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Japan, Short on Babies, Reaches a Worrisome Milestone
- themgt 9y ago'Official efforts to encourage women to have more children have had only modest results, and there is little public support for large-scale immigration — something that has helped to stabilize populations in other wealthy countries with low birthrates. ... “A lot of the things we’re used to in Japan are really products of an era of population growth, like single-breadwinner families and mandatory retirement ages,” said Takaaki Tahara, research director at the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training. “The mind-set will have to change.”' If "the things we're used to" are products of an era of population growth and impossible without it (even with a steady-state population size), then we're basically admitting those aspects were dependent on a ponzi scheme. Might as well let developed countries populations level off, for a number of reasons.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- uptown 9y agoI don't buy into everything in this ZeroHedge post, but there's some interesting data regarding birthrate trends in the United States and elsewhere, and its impact on the economy: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-24/why-next-recession-will-morph-decades-long-depressionary-event-or-worse http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-24/why-next-recession-...
- xiaoma 9y agoIt's mildly concerning considering that Europe, Japan and especially China will be facing a more extreme inverted age pyramid than the US 20 years from now. India won't, but it's already straining under the weight of its considerable population. 20 years is a long time though, especially given how much work is getting automated.
- collyw 9y agoWhat exactly is being automated? Cars to an extent, but I don't see a great deal else. Supermarkets got automatic checkouts a while ago, yet the majority are still normal staffed ones. The airline industry has been pretty far ahead of the game in terms of automation, yet still needs a lot of staff.
- uptown 9y agoThis post has some good data on that topic: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-jobs-automation-risk/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-jobs-automation-risk...
- xiaoma 9y agoWhen's the last time you used a travel agent? How about a stock broker? Both were ubiquitous 20 years ago and not uncommon 10 years ago. Both have now been nearly automated away.
- mixedCase 9y agoI see there's talks of pensions being an issue and the only solution as having more babies or importing more people. Why aren't there any talks of social security reform? We all know social security is a state-sanctioned Ponzi scheme; one that, like all Ponzi schemes, works fine as long as the newer investors are putting more money than the older ones. Now, in a stable or shrinking population that is going to be a lot harder to accomplish to put it mildly. As far as I can see, it's the perfect time to stop perpetuating the problem given that their economy is still in good shape.
- scarmig 9y ago"We all know" Social security is about as far from a Ponzi scheme as you can get. That don't mean state pensions never have problems, but in principle you can always balance expenditures with revenue.
- mixedCase 9y agoIf the scheme completely falls down without new investors, and the solution to having fewer investors than expected is to reduce the payout, I don't see how it isn't just a Ponzi scheme with extra steps. As an anecdote, I've tried to search opinions disagreeing with me, looking for an explanation on how SS isn't a Ponzi scheme; but the all the arguments I've found boil down to "it has worked so far", "it is well-intentioned" and "people investing into it are not being intentionally misled". Without having most people lose money on their investment (by dying earlier than the projected age when calculating pension), I fail to see how it can work out as anything else than a pyramid scheme.
- scarmig 9y agoPonzi schemes, by definition, collapse at the end: each stage of "investors" have to be exponentially larger than the previous, and there's only so many people that can be involved before it becomes impossible to reproduce the next stage. The majority of participants get nothing, for that reason. State pensions don't work like this. Even in disadvantageous demographic situations, the majority of people get something comparable to what they put in. Even in the most aged populations you don't go from X to 0; you go from X to (1 - c)X, where c is relatively small; that is, much closer to 0 than to 1.
- bluthru 9y agoAn economy depending on population growth is incompatible with physics. If we care about climate change we should want every country to have a population decline until we can live within our carbon means.
- colechristensen 9y agoThe universe is a big place. Moving to other planets isn't only reasonable, people are planning for it. Sustained growth is possible.
- serhei 9y agoUntil you have hard data on how people born and raised in <40% Earth gravity turn out, moving to other planets is only a possibility, not something you can plan for.
- cellis 9y agoAlso, with new technologies like CRISPR, AI, and bionics (and beyond) will we soon dramatically alter fundamentally what it means to be human? Perhaps on a unit basis our future selves will be far more resource efficient.
