One of them in this case being, every institution we've built is based on the idea of more people. More people, pooling resources, so that everyone's responsibility is smaller. More customers, more business, more jobs. More jobs, more taxes, more money for government to function. We, as in any given human society, don't have much practice with a decreasing population.

That's the other side. While Japan's population may actually be physically declining, the human population is still adding more people than we're losing.

I'm going to guess that the people in charge, in Japan, or other countries, don't actually want to see a declining population. Our economy isn't good for the planet either, but we still want stimulus packages of all kinds to get it going again.

The growth model was OK for a time, but now is no longer viable. Need to transition to no growth / declining population model. sustainable model. Not easy, but that is the challenge / new frontier we face.

BTW, this is good news for labor as demand for staff may better match population as productivity increases.

for their continued global profits when so many people around the globe are struggling to make ends meet.
Not to mention the coming climate refugees.

Other than overworking Americans, Jeb Bush's idea of having 4% GDP growth every year is great for the 1%, but horrible for everyone else.

Reduce to 5 billion or less.

3 billion is a viable number for this planet

thats right!

er, I mean food

Of course they have had negative population growth for years. Japan's over-65 percentage is now by far the highest in the world.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS

and childless. I know a couple dozen Japanese women who are single and in their 30s and 40s who have no interest whatsoever in starting families. When you factor in the cost of raising just one child to adulthood (20 years old) in Japan, which is well over $150,000, plus all of the responsibilities of raising children, versus living a footloose-and-fancy-free lifestyle, well, the allure of raising children just seems to diminish a bit.

How can you generalize so irresponsibly?

Not a doctoral thesis.

as both a researcher and a resident.

As opposed to the stupidest thing I have ever read which is that it is from fear of radioactivity!

of living there, but I agree with Art and bonobo san , I know from my studies at Cal Berkeley this is the case. People make the mistake of thinking that what happens here in the States is whats happening in Japan.. Its a entirely different culture there..and people think differently there from ideas stemming back to Japanese customs and rituals, starting with Shinto and Buddhism.

Also, it seems Japanese women are reluctant to date outside their social circle and that includes foreigners.

Here's the UN population projections:
http://esa.un.org/unpd/ppp/Figures-Output/Population/PPP_Total-Population.htm

This document describes how those projections are based on the Demographic Transition:
http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Documentation/pdf/WPP2012_HIGHLIGHTS.pdf

And here's a wikipedia page about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

Someone posted it here a while ago.

http://japaneseruleof7.com/sex-in-japan

The article reads like our facebook messages back and forth! I almost thought he wrote it, til I read the writer was doing private English lessons in Starbucks. My son has been working 60-80 hour weeks teaching English, translating and modeling/acting. Doesn't leave him much time for dating!

His dating life is practically zilch, because Japan is a "closed society". I can also understand Japanese women not wanting to date someone that may leave the country if their work VISA doesn't get extended.

I hope so. We need to see major population reduction worldwide.

Many similarities between the two countries on this issue.

When economies crash and never get up as did Japan's the younger generations puts off having children and getting married. Sometimes they put it off so long that they don't have children at all.

"The Lost Decade or the Lost 10 Years is the time after the Japanese asset price bubble's collapse within the Japanese economy. The term originally referred to the years from 1991 to 2000, but recently the decade from 2001 to 2010 is often included, so that the whole period of the 1990s to the present is referred to as the Lost Two Decades or the Lost 20 Years. Over the period of 1995 to 2007, GDP fell from $5.33 to $4.36 trillion in nominal terms, real wages fell around 5%, while the country experienced a stagnant price level. While there is some debate on the extent and measurement of Japan's setbacks, the economic effect of the Lost Decade is well established and Japanese policymakers continue to grapple with its consequences."

Coming to the US very soon.

Lots of older Japanese women I know just don't want to start families or have kids, because it just doesn't appeal to them. And Japanese women often don't even seem to have a concept of dating. Ask a single 30- or 40-something Japanese lady for a date, for example, and chances are, she'll act like you just came out of the spaceship.

I saw a documentary on Japan's aging society. They never mentioned that Japanese women didn't want to marry or be asked out. In fact they had several women on that said the men just were not interested.

