Japans Aging Society

Japans Aging Society

In approximately 0.42 second, Google could
give us 10900000 results if you tap these three
simple words: Japan-Aging-Population. From all
perspectives, Japan is indeed the best example
of a stage 5 MEDC country having an aging
population. With a death rate of 9.15 and a
birth rate of 8.39, we can definitely confirm
that the country is facing a serious problem.
However obvious this fact may be, we still need
to question ourselves: what are the causes of
this Issue? What consequences does it have?
And what can be done?

Causes: Not Surprising but still Complicated
The reasons of Japans aging population are not
very surprising. By one hand, the change of
lifestyle and social conventions results in a
change of behavior in regards to marriage.
Psychological pressure from the workplace; lack
of human contact in an ultra-modern society; the
tendency of young women having a life centered
on friends, career, consumption and
entertainment (the Parasite Singles), all these
are factors preventing traditional union and
deteriorating peoples willingness of having
children. Adding to these is the fact that the
development of birth control methods like legal
abortion led to a lower birth rate. By the other
hand, the improvement of medicine and hygiene
led to longer life expectancy in Japan, which is
actually among the highest in the world (76.4
years for men and 82.2 years for women). So,
the main cause of the aging population is the
combination of low fertility and long life
expectancy.
Whats at Stake?
Due to the abovementioned reasons, the
Japanese population is facing the risk of falling

By 25% between 2005 and 2050 according to
projections, losing approximately 30 Million
people in the process. With the elderly of the
country already making up 20% of the
population and noting that this number is
projected to increase to almost 40% by 2055,
the aging population is heavily penalising the
Japanese society. And these negative
consequences will come faster than
predicted, as 23.1% of the population are
already 65 or over, including 11.4% of the
Japanese population who have an age
greater than 75, which counts for the
world's highest ratio.

The aging society or kreikashakai, as we put
it in Japanese, is not just a matter of statistics,
it influenced the Japanese economy as well,
which suffered major blows from the Asian
economic crisis in the 1990s and is still slowly
recovering. National debts and deficits rising,
social security in burden, lack of young people
in important sectors, none of these seems
promising at a time of global competition.

So many things at stake, whats the solution
then?



"The problem won't be solved unless
you let them hurry up and die."

"Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on
when you want to die. I would wake up
feeling increasingly bad knowing that
[treatment] was all being paid for by the
government," said Taro Aso, finance minister
of Japan during a meeting of the national
council on social security reforms in 2013. "The
problem won't be solved unless you let them
hurry up and die."

But knowing perfectly that this brilliant idea of
His Excellency the minister wont be feasible,
the Japanese government has been
implementing other measures either to provide
pro-natal incentives or to relieve the economic
burden coming from the elderly.

To achieve that, the government is changing
the policies around working conditions for
parents and is providing 8 weeks of paternity
leave or 5 days of leave whenever a child falls
sick. Different companies also extended the
employment of the elderly, a decision thanks to
which we can see now many people that are
between 70 and 80 years old still working. To
facilitate the employment of the elderly, the
government authorized the accumulation of an




employment and a
pension, which is a notable
economic incentive.

But at the same time, the
competent authorities
should also realize that
other effective measures
could be taken right now.
An aging population brings
an aging workface and
then a possible solution is
to facilitate reasonable
immigration of skilled
workers from other
countries, because having
more and more children at a national level
takes time and a constant population
growth is also not sustainable.

To conclude, a demographic issue like aging
society is becoming a global challenge. Its not
an issue that can be easily tackled either by
having more and more children or by letting
the elderly hurry up. Maybe just as the Asian
notion mean suggests, the Japanese
government needs to find the right equilibrium
between sustainable development, internal
solutions and having foreign labors.

Wing Hin Ho, Jianan Liu, Raphael Pichtler,
Xoxoxox