11 ms·

Japan's population is falling faster than ever before

57 points by artsandsci 9y ago

wintyfreshhh 9y ago
The article describes a 0.2% annual loss. Is that so bad?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aplusplus 9y ago
  Good Article on that: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/learning-love-stagnation http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/learning-love-s... "In his 2014 book Bending Adversity, Pilling grapples with the cognitive dissonance at the heart of 21st-century Japan: is it a harbinger of global stagnation? Or is it a model of global sustainability? In the book’s most-quoted passage, a British MP, on arriving in Tokyo in the early 2000s and surveying its lively environs, is reported to have said: “If this is a recession, I want one.”
- muninn_ 9y ago
  I think it's good. We don't need more people on the planet. We need to build sustainable populations and economic models. Growth! Growth! Growth! isn't needed right now. It probably won't be needed unless/until we move people to live on Mars.
  - topspin 9y ago
    Growth is the very thing that is needed; prosperity stops population growth. The pattern is clear; nations that have enjoyed high rates of development through "Growth!" (US, most of W. Europe, Japan, etc.) have stabilized their population. Nations that have not continue grow their population, at excessive levels in some cases. Hating on "Growth!", while fashionable, is exactly the wrong approach.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      So following this reasoning, the entire continent of Africa, most of Asia, and most of South America should have massive amounts of people so they can reach prosperity? Sorry. Not buying it. Growth is an ok thing as it happens, but as populations increase demand for resources such as land and water produce pressures that only get worse with more people. There's a reason you can sell a parking spot in Hong Kong for half a million dollars but can buy a lot of land in Canada or something for next to nothing. China was wrong to stop the 1-child policy. I'd like to see it implemented globally. Along with that I'd like to far reduce immigration to the United States (I'm just using the US as an example since I currently live here) as I don't want to see the population continue to grow. In the long run, population growth is good for me as a property owner and somebody with wealth, as prices on things like water and homes won't affect me, but I'm not selfish and I want people to not have to struggle to obtain basic resources or housing.
      - EliRivers 9y ago
        So following this reasoning, the entire continent of Africa, most of Asia, and most of South America should have massive amounts of people so they can reach prosperity? I don't think that's what topspin said. Topspin said prosperity stops population growth. Topspin did not say that population growth causes prosperity. "Growth!", as topspin puts it, is not the same thing as population growth. it's my understanding that as peoples become richer, they have fewer children [1]. That's the cause and effect I believe Topspin was highlighting. Having fewer children does not cause a people to become rich. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
        muninn_ 9y ago
        Sure. I didn't interpret it that way but that's fine. I still think we need fewer people and we really need to find a way to get something like the 1-child policy reimplemented in high growth areas. Especially if we're going to sit on our hands with respect to global warming. An increase in the number of people leads to an increase in the consumption of resources. Unless we're adding more people that produce more resources than they consume, we're causing a problem with a sustainable civilization. We need lower numbers of people concentrated in different areas, and much more of the planet returned to nature and to be used for mining, natural parks, sustainable farming, and entertainment (skiing etc...). Going to the national parks is already getting more difficult each year. Home prices aren't going to go down unless something bad happens, as more people move in. The price of water is already artificially low. I could go on and on. And to add, it's a problem that wealthy people aren't having children, because they are in the best position to educate and provide for them.
  - gorkonsine 9y ago
    I actually disagree a little bit. I think too many people could possibly drive demand for more development in space. Instead of Mars, what we really should be doing is mining the Moon and the asteroids, and building gigantic rotating space stations. Theoretically, we could house a nearly infinite number of people that way, with artificial habitats optimized for human living unlike the planet we're on now. Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually getting wiped out somehow.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      > Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually getting wiped out somehow. I understand the population piece, but I don't understand the cultural piece. Japan has stagnated, and it's clearly culturally vibrant. On the other hand, the United States brings in immigrants and is growing, yet I'm constantly scolded and reminded that I have no culture since I'm just a white person. Oh, and back to the population piece. We're approaching 8 billion. How do you feel about, say, 3-4 billion? I mean, it seems like that's a pretty good number of people to get things done. We'd have less people doing menial work (or not working) and we'd have more essential and necessary work, wouldn't we?
tcbawo 9y ago
Are there any studies of the effect of falling population on the capitalistic model? It seems that much of our assumptions about the incentives of inflation, interest rates, etc. presume a slowly increasing population.
- polskibus 9y ago
  I'm also interested in this topic. Most European countries, esp. the new EU members have very bad demographic outlook. I'm really interested in what may happen next.
- nugget 9y ago
