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© KYODOJapan's population forecast to fall nationwide except Tokyo in 2050
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kurisupisu
Living in Tokyo where people are elbow to elbow and the summers are scorching?
No thanks!
Newgirlintown
It’s really noticeable in Kansai where there are fewer and fewer students each year.
dagon
With the right leadership Japan could manage a gentle decline into a nation with a smaller population like Switzerland, Singapore and Scandinavian nations; and create broad based prosperity.
But the gerontocrats of the LDP need to be fed, and their geo-political egos massaged.
Mark
People will move and keep on moving looking for better opportunities and life style, Tokyo in the ONLY place that offers a huge variety of chances and unless the central government doesn't address this problem people will continue on moving to it in search of a better life.
Tim Sullivan
Addressing the declining birthrate and influx to Tokyo has become a matter of urgency
I remember reading a similar comment over 30 years ago, but the useless LDP ignored the problem. Affluence breeds complacency, but Japan is getting poorer by the day now.
kohakuebisu
Japanese has a word for depopulation-based decline, "kasoka". Its usually a vicious circle, people leave, the place becomes less attractive and viable, so more people leave.
I think the main cause of depopulation in my town is still young folk leaving and not coming back, not old folk dieing faster than babies are being born. In the future, this will change, since there will be fewer young people to leave and more people hitting their dotage.
Half of prefectures will be 40% plus over 65s. Wow.
Makoto Shimizu
If Japan wants to grow its population the government and companies have to provide more romantic environment, more love songs, more indoor and outdoor events to promote social interaction. The most important thing is that the high administration be educated to learn that stressed and overburdened people, their staff, will never have energy to look for, or make love by committing more than 100% of their energy and time at work. There are so many cute women and men, all very shy and very busy regarding not emotional subjects. Japan has many marvelous touristic places to go, to relax. It is in the hands of the high management to create opportunities for their single staff to meet, talk, date and marry and incentive married couples to have children without guilt or worries.
Aaron J
I think this is way more shocking to foreigners. Young Japanese already want out even if they don’t understand the bigger picture, they know the country is not a great place to live, work or have a family. my favorite place to visit though
TaiwanIsNotChina
Through a thirty year plan of bringing in millions of health care and elder care workers from around the globe? I think the time to start that was thirty years ago.
Moonraker
Time to do your patriotic duty.
Tim Sullivan
Polygamy could be a solution.
Blacksamurai
Japan's population decline is caused by a similar reason in other developed countries - socio-economic changes to women' s status and post World War 2 affluence with increasing levels of access to higher education and opportunities means child bearing and rearing are not seen as the ultimate goal any more.
But it does differ so comparisons aren't that useful.
Note that countries with sustainable levels of younger/older population mix are either immigrant countries like the USA, Canada or Australia or ones in Europe where a lot of the so called immigration was actually so called asylum seeker and refugee intakes. For decades now those people have been coming as immigrants without the responsibilities of immigrants such as paying for visas, housing, health insurance etc.
Those from the ME and Africa in western countries have multiple children in keeping with conservative ideas of a woman's place and reflecting older ways of status coming from multiple children. The generosity of countries like Australia, Canada and the UK with child allowances, public housing and free stuff generally also encourages people from those backgrounds to have more children.
In addition the normality now of families with no man in the household and special benefits for single mothers in the western countries generous with welfare is also very different from Japan. Does Japan need to adopt those ways of increasing its young population - I don't think so.
obladi
@dagon
Rather, the huge elderly population needs to be fed and this requires people of working age. I don't see a way around increasing immigration and equal pay for women and foreigners. I would also support increases scholarships for overseas students.
Moonraker
Give classes in patriotic duty to the men who can't speak to the ladies, along with tips for grooming and chat-up lines and treating the ladies well.
tora
Nothing can do to stop the slide. And the rest of the world is not far behind. A consequence of our modern lifestyles and living in mega cities. Children are not required for our modern lifestyles. And even if we want them, the cost is overwhelming, not to mention a lack of a strong community for support.
John
Government should prohibit companies opening main offices in crowded cities like Tokyo and Osaka. They should be forced to spread around so people living in other cities can also get a chance to work and balance the population distribution.
I think birthrate drops in every year not just in 2050.
rainyday
I would hope this would put to rest the idiotic idea that Japan’s demographic decline is going to make everything less crowded, open up space on trains to sit down, reduce the lengths of lines, etc etc. Its just going to make Tokyo even more crowded than it already is on the one hand, while causing services to collapse completely in large swathes of the rest of the country on the other.
