Quote:
Originally Posted by JMvS
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.
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I think you are right with your point of view. At least if all your pre- and post- conditions become true. However I want to add some input that can change the direction of your chain of arguments.
Statistically nations have baby booms when there is a bad economic situation (or power outage). With bad economic situation I mean really bad. Japan today is just whining from within the comfort of their ivory towers. But the worse the situation gets and the more desperate people become, the nation will turn to other values. This is because commercial values are out of reach and generally less important.
Another factor is automation. Automation will eliminate all hard labour jobs and assembly line jobs in the long run. But the social sector cannot be that easily automated (I know lots of people think that japans robot industry can even master this industry... I say not with comparable efficiency for at least the next 60 years). That shift in the work force may actually contribute to more socializing... a more children accepting atmosphere.
But I also want to talk about things that could worsen your current scenario. Japan relies heavily on export and import. That is natural given the limited natural resources. This however condems them to be ever innovative to survive in a world where emerging powers like China (well in the case of China "emerging" is a little misleading...) compete for global export quota. Of'course this could be a worsening factor in the development of japan's economy and thus japan.