  As another comment points out, GDP can increase even as population declines, thanks to robotics and automation which make each worker more efficient. Demand for real estate (housing) is the wild card -- does it fall broadly (as one would expect) or does it bifurcate into desirable urban areas (where prices continue to rise) and undesirable rural areas (where prices continue to fall)? In other words, even as absolute population shrinks and there is theoretically more room, do the remaining people spend all their resources trying to crowd into the same dense urban areas? So many other industries key off of housing that this, to me, seems like the cornerstone question to answer when predicting what the future economy looks like.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- autokad 9y ago
  i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow. I imagine it like this, say everyone but you died. you'd have all sorts of crap, you would virtually have anything you wanted. but with no people to make food, stuff, medicine, keep things running, eventually you have virtually nothing. I have always believed the great depression was the result of a population decline from ww1 and Spanish flue that lead to the roaring 20s, followed by a bust that was only put to a close by the end of ww2
  - 9y ago
neilwilson 9y ago
And yet GDP per head continues to grow. Funny that isn't it. It's almost like the Japanese have invested in robotic automation, high quality public infrastructure and using older people to best advantage.
- burkaman 9y ago
  Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks? Why do you say "and yet"? The top 10 countries by GDP per capita are all small or tiny.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    You would only expect that if the shrinkage is entirely in non-productive members of the population -- unemployed, retired, etc. If population is shrinking at random, you would expect the GDP to also drop at a similar rate as productive members are removed.
    - koolba 9y ago
      Who said it's random? Productive people earn more and earning more is correlated with longer life.
      - jdmichal 9y ago
        I certainly didn't, if that's your implication. Population decline due to low birth rate is mostly going to be on the tailing end of population age. You would expect tailing-end losses should generally skew towards retired non-productive members. However, that's not the only way to get population losses. Epidemics would be probably be skewed on economic indicators -- Lower class -> higher density -> higher infection rate. War would be skewed towards younger ages -- recruited soldiers in that 18-25 bracket that are on the front lines. Different causes will have differing effects on the population and different expected effects on GDP. You can't just generalize it to, "Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks?" Which is what the original comment I replied to did.
xbmcuser 9y ago
Most Western countries would have gone the same route if not for immigration and high birth rates amoung immigrants. Last month US birthrate fell below replacement rate despite immigrants if you take out immigrants us population is also declining.
neiwikl 9y ago
Why is that bad? Should population on earth increase indefinitely? We are already too many. What about overpopulation? I also take a declining population over mass immigration, it has teared my country apart.
- pishpash 9y ago
  Declining population and deflation and abundance and no work are not bad at all. They are just bad for capital.
  - notadoc 9y ago
    Deflation is the endless terrifying boogieman of economists and academics and drives the constant obsession with creating inflation by central banks. Prices coming down? Oh dear, we can't possibly have that!
    - Osiris 9y ago
      I used to think that also until I studied economics in college. If you don't understand how deflation can be a bad thing, I suggest spending some time reading up on it. Deflation isn't just about prices drop while all else remains equal.
      - grillvogel 9y ago
        why don't you enlighten us?
        AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        I'll take a stab at it. In a real deflation, prices fall. That's wonderful (unless you're selling). Then wages fall, which is less wonderful, but (I think) they don't usually fall more than prices do. The problem is, your mortgage doesn't fall. Neither do the payments on any other debt you owe. They stayed at a constant number of dollars, but each dollar is now worth more. So your mortgage payment, for example, becomes a bigger fraction of your paycheck. If you have debt when deflation happens, it can crush you. Then you have the second-order effects. People go bankrupt, and their creditors sell off their assets. Or people sell assets, trying to avoid bankruptcy. In either case, the supply (of many things) increases, due to people trying to get what they can. This drives prices down. So we get more deflation, which puts even more people in a pinch, so even more people sell what they can...
notadoc 9y ago
The same demographic trend is projected to hit the USA if the USA doesn't negate it with immigration. Really the entire industrialized modern world has shrinking or stagnant population growth. Educated people are having less children (if any) and later in life.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- thriftwy 9y ago
  You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? Immigrants are going to retire too, and when they do, you're stuck with even more old people and still not enough working-age people for modern economy to function. Immigration is like going into debt to sustain quality of life. Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would make for a miserable sight. Edit: Is the idea to sustain the ever growing population anyway? Until what?
  - notadoc 9y ago
    > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can. > Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would make for a miserable sight. That describes a huge number of native elderly in the USA too. Most elderly rely on social security entirely.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      I'm not sure that illegals can claim Social Security, though.
    - solidsnack9000 9y ago
      > > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? > Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can. Not forever, though -- eventually everyone will immigrate.
- ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
pyroinferno 9y ago
This is not a bad thing considering how overpopulated Japan is.
- intopieces 9y ago
  Over populated? By what metric? Looking at a list of country by population density, Japan barely cracks the top 40: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_popul...

