19 ms·

Japan's population falls by record 644,000 to 125.5M in 2021

147 points by cryoz 4y ago

dominotw 4y ago
- ryan93 4y ago
  Explain
  - dominotw 4y ago
    why do we need billions and billions of people on the planet. Can we let other species and forests breathe for a little bit. any decline is great great news, warms my heart.
    - solarhoma 4y ago
      I truly disagree with this statement. I do not think a blanket ‘any decline is good’ is a morally and worldly positive attitude to have.
    - ryan93 4y ago
      Lol while you enjoy the immense wealth that comes with a growing population
kadomony 4y ago
I think it's about time their government stopped perpetuating their desire for ethnic purity and start letting some skilled workers in. I can name about every friend on my fingers that wants to live over there instead of the cutthroat, poorly run USA. And these are people learning the language, too.
- solarhoma 4y ago
  What is the government doing to create a desire within the population to start a family and have children?
  - kadomony 4y ago
    It's a complex mess of lots of factors. Economically, the CPI is extremely resistant to change over there. Companies apologize for raising prices by even a few pennies. Nationally controlled zoning practices keep residential buildings high in supply, and they're not treated as investments like a home in the US is, so a house will become worth nearly nothing in 30 years' time. Obviously, there are pros and cons to this. Cheap housing, but no transfer of wealth to later generations through housing. Even if your parents die, the estate they leave you is subject to a death tax, so you lose even more of what wealth they might have built for you. I think the biggest factor to do with the decrease in birth rates is that school and work are so demanding over there. People can't relax well enough unless they find themselves in the graceful employment of western-style companies. Not everyone is a salaryman, but enough that it makes family life challenging. Aside from that, you've also got the brain drain of urbanization, where most rural villages are outright dying as people migrate to Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto/Fukuoka. All this said, I'd still live there in a heartbeat. You will never live in a more affordable, safe, convenient city as Tokyo. No other city even comes close.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      > I'd still live there in a heartbeat Do you live there? Why not?
      - kadomony 4y ago
        It's funny and a bit of a sore subject that you ask. I'm currently waiting on a final offer and COE (for a visa) from a startup founder in Nagano whose company might be imploding right now. I've learned the language, and I have the skills (product design) to live there, but it's very hard to break in unless you're already over there. Many people will take a crap English teaching job to land there and then interview on that visa to land a job in their desired sector, but knowing the language is crucial. This kind of visa abuse is also highly frowned upon. So, who knows. I might still end up where I want to work in time, but right now it's been crickets between emails with the founder.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I am Italian and live in Italy (after ~13 years abroad). Both Italy and Japan are in the worst possible position, in terms of aging population, than any other "non-small" developed nation. Some projections from the national statistic institute (ISTAT), which I cannot find online right now, project ~50M people by 2050, down ~10M from current levels.
- aaomidi 4y ago
  Eh honestly this is probably for the best considering Japan is probably not best suited for handling climate change impacts on their country.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    Because they're an island nation? Perfectly suited for clean energy from e.g. offshore wind and advanced fission with passive afterglow heat removal systems.
    - aaomidi 4y ago
      Weather events like typhoons.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  This is a challenging transition that all countries should prepare for and debate how to handle. But ultimately this is good news. Population cannot keep increasing and evidence is that it is unsustainably high now. So Less pressure on the environment, more space, hopefully increased productivity and wealth per capital (by harnessing automation). Japan specifically is overcrowded (coubtry is not that big and most of it is actually montains with people crowded in coastal plains), so this is an opportunity to increase individuals' quality of life.
  - 4y ago
pavlov 4y ago
Japan has been closed to both tourists and immigrants for over two years. That’s bound to have an effect on population growth. Some tourists always end up staying and contributing to population growth: meet a local, get married, the usual.
- yakak 4y ago
  That sounds incredibly hard in Japan. I would think a lot more dual nationality marriages take the Japanese citizen abroad.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    It’s the reverse. The majority of the couples live in Japan. The most common origin of the foreign spouse is from China (where naturalization is much more difficult if not impossible), followed by Korea and the Philippines (where there are fewer job opportunities).
- phreack 4y ago
  And with no roadmap to reopen for the rest of the year at least, and considering they've always treated immigrants and descendants of immigrants a second class citizens, it does look like they just don't want foreigners at all and not because of health concerns.