I think the documentary was on BBC. It's been a couple of months since I've seen it but they did mention the economic problems as reason why the men were in no hurry to marry.

We need to get the ladies on the documentary and your men together.

Well, not in the conventional sense, at least.

Marriage is not particularly attractive for a lot of Japanese men because they don't really get all that much out of it. The first few years after the ceremony might be a happy time, but once the babies start coming, the wife focuses nearly all of her attention on the kids. In a lot of cases, the husband becomes little more than a source of money. When payday comes, it's like George Jetson offering some bucks to his wife, and she takes the wallet instead.

And Japanese married couples often don't even sleep in the same bed. Check into a Japanese hotel (not a "love hotel", just a regular hotel) as a married couple, for instance, and chances are you'll get two single beds, right out of some old '50s movie. Or two single futons in the more traditional hotels. Heck, the local accommodation for foreign researchers here had that kind of arrangement for married couples until enough complaints forced the management to switch to double beds.

And then, men might look at how their parents, say in their 50s, are behaving. It's not uncommon at all for a husband and wife of that age to go through a whole day without saying more than a couple of words to each other. And the son looks at that and thinks "If that's what I have to look forward to 25 or 30 years down the road, then forget it".

We don't have kids and have decided not to. My focus is solely on being the breadwinner in the family like any Korean man. You can read between the lines for the rest.

Strict immigration policy and families wanting male child. Once they determined the gender of the female, the family would terminate the pregnancy. This has to do with the Asian tradition that the male child will support his parents for the rest of their lives. If this is your retirement you son, no son means no security in old age.
With so many males, there are not enough females. They are having to import from them Korea and other Asian countries. The males hit the hardest are the ones with low end jobs, farmers.

Lols.

Shikata ganai desu, ne?

Kore wa, sono ga, hoka no... guess we all are the same.

In case you were wondering . . . .

Genki?

Arigatou!

Yoshida-san no postingu ga dai suki!

Ima no bideo, tai ni taishite oishii so! O-naka ga chotto suita, ne . . . .

sou deshou ne!

It's decline isn't due to a lack of immigration. We tend to view all the world's problems through our own domestic filters.

Immigration would make up for a short-fall in fertility. The cause of the decline in population is a decline in fertility--in the number of children born, for whatever reason.

The downside to immigration is that it masks the effect of over-achievers in reproduction. And, if it continues, can result in a kind of self-inflicted cultural genocide.

China maybe but not Japan.

The poster is conflating China and Japan. They're not the same.

Which maybe the other country the person is confusing it with. It use to be very common here, but abortions have been outlawed because of the gender selection issue. Also doctors are not suppose to tell the parents the sex of their child. Now that's not to say it doesn't happen because there are ways around that (and if they can find around laws, believe me Koreans are very good at it). The doctor says, "oh, your child will be so handsome" or "oh, your child will be so beautiful". I think it is very rare now.

I heard back in the old days having a daughter was like bad news. I always joke with my father-in-law that he was cursed three times having three daughters. He's lucky now, he has three son-in-laws to go with them along with two grandchildren (one of each).

Japan has a strict immigration policy, so not many immigrants can go there. With lower birth rates and the elderly dying off, their population is shrinking. There was a show about this on TV not too long ago. Businesses have shrinking revenues due to decreased demand for products, not enough young people to train as teachers, nurses, doctors. etc. is already putting a strain on their economy. There's not enough people to work in nursing homes, they are trying out robots to take care of their old people. Most advanced countries have seen a drop in birth rates unless they have a lot of immigration. What is happening to Japan should be a lesson for the US and the EU countries. Immigrants are not all bad, they and their children are the future consumers and tax payers.

It's really tough for most immigrants to actually live here. Not only is there a big language barrier, but there are also cultural barriers that can be quite difficult for foreigners to overcome. Even for me, a long-term resident of the country. And most foreign residents of Japan don't come with the intention of becoming permanent residents-- they will often come to work for a few years to save up enough money so that they can live well in their home countries.

Would love to hear more about life in Japan.