57 points by artsandsci 9y ago

wintyfreshhh 9y ago

The article describes a 0.2% annual loss. Is that so bad?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aplusplus 9y ago
Good Article on that: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/learning-love-stagnation http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/learning-love-s... "In his 2014 book Bending Adversity, Pilling grapples with the cognitive dissonance at the heart of 21st-century Japan: is it a harbinger of global stagnation? Or is it a model of global sustainability? In the book’s most-quoted passage, a British MP, on arriving in Tokyo in the early 2000s and surveying its lively environs, is reported to have said: “If this is a recession, I want one.”
muninn_ 9y ago
I think it's good. We don't need more people on the planet. We need to build sustainable populations and economic models. Growth! Growth! Growth! isn't needed right now. It probably won't be needed unless/until we move people to live on Mars.
- topspin 9y ago
  Growth is the very thing that is needed; prosperity stops population growth. The pattern is clear; nations that have enjoyed high rates of development through "Growth!" (US, most of W. Europe, Japan, etc.) have stabilized their population. Nations that have not continue grow their population, at excessive levels in some cases. Hating on "Growth!", while fashionable, is exactly the wrong approach.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    So following this reasoning, the entire continent of Africa, most of Asia, and most of South America should have massive amounts of people so they can reach prosperity? Sorry. Not buying it. Growth is an ok thing as it happens, but as populations increase demand for resources such as land and water produce pressures that only get worse with more people. There's a reason you can sell a parking spot in Hong Kong for half a million dollars but can buy a lot of land in Canada or something for next to nothing. China was wrong to stop the 1-child policy. I'd like to see it implemented globally. Along with that I'd like to far reduce immigration to the United States (I'm just using the US as an example since I currently live here) as I don't want to see the population continue to grow. In the long run, population growth is good for me as a property owner and somebody with wealth, as prices on things like water and homes won't affect me, but I'm not selfish and I want people to not have to struggle to obtain basic resources or housing.
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      So following this reasoning, the entire continent of Africa, most of Asia, and most of South America should have massive amounts of people so they can reach prosperity? I don't think that's what topspin said. Topspin said prosperity stops population growth. Topspin did not say that population growth causes prosperity. "Growth!", as topspin puts it, is not the same thing as population growth. it's my understanding that as peoples become richer, they have fewer children [1]. That's the cause and effect I believe Topspin was highlighting. Having fewer children does not cause a people to become rich. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
      - muninn_ 9y ago
        Sure. I didn't interpret it that way but that's fine. I still think we need fewer people and we really need to find a way to get something like the 1-child policy reimplemented in high growth areas. Especially if we're going to sit on our hands with respect to global warming. An increase in the number of people leads to an increase in the consumption of resources. Unless we're adding more people that produce more resources than they consume, we're causing a problem with a sustainable civilization. We need lower numbers of people concentrated in different areas, and much more of the planet returned to nature and to be used for mining, natural parks, sustainable farming, and entertainment (skiing etc...). Going to the national parks is already getting more difficult each year. Home prices aren't going to go down unless something bad happens, as more people move in. The price of water is already artificially low. I could go on and on. And to add, it's a problem that wealthy people aren't having children, because they are in the best position to educate and provide for them.
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  I actually disagree a little bit. I think too many people could possibly drive demand for more development in space. Instead of Mars, what we really should be doing is mining the Moon and the asteroids, and building gigantic rotating space stations. Theoretically, we could house a nearly infinite number of people that way, with artificial habitats optimized for human living unlike the planet we're on now. Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually getting wiped out somehow.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    > Population stagnation could potentially lead to worldwide cultural stagnation, which would result in humans never getting off the planet and eventually getting wiped out somehow. I understand the population piece, but I don't understand the cultural piece. Japan has stagnated, and it's clearly culturally vibrant. On the other hand, the United States brings in immigrants and is growing, yet I'm constantly scolded and reminded that I have no culture since I'm just a white person. Oh, and back to the population piece. We're approaching 8 billion. How do you feel about, say, 3-4 billion? I mean, it seems like that's a pretty good number of people to get things done. We'd have less people doing menial work (or not working) and we'd have more essential and necessary work, wouldn't we?

tcbawo 9y ago

Are there any studies of the effect of falling population on the capitalistic model? It seems that much of our assumptions about the incentives of inflation, interest rates, etc. presume a slowly increasing population.