  - aidog 4y ago
    First tour groups will be allowed in next month, so that's outdated
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - alephnan 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku > And with no roadmap to reopen for the rest of the year at least The PM just indicated otherwise this week. > don't want foreigners at all and not because of health concerns. Well, the sentiment is that foreigners = don’t wear mask. And don’t wear mask = health concerns. Japanese people will be caught with masks in a middle of the forest with no one around for miles. Most of the Japanese population is vaccinated now, but the vast majority of people don’t wear masks, whereas an order of magnitude more of foreigners disproportionately do not wear masks. https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/uiwit7/getting_tired_of_masks_how_much_longer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/uiwit7/getting_t...
intsunny 4y ago
One issue is Japan's aging voting population cares little for policies that impact younger generations: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/world/asia/japan-election-rural-urban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/world/asia/japan-election... The young have the deck stacked against them and in turn are opting to not have children.
- jquery 4y ago
  >“ In Japan, Rural Voters Count More Than Those in Big Cities. It Shows.” Sounds familiar
  - teakettle42 4y ago
    > Sounds familiar Probably because it’s an effort at narrative building from the NY Times.
    - harry8 4y ago
      Which states matter in deciding the president? How many of those are there? Where are they? Genuine questions, i don't follow it closely at all beyond the news media chatter about the path to the Whitehouse and so on. Agree the NYT is getting worse, more establishment Democrat driven now their supporters are who pays them. There is still enough institutional memory that through the naritive hit pieces there's frequently solid reporting of contradictory facts that totally undermine it in the same story.
      - stjohnswarts 4y ago
        swing states, Pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, nevada, arizona, are some. Florida used to be one but they've gone full on red (boomer population % has increased drastically over the past 20 years). I hope there is a schism in the republican party soon over Roe and other privacy rights that are under attack by the Magas.
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        It’s not so much which states matter. Larger states generally matter more in Presidential elections. Especially large purple states like PA. The problem with Presidential elections is small rural states still have outsize influence via the combination of more EC votes than a population-based count AND winner-take-all elections (51% of the vote in. A state and you get 100% of that states electors) in most states. Turn there’s the Senate. Because it’s not based on population, CA and TX have the same influence as SD and DE. Combine that with arcane super-majority rules and a defective filibuster and it’s a recipe for outright obstruction by the minority party.
akmittal 4y ago
There are so many people from developing countries who desperately want to migrate to a developed country. Indians(specifically from Punjab state) spend their whole life's earning to migrate illegally to US/Canada/Australia. Im not sure why so little people migrate to Japan. Is it the policies or the language?
- d3nj4l 4y ago
  Always incredible when HN's anti-Indian racism comes out from just beneath the surface.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- doikor 4y ago
  Japan has really strict immigration policies and is actually enforcing them (well at least outside of prostitution/trafficking)
  - asdff 4y ago
    IMO this means the demographic problem is nonexistent for japan. If things became critical, all they need to do is loosen immigration policies and there is enough latent demand in the world for citizenship in a stable country that the population can be maintained through immigration.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
      Unless, of course, there were some let's say ideology that would make people chose to uphold restrictions on immigration even if it weren't in the rational interest of the country.
    - SnowHill9902 4y ago
      If immigrants replace Japanese in the country of Japan, is it still Japan?
throwaway_1928 4y ago
Indians are ready to come work for you, Japan. Just say the word.
- kadomony 4y ago
  Unfortunately, Japan is highly racist in their sponsorship of immigrants. They will take white people over other races every time. I'm not happy to recall the treatment I saw Indian tourists receive during my time in Shinjuku.
  - throwaway_1928 4y ago
    In that case, investing in India might be the next best thing [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/japan-pm-kishida-announces-42-billion-investment-india-2022-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/japan-pm-kishida-announc...
    - kadomony 4y ago
      I don't know if this is done in good faith, but perhaps more as a "screw you" to China. India and China don't have the best relations, nor does Japan wish to see that change in the future.
      - throwaway_1928 4y ago
        Any country investing in another does so in their own self interest. The reasons are seldom altruistic.