- dangerlibrary 9y agoThere is nothing reasonable about moving to Mars - a place where the average temperature is -55C and there is no breathable atmosphere. Imagine such a place on earth, and now imagine trying to sell a home there to someone. We may, one day, colonize other planets. But we evolved specifically to exist on this one. Each new environment will likely take centuries, if not millenia, to properly colonize. The fact that it is theoretically possible for a comically tiny fraction of Earth's population to eke out a hardscrabble, miserable life on other planets should not impact policy decisions on terra firma.
- yourapostasy 9y agoAnytime I see talk of mass colonization as part of a solution to overpopulation, I direct people to Charles Stross' discussion about the infeasibility of doing so [1] [2]. The TL;DR is: until we find a breakthrough like cheap anti-gravity (like depicted in Interstellar), moving that much sheer mass of humanity is energetically (with the required specific impulse) not within our civilization's current capabilities. [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... [2] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/space-cadets.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/space-ca...
- raz32dust 9y agoCould this end up being a blessing in disguise? I know traditional theory says that more people => more productivity => bigger economy. But with no people to produce anything, Japan might be forced to lead the world in AI adoption simply because there is no other way. While US or China might be leading in AI technology, they will face severe pushback because of displacement of jobs. Japan on the other hand might actually require general purpose AI to do daily chores. It could be the first big market for general purpose human-level intelligence robots and all the problems it brings.
- muninn_ 9y agoAgreed. #of people becomes a liability when you start losing jobs and not being able to replace them.
- netheril96 9y agoI am under the impression that IT industry is far less active in Japan than US and China. While more old people may demand more automation, more old people also breed more conservatism, hampering the adoption and development of new technology.
- zanny 9y agoThis is something I never heard of thought of in the context of aging populations but it sounds true. It builds a self perpetuating cycle - if the population pyramid leans older, it leans more conservative, which drives an agenda that limits volatility and thus innovation, which can stagnate an economy that can constrict reproduction if there isn't enough prosperity to justify having children.
- jfoster 9y agoSoftbank bought Boston Dynamics from Google recently under a $93 billion fund they have. Japan certainly has a domestic tech industry, but perhaps not much of an international one.
- marak830 9y ago(first off yes this is just one data point, second I'm an Aussie married to a Japanese woman living in Japan for around 5 years now), I am amazed at how much my wife's grandparents use and embrace technology. They have smartphones and recently we have been looking into a few different robot assistants(grandpa is on permanent oxygen tanks and grandma recently broke her hip, so movement is becoming restricted). Of course this isn't all seniors here, but I do see a lot more tech used casually among an older crowd that I saw in Australia. (They are both 93 btw).
- therealdrag0 9y agoSeems like a completely valid social trajectory. I don't get why it is considered so grim. > "The government has taken steps to keep older workers in their jobs longer, and to encourage companies to invest in automation." > "Individual Japanese will not necessarily be poorer just because the economy is smaller." Sure there will be shrinking pains, but it doesn't seem like a catastrophe. Seems like it will ease more responsible use of our space and environment.
- tanilama 9y agoYoung are fewer and fewer, there will be few tax income to pay pension to the old people, thus, the government either slash the pension or raise tax. And it is death spiral anyway. Japan's good days are indeed numbered. The breakpoint will come, and I would predict an huge exdous of young people leaving Japan, because they don't want to spend their whole life working for older generation then finding there will be no one for themselves.
- mistermann 9y agoBut where will they go as the same thing will be happening to most western countries as their tax base is hollowed out due to the failure of largely trust based basis of their taxation systems, and as more and more economic activity has moved overseas or under the table, and profits stored outside the formal system?
- tanilama 9y agoThere will be countries that will die later.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoJapan has eschewed immigration in favor of population decline. It'll be interesting seeing how this plays out compared to how the rest of the world is handling an influx of Muslim immigrants.