I see your point, but it leaves unanswered the question of what Japan should actually do, which is way more important than what it should refrain from doing.
Redemption
Too late. Wonder if my Japanese pension will be paid by few remaining workers.
Moonraker
If you really cared about Japan and its future you would not want to see it fade away like this, would you? It gives you your self-esteem and you are giving little in return.
Redemption
Don’t know what you are babbling about. I contributed 3 kids and pay taxes. Much more than even most Japanese and I can’t even vote because of xenophobic fears of dual nationality.
Jonathan Prin
Everything due to women's status, whether anyone like it or not. And getting worse as puritanism is nailing anyone opposing.
And it won't stop magically ever in 2050, it is bound to continue for another currently living generation at least, since it would mean 4 children on average per woman just to level out population at tha time.
Financial and physical burden on young people is now starting to become exponential.
Level of wealth is dropping per capita, but not for the croonies.
Ego Sum Lux Mundi
The Japanese inaka is boring.
First15
Has any of the Japanese politicians considered chucking the century old welfare programs out of the window? You know, the programs originally put into place to turn Japan into a military powerhouse during the first halt of the 20th century. Talking from experience here in the U.S., our social security and welfare programs are one of the contributing reasons to the decline in my country's birth rates.
tora
It won't. So take advantage of Shin-NISA and upcoming reforms to IDECO. No excuse not to be taking full advantage of these. Meanwhile the money you pay for your pension is earmarked for other things like military expansion.
PTownsend
During the bubble years, there were media reports that the federal government considered decentralizing, shifting some headquarters outside Tokyo. I recall Utsunomiya as one possible location where some government offices could move, but of course nothing happened, I assume the highest ranking officials feared they would not have easy access to the highest end services they can get in Tokyo, even though Utsunomiya is said to have good gyoza..
TaiwanIsNotChina
Huh? The stereotype of the welfare queen was people that had children just to get the welfare check. And social security is there to keep the elderly alive. The income tax is far more than the payroll tax for social security.
Moonraker
If you are referring to me, Redemption, in your comment - it is hard to figure out but you do have the very next comment - then I should say I am not referring to you at all. I am sorry to elicit your defences. Yes, many foreigners have done their bit for the future of Japan, I agree. Cheers to us. The people I am referring to know who they are.
First15
Have you actually looked at the breakdown of the American budget? Over 50% of it is dedicated to some form of welfare: https://archive.ph/tbgJu
The money to pay for that has to come from somewhere.
As I understand it, Japan's woes for it's population decline started back in the 90's when then high school graduates began checking out of society because they didn't want to become the pay pigs being taxed to Hell and back to pay for the boomers' ability to live forever.
TokyoLiving
Tokyo is an amazing city..
Is not for whiners..
Best city of the world..
LOL!..
TokyoLiving
That's so right, they live in an alternate reality where they still believe themselves to be the center of the universe and the harsh reality is that country is going further and further outside of that "reality"..
LOL!!..
TaiwanIsNotChina
Well, as I said, we aren't going to throw the elderly back onto the street or make hospitals cover the emergency room care of the absolutely destitute. Btw, that measly 8% is your actual "welfare" to keep people fed and housed.
First15
Why are you favoring policies that tax people to the point that they have to rely upon the government in order to live and receive medical care in the first place?
Aaron J
Not going to argue with that, just noting similar thing could be said of Tokyo and the rest of Japan.
Blacksamurai
Tokyo draws in so many from the regions but why wouldn't it? Big cities have social capital, it's where the connections and jobs are found as well as many choices of things to do and see. One of the answers to population decline is as some posters have said, de-centralisation of employment opportunities, government services, lifestyle facilities etc.
This won't fix the birthrate decline overnight but young/younger people would move to other cities than Tokyo and with younger communities around them plus ways to accommodate women who want to work and have children as well as women who don't want to work and are happy to be home-makers, the birthrate is likely to go up.
Osaka, Nagoya, Okayama, Hiroshima and Fukuoka are all major cities. The national govt could work with private industry and give incentives for companies to move to those cities. Osaka should be thriving as it has the history of being a business hub. More can be done to encourage mobility of young families but there have to be real incentives. As for those regions that are losing towns, the answer is far from easy as they have to offer young families more than the peace of a regional lifestyle.