It's difficult for unskilled Asians and other foreigners, especially women, to get work visas in Japan. Potential employers of male foreign workers (usually southeast Asians) have to show that there are no Japanese who are able to do the work. This means that in most cases, only the most dangerous or demanding jobs become available to foreign unskilled workers.

In the case of women, it is a little different. In the past, Asian women who entered Japan on a cultural permit as, say, a dancer, would often end up in the adult entertainment industry instead. So in an effort to curtail human trafficking, the Japanese government made it tougher for unskilled Asian and other foreign women to get a cultural or work visa. If they enter on a tourist visa and start working illegally, they can be deported. This has also made it difficult for farmers, especially in remote areas, to find wives, since most Japanese women don't want to marry a farmer and to compensate for that, a lot of Japanese farmers had sought mail-order brides, especially from the Philippines. But Philippine women were also a favorite target of human traffickers, so the government started making it extremely difficult for such women to get visas.

Even if someone comes to Japan as a potential immigrant and works there and pays into the national pension system, if they leave Japan within a certain time frame, they can get a refund of the amount they paid into the system. So someone who works in Japan for say, 5 years, then goes back to their home country, really doesn't contribute anything to the national pension system. That has at least been the system in the past. I have heard that the system has recently been changed a bit, but I don't have the details about those changes.

I love hearing about how life is in other countries. I have traveled extensively through Europe and lived in Austria for a while as an undergrad. There is nothing like living in another nation that really changes your world view.

Japan and wants to collect what they have paid into the pension program. The biggest downside to his living/working there now is the exchange rate, which doesn't help him as he is paying off his student loans. He has cut back his payments in the hopes the value of the Yen increases.

He is also unsure if he will qualify for a renewal of his VISA which comes up in a few months, as he is doing independent contracting work as a translator and part-time work teaching English and some modeling/acting. They don't look at that work history the same way they look at a lower paying full-time job.

especially with a well-established company. Translation work has hit the skids in recent years, and if your son is doing that as an independent contractor, chances are he'll have a few dry spells along the way.

More about Japan and other Asian countries. The Group's main focus is about Asian culture. Watching Begin Japanology is a good start. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1250

in both countries. I'm not sure what the foreign population is there. Last I checked here it is just under 2 million (but that includes those who are here temporarily). Korea has made it easier to get permanent residency if you are not married. Similar to Japan most people intend to come for a year or two and then leave (that certainly was my intention, but I'm still here 11 1/2 years later).

I just finished my dissertation on how foreign consumers interact with businesses in South Korea in terms of consumer language and intercultural communication. It is a area of interest for me since I've been here so long. For my dissertation I only was able to interview foreign consumers, but I plan to do a follow-up with businesses to get their point of view. I think there is a lot to be learned. I found a few studies done in Japan on the cultural adjustment of foreigners (one of the authors was the same one who did research here in Korea).

Certainly the subject of population decline is an interesting one for anyone interested in Japan and Korea.

After steady increases since 1991, the population peaked in 2008, at around 2.2 million, then decreased slightly for a few years after that. It is currently back on an upward trend. What is particularly interesting is that the single largest group of foreign residents in Japan is Chinese. The next largest group is Korean, and that includes both first-generation Koreans and Koreans whose families have been here for two or more generations (and that number has been steadily declining). The number of American residents of Japan has remained fairly stable for several years, at around 50,000.

I mean people completely obsessed with Japanese culture. If they thought they could easily immigrate there they'd fit in culturally easily. There's a racial element that people don't want to discuss but it exists. Adapting isn't the major issue. Being accepted for being white or black or even latino is extremely hard.

Being "obsessed" with Japanese culture is one thing, but if we're just talking about stuff like anime or cosplay, that really doesn't mean that someone like that could adapt to and actually thrive in Japanese society.

But they'd adapt culturally very quickly because, importantly, they know the language. It is extremely difficult to immigrate to Japan even if you're adept in the language.

I'm being hyperbolic, though, weebos probably wouldn't solve the population issue to any significant extent. I just think it's such a PITA to immigrate to Japan that I personally, while having a love for Japanese culture, would never even attempt it.

