Japan’s 2035 tipping point looms as cities set to shrink amid population ageing
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3298707/japans-looming-crisis-2035-tipping-point-population-decline-amid-ageing-society?module=This%20Week%20in%20Asia&pgtype=section
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ss: Japan faces urban population decline by 2035, with ageing societies challenging city sustainability and prompting calls for immigration reform
[Japan](https://www.scmp.com/topics/japan?module=inline&pgtype=article)’s decades-long fears over a contracting population, particularly in rural areas, where many regions are predominantly inhabited by elderly individuals, are about to worsen, with one analyst warning that even the country’s megacities will soon face population loss.
When I was living in a small town in rural Japan I had a friend who was teaching at various schools in the area and had to attend all the graduation ceremonies and for one school there was a ceremony with literally one student graduating. Kind of funny and sad at the same time.
Tipping point? Tipping point for Japan was in the 70s
So Japan decided it was easier to let demographic death happen than change attitudes around gender roles, corporate culture and parenthood in a world of ever increasing cost of life.
Cool.
EDIT : “And immigration.”
The solution is regenerative medicine. Scientists like Dr. Masayo Takahashi have been working on cures for age-related degenerative diseases for well over a decade. These need to continue to be funded and supported.
Every developed country faces declining population through collapsing fertility rates, apart from those currently propping it up with high immigration which is not sustainable and increasingly rejected by the existing population.
Ironically, this is how climate change will be tackled, through reduction in population. So it’s not a bad thing in the overall scheme of things.
Anything except larger domiciles, sharing the burden of childcare, and less hours at work.
Time to import millions of people who hate Japanese culture from Islamic countries!
Here’s my theory on why this is happening: birth rates are a function of how much food/money a family with can earn while sustaining a set standard of living. In agrarian countries family size is constrained by how much food a family can grow, while capitalist countries have families constrained by income (mainly opportunities for high paying jobs) minus costs to sustain the standard of living. The ideal regime for a capitalist country is low costs and high incomes (post war america). In countries like japan and korea (high cost, high potential incomes), the opportunities for high paying jobs are scarce as there is a ton of competition so parents tend to concentrate all their resources into very few kids to maximize the kid’s chances of getting a good job, while living in a city to get such a job is expensive. Additionally, sustaining a job requires a ton of extra time to put in to sustain a job (going out with the boss, working overtime, etc) that eats into opportunities to find a partner. The solution here is to (in my opinion) ban overtime over 1-2 extra hours per day and make it illegal to fire people for not attending those extra outings. Aditionally for japan the main constraint is the economy, if there were more high paying job opportunities spread across the country then people would be more inclined in having multiple kids and not needing to pool resources into only 1 or 2. Lastly I think the japan gov’s idea to make a dating/matching app is a good idea if the app actually works properly (unlike other dating apps). Granted I don’t have much knowledge about japan so my suggestions may already exist.
Oh no, they better hurry up and take in millions of African immigrants
OK fine I’ll volunteer to help em out… Direct me to the waifu
I wonder if the rise of AI and robotics will end up making this a convenient misstep that ends up being an advantage.
I have a feeling this isnt Japan’s first rodeo at being a country. I am sure history has told them it is better to not destroy their culture for short term happiness.
The only reason they keep running stories about population decline as being a bad thing is because businesses will have to pay more for labor. From a GLOBAL WARMING perspective its a very good thing. Its speculated that global population will peak in 2050 at 9-10billion and then drop to 2billion within 100 years.
I totally get the larger financial implications, but other than ‘money’, is there any negative to a (by choice) lowering of population? Isn’t it a good thing pretty much across the board to a certain degree?