Good points. All economies have a lot of fluff, but yeah, it would be exciting if the shrinking workforce meant a focus on optimizing the productivity of indiv

Good points. All economies have a lot of fluff, but yeah, it would be exciting if the shrinking workforce meant a focus on optimizing the productivity of individual workers, while the country doesn't have to deal with unemployment at the same time. Really the only issue is the short period of time in the immediate future of providing current levels of welfare to the large elderly population with a much smaller still-inefficient younger workforce facing the burden of doing so. It's possible if they figure out a good short term solution, it could put Japan into a lean diet that is really good for it in the long-run. However they also run the risk of suffering some serious long-term economic damage if this rough patch doesn't go well. Way too many things can go wrong -- if the young decide to also ditch the workforce and rely on state welfare while it lasts, or are not supported enough, or the focus goes too heavily on making babies and not on optimizing economic output, etc.