  - xedrac 4y ago
    I lived in Japan for several years and found most people there to be open and friendly to other races. I had friends from India, Nigeria, China, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Brazil, US and Europe. I don't know that any of them felt particularly discriminated against because of their race. I certainly didn't, except perhaps once when a really old guy tried to hit me with his cane. But that's not to say that it doesn't exist. I just don't think it's rampant everywhere in Japan.
ur-whale 4y ago
The fact that it's a bad thing seems to be implied. But, and in spite of the clear challenges this already does and will create, ultimately, is it really a problem?
- asdff 4y ago
  It is when you structure government funding as its done in most of the world.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  Japan is one of the oldest populations on the planet, getting older. Just about everything in how society runs (in Japan or any other developed economy) assumes that old people get to retire, taken care of by young people. But, this requires a minimum ratio of young to old. Eventually, and Japan may already be getting there, you are putting too much strain on the economy of young people, so they cannot get enough resources to have children of their own, and you enter a downward spiral. You either end up with old people having to work past the time when they can really do so, or old people facing a declining standard of living as there is not enough working population to take care of them.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  "Clear challenges" is somewhat synonymous with "problems". So, yes.
didip 4y ago
Isn’t declining population a government problem? Perhaps it’s ok for the human race to reduce in numbers to help heal the planet? Population reduction is a very strong signal for the government to change its behavior and yet… they still behave the same for decades: long work hours, non-existent immigration policy, lack of support for working women, little job opportunities for young people, etc.
- nine_zeros 4y ago
  You see those stories about labor shortage, doctor shortage, lack of teachers, nurses, 30 min elevator music on phone to talk to someone? Yeah, that is what an ageing society feels like. Only in Japan and Italy, it's 10x worse than other places because they had no immigration for a long time. As we age and population declines more, we will have to assume that basics of society will become dysfunctional as there just aren't any workers to work in those areas anymore.
- nylonstrung 4y ago
  The problem is not degrowth but the transitional economic ramifications of demographics that skew increasingly towards the elderly, decreasing labor force participation rate and GDP while increasing the burden on social services.
- slibhb 4y ago
  The idea that the planet is wounded due to too many people and needs to be "healed" is complete nonsense. We aren't close to carrying capacity. You're taking various complaints ("immigration policy," "no support for women," "people work too much") and connecting them to a totally unrelated phenomenon (declining population). People are not deciding against children for rational reasons. I think it mostly has to do with social atomization. Cultures have always supported marriage and childcare. That's less true around the world. As a result people are getting married less often and having fewer children, often against their own desires.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    > We aren't close to carrying capacity. Yet I have no trust in any governing body that exists when we do.
Server6 4y ago
I've posted this quote before, but still think the concept stands: "There's trilemma facing ageing nations, whereby you can have two of the three: ethnic continuity, a thriving economy or a comfortable lifestyle without the huge stress of mixing child-raising and a modern economy. Israel has sacrificed the latter, Japan has chosen to take the economic hit, while Britain’s leaders have given up its ethnic continuity. But that, alas, was a short-term solution, since young immigrants don’t magically avoid the fate of Father Time any more than the rest of us do."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 4y ago
Is there a sociological reason why Japanese people are not having children at rates that sustain the population?
- gnulinux 4y ago
  Anecdote, but for some people, the question is the opposite, why are people having children? I understand that humans have biological desire to reproduce or some people may have a sense of community that may create the desire to generate nest generations. But for people who don't feel these feelings, making babies sound like extraordinary amount of work for questionable gains. I personally can't ever see myself having children. Just my personal thoughts, this comment is not meant to include any judgement opinion.
  - MadSudaca 4y ago
    It's an interesting idea. Some personalities will only have children if they're forced by circumstances. This was the norm back when contraceptives didn't exist, and cultures (probably out of necessity), structured themselves to compel people to have children. Another interesting idea, is that over the long-term, cultures that allow their members the freedom not to have children, may be overrun peacefully or forcefully by those that don't, or that at least, provide larger incentives to have children. Moreover, again over a long enough time horizon, people's who naturally don't have the inclination to have children, will disappear from the gene pool, making having children (all other things equals) the most common and culturally sensible option.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Yes, I understand that can be one reason. I guess I'm curious if it's the reason. There can be negative economic incentives, cultural norms, lack of infrastructure to support larger child populations, etc. I also know there's a tendency in more developed (or at least wealthier) countries that as they become more prosperous their populations have fewer children. I'm sure there's multiple reasons, but in the US it can be difficult to have children and support them in a single income. Yet at early ages daycare alone can eat into a significant part of someone's takehome salary. That economic equation puts some downward pressure on the # of kids.