In the end I believe it is a structural issues as opposed to a demographic or population issue.

Pretend I am a Japanese immigration officer. Could you tell me how you, as a potential immigrant, could contribute to Japan? What is your education level? What skills do you have? Where would you live? Do you have a job lined up? Do you know anyone in Japan who could support you or act as your guarantor?

If you really want to emigrate to Japan, the easiest ways would be either to come as a student and look for work while you are a student, or get a Japanese spouse.

But for some reason, a lot of American expats around here don't seem to enjoy each other's company.

There are also organizations like Meetup, and that might actually be a good way to meet other people with similar interests. There are something like 600 different Meetup groups in Tokyo and the surrounding area, for example, although not all of those groups are active.

would he just use google to find them?

all he has to do is type in meetup.com in his web browser, and he will automatically be directed to the Tokyo area Meetup site, where he will see all sorts of suggested Tokyo Meetup groups on the browser page.

On edit: If your son is not too familiar with Japan, then I would suggest joining the Meetup group "Japanize" as a way to meet local people and become a little more familiar with Japanese culture.

I asked him if he had tried meetup groups, but he said the people he met were "creepy".

He lived in Nagoya on his first trip during the study abroad, moved back there at the beginning of his second trip and then moved to Tokyo about a year ago for better work opportunities.

He passed the Level 1 proficiency test soon after he arrived the second time. He reads, writes and speaks fluent Japanese. He has made a number of acquaintances but no real "friends" to speak of. He has got to travel a bit and do lots of site seeing. He is all too familiar with the culture! Coming from California where people are much more open he is learning to adjust his expectations.

He has been booked solid with translating work, sometimes working 80 hours a week! He said some of his work is at one of the museums! He also has got to do acting for one of the local variety shows!

I've have numerous experiences with Meetup in Tokyo and haven't encountered "creepy" people in the "Let's speak English" and "Japanese cultural experience" types of meetups that I prefer. However, if your son prefers the clubbing types of meetups, then I can see where he would run into some creepy types.

He said Japanese demographers that he talked with were rather sanguine about this. Japan knows it can afford to bring down its population. Indeed, constant population growth is a mirage. Real world populations can't keep growing forever.

living in about the same land area. And it has a much higher population density than China.

Japan fund the benefits for an increasing retired population with a decreasing tax base?

Go for a basic income.

I've seen it. You could tax the rich 100% and it would not sustain Japan's system.

This is a big problem for them.

That is just a fact of nature. But pension plans can be restructured for a stationary population. Taxing the rich is one part of a solution, phased retirement is another.

It's a structural issue, not a demographic one.

In fact i read an article saying the world population may have hit it's peak. Good thing if true, the Earth can only handle so many people.

People are waiting to have children at a later age, having fewer children, some decide not to have children, the number of elderly are high (meaning the death rate is going to continue to rise in the coming years), and the cost of raising kids is a concern here (although it's not quite as expensive as it is in Japan).

Other similarities are that both countries are also small (in terms of land mass), have very few natural resources, and rely heavily on technology for their economies.

It will be interesting to see the strategies put forward by both countries. Certainly all hope isn't lost yet, but Japan and Korea do need to figure out how to turn the decline around.

They'll get through. I'm sure they expected this. Sounds like great news for their countries natural resources. I worry about India which will become the worlds most populous country this century, not the ones in decline like Japan and most of Europe.

I'll cross-post this here for those of you that are interested. It is discussing the spending on Korean weddings and the trend toward being more frugal as people get married later in life.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12502618

Back in high school a couple of my teachers (economics and sociology) said that the United States was going to reach zero population growth in the next few decades along with some other advanced countries.

From what I saw the highest areas of population growth are in Africa.

The birthrate might go to zero, but most immigrants are younger and they will also have kids.
Russia is also having the same problem, because no one wants to migrate there.

As nations develop birth rates decline.

As for Japan, its been around for a long, long time.

The Jōmon period (縄文時代 Jōmon jidai?) is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 12,000 BC[1] and in some cases cited as early as 14,500 BC[2] to about 300 BC, when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dmon_period

Decreased population is better for the earth and environment