Italy, Russia, and South Korea are also getting smaller. The US is the only advanced nation which has an increasing population. This is not only because of immigration but because of a high birthrate.
Comment: Is America’s rate really that high? I’d like to see some demographics of this. I also wonder which segments of the population are increasing fastest. Is it the low-income ones?
3. Japan’s population sank by 21,000 last year (2005).
4. Hitoshi Suziki has written a book Population Decline is not Something We Need to Fear.
5. For a population to maintain itself the birthrate needs to be 2.1. Once the birthrate drops to 1.5 and stays there for any period of time, it’s very hard to recover. China has a birthrate of 1.7. Japan’s birthrate is 1.25.
6. Japan’s current population of about 128 million will drop to about 100 million by mid-century.
7.
In 1965 there were 25 million children in Japan, 67 million people of working age and 6 million senior citizens. In 2050 there will be 11 million children, 54 million potential workers and 36 million people 65 and over.
Comment: Those are some stark statistics.
8. There will be many dependents for every productive worker, so it’s not clear how such a society would function.
9.
Faced with this prospect, a country could choose to fight (raise the birthrate) or cope (prepare to manage the consequences). Japan gives lip service to the former.
Comment: Interesting.
10.
In truth, Japan doesn’t seem to want to change as it would have to in order to increase the birthrate. Japanese women say in surveys that they want two children, but they delay or abstain from marriage and motherhood in astonishing numbers because fathers don’t help around the house, because mothers feel isolated in tiny apartments and because it’s so hard for a woman to combine career and motherhood.
Comment: These are the standar reasons always given, but I think the real answer is there isn’t a theory out there that stands up well to criticism explaining why the birthrate is declining.
11.
When I asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week … [he] said his aim is to provide choices so mothers can work or stay home as they see fit. But he also made clear that he is focused on the coping rather than the preventing: “Even considering the decline in the population, I am convinced Japan will be able to continue on a path of growth,” he said. The trick will be “innovation,” Abe said, and economic reform.
Comment: How about immigration? New reasons not to think highly of Abe.
12.
In fact, robots and other ways to improve productivity are one of four possible routes to economic growth despite an aging population. The others would be making better use of women; immigration, which has increased slightly but remains unpopular in this ethnically cohesive country; and keeping the elderly working longer. According to Naohiro Ogawa, a population expert at Nihon University, if every healthy elderly person worked, Japan’s total economy in 2025 would be worth 791 trillion yen instead of the currently projected 619 trillion yen, an increase of 28 percent. Just raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 would produce a 12 percent increase.
Comment: Okay, I really have no idea what the truth is here, but I have to admit that on the surface this actually sounds stupid. First, as I’ve noted elsewhere, 56% of people between 60 and 65 have already continued working, and this was as early as 1994. Second, the elderly will be incapable of doing unskilled labor, at least most of them will be. So whose going to do the dirty, dangerous, and dull work that needs to get done. Don’t even get me started on robots! Female workers are already a large part of the work force. So the answer here is clearly immigration with or without government approval. The views here are really irresponsible.
February 14th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Eventually the world’s population will have to stop increasing. Then there will be some equilibrium population age distribution. There will certainly be more old people than young people. We have to learn sometime how to deal with this. Japan will be able to show the way.
Immigration just puts off the inevitable. If young people come from one country to another; the place they are coming from will face the stable population distribution earlier than otherwise with a smaller population (i.e. less crowded). The country to which they go will put off the stable population in time; but when it arrives that country will be more crowded. Perhaps Japan would like for their children to live in a less crowded country than did there parents … a better country.
February 14th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Thank you for your comment.
I disagree for the following reason.
1. The immigration *already* seems to be taking place, much of it illegal. In the same sense that the Prohibition era failed to keep people from drinking alcohol, current laws are completely failing to keep out immigrants. So the reality is that they are coming, and either the government can attempt to accommodate this or to pretend it isn’t happening until the problem reaches a critical stage. (The government can only coerce so much. The fact is employers want the immigrants, and there is only so much the government can do to stop them. I honestly believe it would take a police state to keep the immigrants out, and most people would not be comfortable with this.)
2. At what level will technological advancements level off such that it no longer has an impact on what the sustainable population on earth is? That is there is a tension between technological advancement and sustainable population. So long as the rate of technological advancement keeps up with a growing population, we won’t have any problem. One could say technological advancement will not be able to keep up, so we should close our borders, hunker down, and defend our turf. But why is it thought that technological advance will not be able to keep pace?
3. Japan will be in economic dire straights if it does not have an increasing workforce. This is because Japan has instituted several socialist measures, such as a national health plan and a national pension plan. These plans will be massively underfunded if the number of workers decreases. This is a serious problem.
4. Japan’s affluence is dependent on the role it plays in the world economy, perhaps more so than any other developed country. Creating open markets will help generate win-win solutions for other countries such that both countries can continue to improve their economies. Japan’s attempts at keeping out immigrants, when it could easily use them, creates a great deal of friction with important trade partners. (Especially China.)
If I had time I would go on more about this, but hopefully this will forward the discussion on this a little.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
Technology cannot solve the problem because an expanding population will eventually result in one square foot per person on earth. There will be no room for other animals or for plants. We will have destroyed what is beautiful about earth. Presumably the population will stabilize before then.
Settling other planets is technically too difficult, I think all would agree.
Then we will have an equilibrium population and the problem Japan is facing now will be faced by the entire earth.
Better to figure out how to construct a good society now with that equilibrium population than force the entire world to do it in a great uproar of competition for space and resources. Japan can lead the way because of its desire to remain ethnically homogeneous and because of its skill in technology.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:17 am
What was the population of japan in 1937?