polskibus 9y ago
I'm also interested in this topic. Most European countries, esp. the new EU members have very bad demographic outlook. I'm really interested in what may happen next.
nugget 9y ago
As another comment points out, GDP can increase even as population declines, thanks to robotics and automation which make each worker more efficient. Demand for real estate (housing) is the wild card -- does it fall broadly (as one would expect) or does it bifurcate into desirable urban areas (where prices continue to rise) and undesirable rural areas (where prices continue to fall)? In other words, even as absolute population shrinks and there is theoretically more room, do the remaining people spend all their resources trying to crowd into the same dense urban areas? So many other industries key off of housing that this, to me, seems like the cornerstone question to answer when predicting what the future economy looks like.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
autokad 9y ago
i have always theorized that a population decline first yields a boom, and then a strangling almost impossible to end bust to follow. I imagine it like this, say everyone but you died. you'd have all sorts of crap, you would virtually have anything you wanted. but with no people to make food, stuff, medicine, keep things running, eventually you have virtually nothing. I have always believed the great depression was the result of a population decline from ww1 and Spanish flue that lead to the roaring 20s, followed by a bust that was only put to a close by the end of ww2
- 9y ago

neilwilson 9y ago

And yet GDP per head continues to grow. Funny that isn't it. It's almost like the Japanese have invested in robotic automation, high quality public infrastructure and using older people to best advantage.

burkaman 9y ago
Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks? Why do you say "and yet"? The top 10 countries by GDP per capita are all small or tiny.
- jdmichal 9y ago
  You would only expect that if the shrinkage is entirely in non-productive members of the population -- unemployed, retired, etc. If population is shrinking at random, you would expect the GDP to also drop at a similar rate as productive members are removed.
  - koolba 9y ago
    Who said it's random? Productive people earn more and earning more is correlated with longer life.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      I certainly didn't, if that's your implication. Population decline due to low birth rate is mostly going to be on the tailing end of population age. You would expect tailing-end losses should generally skew towards retired non-productive members. However, that's not the only way to get population losses. Epidemics would be probably be skewed on economic indicators -- Lower class -> higher density -> higher infection rate. War would be skewed towards younger ages -- recruited soldiers in that 18-25 bracket that are on the front lines. Different causes will have differing effects on the population and different expected effects on GDP. You can't just generalize it to, "Wouldn't you expect GDP per capita to grow as population shrinks?" Which is what the original comment I replied to did.

xbmcuser 9y ago

Most Western countries would have gone the same route if not for immigration and high birth rates amoung immigrants. Last month US birthrate fell below replacement rate despite immigrants if you take out immigrants us population is also declining.

neiwikl 9y ago

Why is that bad? Should population on earth increase indefinitely? We are already too many. What about overpopulation? I also take a declining population over mass immigration, it has teared my country apart.

pishpash 9y ago
Declining population and deflation and abundance and no work are not bad at all. They are just bad for capital.
- notadoc 9y ago
  Deflation is the endless terrifying boogieman of economists and academics and drives the constant obsession with creating inflation by central banks. Prices coming down? Oh dear, we can't possibly have that!
  - Osiris 9y ago
    I used to think that also until I studied economics in college. If you don't understand how deflation can be a bad thing, I suggest spending some time reading up on it. Deflation isn't just about prices drop while all else remains equal.
    - grillvogel 9y ago
      why don't you enlighten us?
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        I'll take a stab at it. In a real deflation, prices fall. That's wonderful (unless you're selling). Then wages fall, which is less wonderful, but (I think) they don't usually fall more than prices do. The problem is, your mortgage doesn't fall. Neither do the payments on any other debt you owe. They stayed at a constant number of dollars, but each dollar is now worth more. So your mortgage payment, for example, becomes a bigger fraction of your paycheck. If you have debt when deflation happens, it can crush you. Then you have the second-order effects. People go bankrupt, and their creditors sell off their assets. Or people sell assets, trying to avoid bankruptcy. In either case, the supply (of many things) increases, due to people trying to get what they can. This drives prices down. So we get more deflation, which puts even more people in a pinch, so even more people sell what they can...

notadoc 9y ago

The same demographic trend is projected to hit the USA if the USA doesn't negate it with immigration. Really the entire industrialized modern world has shrinking or stagnant population growth. Educated people are having less children (if any) and later in life.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thriftwy 9y ago
You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? Immigrants are going to retire too, and when they do, you're stuck with even more old people and still not enough working-age people for modern economy to function. Immigration is like going into debt to sustain quality of life. Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would make for a miserable sight. Edit: Is the idea to sustain the ever growing population anyway? Until what?
- notadoc 9y ago
  > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can. > Worse yet, you can end up with "illegal" elderly with zero savings. That would make for a miserable sight. That describes a huge number of native elderly in the USA too. Most elderly rely on social security entirely.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    I'm not sure that illegals can claim Social Security, though.
  - solidsnack9000 9y ago
    > > You can't really negate it with immigration, can you? > Well from a purely numerical standpoint, yes you can. Not forever, though -- eventually everyone will immigrate.
ZoeZoeBee 9y ago

pyroinferno 9y ago

This is not a bad thing considering how overpopulated Japan is.

intopieces 9y ago
Over populated? By what metric? Looking at a list of country by population density, Japan barely cracks the top 40: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_popul...