soheil 4y ago
Elon Musk has repeatedly said the greatest threat to civilization is population decline [0]. It's such a diametrically opposed narrative compared to what world governments and leaders have been saying over decades now namely that over population is what we should fear. Surely both those statements cannot be true. It seems like the answer is of great importance since potentially the fate of humanity depends on it, yet I seldom see it discussed seriously or at least as seriously as anything else like climate change. [0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1483484932961972227?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1483484932961972227?lang...
- redisman 4y ago
  It’s “only” a problem because all societies and economies are built like a pyramid where the bottom (working age people) is always bigger than the top. It seems like inevitably that is going to invert as countries get richer
  - soheil 4y ago
    Are you assuming as societies get richer and more technologically advanced there is less of a need for labor? Hasn't this myth been busted repeatedly over centuries since the Industrial Revolution?
    - softcactus 4y ago
      I think you are conflating two different ideas. The first being that automation destroys jobs, that has been disproven. But automation does increase productivity to the point of one person being able to do the work of ten or a hundred. Meaning that we don't have scarcity the same way we used to. Logically this increase in productivity would lead to a decrease in working hours-- but as the comment you are replying to says, our economy is a pyramid scheme. We aren't able to fully benefit from the increase in productivity because of the pursuit of infinite growth.
- extant_lifeform 4y ago
  When elon musk or jordan peterson say we are going to run out of people, its a dog whistle for we are going to run out of 'white' people, you know the productive kind?
billfor 4y ago
On a positive note, they will have a bit more space to live in the cities. Apartments tend to be very small and stacked together.
cuttothechase 4y ago
125.5 MM is still a lot of people for a place like Japan with its group of relatively small-ish islands when compared to other places - 350 MM for US and 38 MM for Canada.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- eganist 4y ago
  Their peak looks like it was 128.6 in 2009, and they're at their lowest since 1993. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population I do think the WPR's projection is a little weird though. They see almost no change in the birth rate until about 2078... not sure how they concluded that.
pcrh 4y ago
It appears to be axiomatic that Japan's ageing population is necessarily "a bad thing", and that this can be tackled by immigration. However, Japan's GDP growth is not too different from that of similar OECD countries that have much greater rates of immigration. Many European countries also have similarly ageing populations, but their more relaxed immigration rules don't seem to make a big difference to economic growth. So if Japan's productivity is maintained, I don't really see that a falling population is a major concern. In fact, it could even conceivably have a pay-off in terms of reduced environmental burdens and cheaper housing.
- arroz 4y ago
  The government needs people working so they pay taxes that are used for government benefits, such as retirement
  - tenebrisalietum 4y ago
    Less people = cheaper land = cheaper lots of other things, including housing, food, etc.
    - Tiktaalik 4y ago
      They already can't give away housing in areas of rural Japan that are emptying out. The value of land is socially created. When there's no one around, no economy, etc, it's basically worthless. Japan is rapidly approaching this point. You'll be able to get cheap land if you want to be a weird hermit, but everyone else is going to continue to flood to the cities, the only places where there will remain any sort of economy. Not really sure how or why food would get cheaper with less people. If anything the opposite as it's more expensive to make it locally with less workers available. Less people seems worse all around to me.
      - asdswe 4y ago
      - 4y ago
softcactus 4y ago
I fail to see why this is an issue. What did we expect, for the human population to grow exponentially on a planet of finite resources? The question should not be "how to get birthrates back up" but how to ensure a decent quality of life for the aging population without also compromising the livelihood of the younger generations. Encouraging couples to have kids artificially is a band-aid solution ignoring a larger problem.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  It is an issue because our current capitalistic system is based on infinite growth. Either we change it or suffer the consequences.
  - dismantlethesun 4y ago
    We can keep infinite growth by being continuously clever and developing better technologies, methadologies, and sciences. This is what Japan did and is why their GDP keeps pace with other societies.
