Japan's Population Problem

Low fertility rates and longer life spans are leading to an older and smaller population.

Japan's population is aging and declining. Two main forces are responsible: declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans:
1. Fewer babies. A total fertility rate of 2.1 would keep a population stable, assuming no migration. Japan hit this level in 1960, falling persistently below since 1975. The total fertility rate reached a low of 1.26 in 2005.

2. Longer lives. Japanese women attained the longest life expectancy among 228 countries in 1982, according to World Bank data, and have held that position to now.

Smaller workforce
Japan's population peaked in 2004 at 127.8 million. Current projections expect the rate of decline to accelerate to 1% annually by 2050. The workforce hit its high in 1999 and is now already 2.5% smaller.

A smaller workforce and an aging population imply that the ratio of workers to non-workers will fall. The conventionally measured dependence ratio--the number of workers that must cover the dependent population of young and retired--compares the number of people in the 15-64 year old age group to all others. The fertility collapse and aging have pushed the ratio down to 1.8 this year, with a projected ratio of one worker per dependent after 2050. Were this to happen, the consequences for taxes, transfers and incentives could be enormous.
Link -
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/14/japan-population- aging-business-oxford-analytica.html?feed=rss_busi ness
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Some things that await the rest of the world, over the next 20-30 years.

perceptions_now wrote on Jun 17^th, 2010 at 9:44pm:






Above are two of the charts, from the above article on the Japanese Population issue.

I'll get the hang of these new tools, sooner or later?

The Western press are in the business of attempting to frighten the Japanese with tales of a supposed imminent demographic disaster in their country unless they start opening up immigration. They have every right to give the West the middle finger; the problems aren't going to be that bad, and at any rate, trying to solve demographic problems like this by letting in millions more people is a short term solution.

The Japanese have this quaint idea that they like Japan the way it is; they want Japan to remain Japanese. I'm really sure that a few million Filipinos and Puerto Ricans are going to be huge enrichment for them. They're going to solve all of their problems, forever.

Good on them.

aikmann4 wrote on Jun 18^th, 2010 at 8:43pm:


The "press" are also not saying anything about the Aging Boomers, AT ALL, because there are those who want the status quo to continue, which it can not!

Sorry, gotta go, diner awaits!

Quote:


Many of the benefits to China have been very short term. So will the benefits to the Japanese.

Consider, first up, the plight of a young Tokyo couple trying to buy a place to live near to where they work. Fortunately, Tokyo real estate hasn't really risen in price much in a long time. However, if you imagine that population chart being bell shaped with a lot more people in the under forty bracket, what would that do to the price of rent or land in Japan? Or the price of food?

This will make it easier for them to support the ageing population, because they won't be trying to support an exponentially increasing population of young people at the same time. An economy doe not need an ever increasing number of young people to prop up the old people in order to function. That is the sort of reasoning that makes Africans slaughter each other every time there is a drought.

You are leaving out the cost of raising and educating children. That gets a lot cheaper when the population shrinks, and it is not an insiginficant chunk of government revenue.

Plus, not all old people are useless, even if they don't know how to use a mouse.

Freediver,
You have moved the Population & Peak Oil Threads, from the Political board to the General board, along with a few others.

Obviously, you may do as you wish, but these two are actually highly political and will in fact wield an extraordinary influence over politics, in the next 20-30 years.

Human race 'will be extinct within 100 years', claims leading scientist

As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.’
Fenner told The Australian newspaper that 'homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.'
'A lot of other animals will, too,' he added.
'It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.'
Since humans entered an unofficial scientific period known as the Anthropocene - the time since industrialisation - we have had an effect on the planet that rivals any ice age or comet impact, he said.

Fenner, 95, has won awards for his work in helping eradicate the variola virus that causes smallpox and has written or co-written 22 books.
He announced the eradication of the disease to the World Health Assembly in 1980 and it is still regarded as one of the World Health Organisation's greatest achievements.

He was also heavily involved in helping to control Australia's myxomatosis problem in rabbits.

Last year official UN figures estimated that the world’s population is currently 6.8 billion. It is predicted to exceed seven billion by the end of 2011.
Fenner blames the onset of climate change for the human race’s imminent demise.
He said: 'We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island.
'Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we're seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.'
'The Aborigines showed that without science and the production of carbon dioxide and global warming, they could survive for 40,000 or 50,000 years.
‘But the world can't. The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species that we've seen disappear.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1287643/Human-race-extinct-100-ye...