- bluthru 9y ago>Up to three quarters of Germany’s refugees will still be unemployed in five years’ time, according to a government minister, in a stark admission of the challenges the country faces in integrating its huge migrant population. >Aydan Özoğuz, commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, told the Financial Times that only a quarter to a third of the newcomers would enter the labour market over the next five years, and “for many others we will need up to 10”. https://www.ft.com/content/022de0a4-54f4-11e7-9fed-c19e2700005f?mhq5j=e3 https://www.ft.com/content/022de0a4-54f4-11e7-9fed-c19e27000...
- mistermann 9y agoOr skyrocketing housing prices and disappearing tax base from Chinese immigrants.
- medymed 9y agoThe argument to increase immigration seems like a quick-fix for countries poised to become elderly-heavy, but when those immigrants are uneducated and most likely to perform jobs that will be automated away in 15-20 years (and face enormous linguistic barriers to participate in e.g. japanese society), such immigrants may be as much or more long-term dependents as they would have previously been assets in labor-heavy economies. Weathering the geriatric storm for a generation or two until a new and lower post-industrial carrying capacity is reached could be a smoother long term social and economic proposition for such countries, especially if they aren't immigrant-friendly already.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoThe problem is in the future, and those uneducated immigrants will have college aged kids in the time frame you mention. They will have the resources needed to develop this automated society, and the automation of labor makes being a dependent less of an issue.
- ythn 9y agoAlso Japan is xenophobic so such a solution would never fly anyway
- bluthru 9y agoNations are more than identity-less economic zones.
- justboxing 9y agoSaying "Japan is xenophobic" is perhaps a poor choice of words, but why the downvotes?? Even if Japanese Citizens are welcoming of and friendly towards foreigners, Japan as a Country is quite well known for it's strict immigration policy. > Discrimination in Japan is based on nationality. Guest workers are not considered true immigrants, and their children and grandchildren are often seen as outsiders because of the absence of birthright citizenship. Employers tend to treat them as foreigners. Source: Immigration Is Tough for Japan, But it's the solution for population loss. => https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-07/immigration-is-a-tough-one-for-japan-to-swallow https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-07/immigrati... and > Call it an opportunity, maybe, but don’t call it work. Legally, the time Ms. Liu spent ironing and packing women’s wear in Japan is considered “training.” She had entered the murky and at times abusive world of Japan’s technical trainees — essentially second-class laborers brought in from abroad to fill jobs that Japanese citizens aren’t taking. Source: Japan Limited Immigration; Now It’s Short of Workers => https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/business/japan-immigrants-workers-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/business/japan-immigrants...
- hugh4life 9y agoHere are a couple things I think societies struggling with birth rates should try. 1. Provide for the full costs of IVF and egg donation for non-fertile women up to age 50 and letting that fact be well known and encouraged. 2. Promote platonic co-parenting relationships for those in their 30s.
- mistermann 9y agoCreated some sort of supervised babysitting by seniors service in old folks homes, largely free childcare (most western countries have a childcare crisis at the moment) and a MUCH happier and fulfilling retirement for seniors.
- getpost 9y agoPhilip Longman explained why depopulation is a problem in this 2004 Long Now lecture[0]. One of the main issues is that infrastructure and social spending is implemented as a pyramid scheme (he didn't put it quite that way IIRC). If you don't have an expanding population, you can't pay for all the programs that have been enacted. Of course, population can not expand indefinitely and there's no political will to avoid passing financial burdens to future generations. [0] http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/aug/13/the-depopulation-problem/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/aug/13/the-depopulation-pr...
- jfoster 9y agoWhat's driving this? Why is it happening in Japan, but not other places?
- hn_throwaway_99 9y agoIt is happening other places (check out lots of countries in Eastern Europe). Making it worse in Japan is their aversion to immigration (as pointed out in the article), and the cultural forces that make Japan extremely unfriendly to working mothers.
- reustle 9y agoOne thing I noticed here in Japan that is sort of related is the lack of reasonable access to birth control control. You need to go to a doctor/ clinic to get the pills, and they are not exactly cheap. That is hurdle 1. Even worse is the morning after pill / emergency pill. You must go to a doctor/clinic for that as well and it costs $200 usd. They definitely make it scarier / more difficult to have sex here.
- collyw 9y agoThere are other options for birth control.