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© Thomson Reuters 2024.Japan's elderly population living alone to jump 47% by 2050
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kurisupisu
And what is the future of a geriatric society with a deficit of carers?
sakurasuki
Who will their take care of them, pay their pension and covering their social security cost?
Especially when number of young people in Japan is becoming less and less, foreign care giver will be.
Foreign worker from abroad become another way to solve those things.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14965420
Alongfortheride
It won't be the government! They are using any spare cash to buy new weapons and make donations to wars that have nothing to do with Japan.
koiwaicoffee
The other day the PM was talking about the budget for youngsters and families, referring to it as a cost. As something expensive they had to budget for, not as an investment on Japan's future.
Spitfire
See many old Japanese men living out of convenience stores.
I guess they were too busy to learn how to cook and in their later years when they divorced or became widowers they just resorted to using the local 7-11s.
sakurasuki
JGovt solution to declining population, instead providing budget for youngster and families the just importing cheap labor from abroad.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/04/26/national/population-projection-foreign-residents-japan/
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At some point Japan will need 6 million foreign workers in their prime age.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Japan-to-require-four-times-more-foreign-workers-study-says
sakurasuki
Their only skill inside household just pushing button, pushing button on microwave or pushing button on laundry machine, beside that without monthly wages they just becoming useless for their spouse.
tora
Unfortunately a sure path to financial ruin and ill health, especially at that age. There should be free home economic classes available to the elderly.
obladi
can I suggest immigration as a solution?
kurisupisu
You can, but it might not be the best solution.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Well, the robots certainly aren't working out.
Jonathan Prin
46% of men haven't dated in their 20's.
What a dystopian world !
The basis of life has disappeared.
The concrete change with time is the pace you walk in crowds : slowing down to the average pace of people. It is annoying to me because I get in discomfort when shuffling along in crowded streets, where overtaking is impossible.
kohakuebisu
There are many benefits to living with someone, married or otherwise. Love (hopefully), companionship, mutual care and aid, wider skillset, cheaper living costs, less burden on society that nobody wants to pay for, ....
The value of being with someone only increases as you get older and start to lose your faculties.
I hope people with a negative opinion of Japanese men are basing it on their own observations and not on the picture painted by some Japanese women.
Redemption
Seems like good news if they want to be alone. Certainly my experience in Tokyo is that the vast majority of people are antisocial and don’t want to have any interaction.
wallace
If there was a way for these isolated single men and women to live together and share a house instead of living lonely in their own houses. Communes for the silver club.
sakurasuki
They believe they can be alone and don't need anyone until they become older, when doing simple task for example going to toilet is impossible without assistance. Who'll do that? Foreign care giver in Japan.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/ex-filipino-hostesses-become-caregivers
Redemption
I am willing to help my own family but a professional caregiver should be paid as least as much as a nurse. Reap what you sow.
kurisupisu
Don’t worry.
Within ten years the rich and businesses will be using them.
The poor will fend for themselves.
Aoi Azuuri
terrifying ageism such as famous influencers inciting "forcibly mass suicide" against elderly people is rampant at present Japanese society.
And public health rapidly belittled nationwidely, many social vulnerable have been victimized actually.
Blacksamurai
Another chicken little story about Japan's ageing population including sweeping generalisations based on questionable surveys about the percentage of J men and women who've 'never dated'. 'Not dating' doesn't equal no sexual experience or casual relationships.
Western countries like Germany have a significant level of single people in the middle aged to elderly demographic and their pension system is a disorganised collection of different funds, including a few described as entries in ledgers. Back in the good ol USA, there are increasing numbers of Americans who literally don't have a nickel or dime in savings tho they're going to retire sooner rather than later.
Japan's system has obvious problems and the rapidly ageing demographic is not helping but the idea that all these silver citizens are lonely, dysfunctional and eating most of their food from conbini is just crap. The city halls/ward offices have some good services for the elderly and there are community centers everywhere that assist the elderly and keep them in touch with others and with service providers.
These kind of articles are always pushing the 'Japan needs to import xmillion foreign workers soon' narrative. Here's a reality check - western countries like the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA are having housing shortages, over-dependence on the hospitality industries instead of real jobs with real benefits, rocketing rents and college fees, toxic social division, growing povery among the elderly and they all have mass immigration.
That doesn't mean immigrants cause those problems tho they are connected to housing shortages especially now in Australia because their dumbazz govt decided to drive the rate of immigrants up to unsustainable levels while Australians live in cars and under bridges or at home as adults because they can't afford to buy or necessarily rent. It means that the propaganda about Japan needing a mass immigration policy serves agendas other than the well-being of its population. The growing socio-economic problems of western countries don't offer a way forward for Japan.
alyamal
Change the aging laws. Allow 4 and ready to make you happy again.