The slow, steady, inevitable (?) implosion of Japanese society ...

Japan’s Shrinking Role in the World

by Marcus Roberts

The Economist has provided another very interesting piece about a story that I think gets less coverage than it should be receiving: the slow, steady, inevitable (?) implosion of Japanese society. I don’t think that saying that is being melodramatic, what else does one call a society which has a population that has been shrinking for the past decade (in a time of historically-unheard peace and prosperity!) and shows no sign of stopping that decline? Does this population decline not show a lack of confidence in the society’s future prospects and a lack of interest or desire in propagating that society? Shouldn’t this news story be more closely followed elsewhere since: a) Japan is the third-largest economy in the world; b) Japan is in a very worrying diplomatic conflict with the world’s second-largest economy; and c) Japan is the canary in the mine for many other western nations. How will these other nations fare with declining birth rates, populations and tax bases? Look at the Japanese example.

However, as is explained in the article in the Economist, the major difference between Japan and most other countries is the homogeneity of its people and the lack of large-scale immigration. This means that the population decline problem is not being remedied by importing new citizens. Thus, last year the Japanese population declined by a record amount: 244,000 people and this shrinking population is declining faster than any other in the world.

“More than 22% of Japanese are already 65 or older. A report compiled with the government’s co-operation two years ago warned that by 2060 the number of Japanese will have fallen from 127m to about 87m, of whom almost 40% will be 65 or older.”

At the moment, roughly 2% of the Japanese population is foreign. And this includes large numbers of permanent residents—mostly Chinese and Koreans—who have been here for generations. So any attempt to reverse the population decline by bringing in foreign workers and taxpayers will be novel and is bound to ruffle some feathers in Japanese society. However, regardless of these hurdles, the Japanese government is being forced to look into all options:

“The government is pointedly not denying newspaper reports that ran earlier this month, claiming that it is considering a solution it has so far shunned: mass immigration. The reports say the figure being mooted is 200,000 foreigners a year. An advisory body to Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, said opening the immigration drawbridge to that number would help stabilise Japan’s population—at around 100m (from its current 126.7m).
But even then there’s a big catch. To hit that target the government would also have to raise the fertility rate from its current 1.39, one of the lowest in the world, up to 2.07. Experts say that a change on that scale would require major surgery to the country’s entire social architecture.”

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