Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinto
The author claims japan is dying. Its just reballancing. There is a limit to all growth (earth/countries have limited resources). I guess the numbers rise and fall until it reaches an equilibirum. But I guess this requires a global equilibrium of the world population too.
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The demographic issue is not about a country's population vanishing into thin air (some have worst issues than Japan's).
The major problem is that they will have to deal with some severe reworking of their society during all the next 40 years (until the last babyboomer dies).
Now they are facing the aging of their population in a context where:
1-there are few youngsters.
2-aforementioned youngsters face dire prospects due to the current economy.
3-there are even fewer childrens.
4-and if nothing is done the situation will only get worse.
Note that several countries face the same problem (a few european countries would have their populations shrinking if it weren't for the immigration).
Unlike us the japaneses are not too eager to resort on immigration to solve point 1, due to point 2 as well as the economic and societal costs it incurs. So they are most likely going to cope, relying on automatization, until their population stabilizes (in 40 at least).
To stabilize a population in a foreseeable future, they need to get at least enough children for a columnar age pyramid, or they will get a forever reverted shrinking pyramid.
Given that it takes 20 years in a modern society for a demographic policy to reflect on the working population, it's no wonder they are concerned about each generation being smaller than the previous.
Coincidently a generation (of women) is only fertile for about 20 years, hence the hurry to do something.
So if they want for things to get better
in 20 years at least, they have to do something
now. Or things will get worse and worse for a whole century.