  - timst4 4y ago
    Certainly. However it will not change, at least it will not change of its own accord. A Declining birth rate is merely a symptom of cultural anxiety and despair. The post-war generation is enormous and they living longer than any generation ever has. In nearly every developed country they hold the power and the capital, and they are short term focused in every possible way. They plan to drive the bus into the brick wall at full speed to protect the last few minutes they have to enjoy the ride. Articles such as are a thinly veiled demand for fealty. Why aren't you having more children? Why aren't you buying into the world order we created?
    - softcactus 4y ago
      Exactly. If you actually want people to reproduce then the economy should be organized to maximize the fulfillment, comfort, and security of individuals. The real issue is they (our leaders and corporations) need an ever-increasing pool of labor to drive the infinite growth economy that they are heavily invested in.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
timst4 4y ago
Not really surprising. Perpetual growth is a myth, and there is no silver bullet to prevent climate change. Permanent warming and its consequences are now a foregone conclusion. Younger people see the writing on the wall, and birthdates in developed countries will continue to fall. Countries should begin to manage the draw down of population rather than see it as calamity. It will happen either way.
option 4y ago
This should be good - less people, more resources (land, fuel, etc) per person
sonicggg 4y ago
yread 4y ago
Russia lost 1M people last year (they do have a population ~160M so per 100k it's almost the same loss)
- AlexanderDhoore 4y ago
  Being in the same statistical bucket as Russia... Yikes.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  People die at a much younger age in Russia on average though.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    That's starkly apparent looking at population pyramids. Russia's trails off tremendously with age, but has a large young population. Japan's is immensely top-heavy. Russia: https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_russia.png https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_russia.png Japan: https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_japan.png https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_japan.png From: https://www.livepopulation.com/country/russia.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/russia.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/japan.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/japan.html
hungryforcodes 4y ago
No one ever mentions sex when it comes to conversations about declining birthrates in the western world. Its always very abstract discussions (immigration, free personal time, etc) around the main issue. No sex basically means no babies. It seems there is a latent western sexual crises no one wants to talk about.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  No sexual crisis in the west. But there is a reproduction crisis. We have gobs and gobs of sex. What we usually don't have are gobs and gobs of children. Whether that's good or bad I think reasonable people can debate.
  - hungryforcodes 4y ago
    Would love some stats on that to be honest.
  - dwaltrip 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure I saw some stats that people are having less sex.
inawarminister 4y ago
Decent thing is at least in Tokyo, where I live, the fall in population don't really mean anything. There's still children around (not as much as in my home country, but still.) There's still elderly around. All the jobs are full even if they need more. More and more automation is needed. The countryside sure get it really hard though.

147 points by cryoz 4y ago

ryan93 4y ago
Explain
- dominotw 4y ago
  why do we need billions and billions of people on the planet. Can we let other species and forests breathe for a little bit. any decline is great great news, warms my heart.
  - solarhoma 4y ago
    I truly disagree with this statement. I do not think a blanket ‘any decline is good’ is a morally and worldly positive attitude to have.
  - ryan93 4y ago
    Lol while you enjoy the immense wealth that comes with a growing population

I think it's about time their government stopped perpetuating their desire for ethnic purity and start letting some skilled workers in. I can name about every friend on my fingers that wants to live over there instead of the cutthroat, poorly run USA. And these are people learning the language, too.

solarhoma 4y ago
What is the government doing to create a desire within the population to start a family and have children?
- kadomony 4y ago
  It's a complex mess of lots of factors. Economically, the CPI is extremely resistant to change over there. Companies apologize for raising prices by even a few pennies. Nationally controlled zoning practices keep residential buildings high in supply, and they're not treated as investments like a home in the US is, so a house will become worth nearly nothing in 30 years' time. Obviously, there are pros and cons to this. Cheap housing, but no transfer of wealth to later generations through housing. Even if your parents die, the estate they leave you is subject to a death tax, so you lose even more of what wealth they might have built for you. I think the biggest factor to do with the decrease in birth rates is that school and work are so demanding over there. People can't relax well enough unless they find themselves in the graceful employment of western-style companies. Not everyone is a salaryman, but enough that it makes family life challenging. Aside from that, you've also got the brain drain of urbanization, where most rural villages are outright dying as people migrate to Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto/Fukuoka. All this said, I'd still live there in a heartbeat. You will never live in a more affordable, safe, convenient city as Tokyo. No other city even comes close.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    > I'd still live there in a heartbeat Do you live there? Why not?
    - kadomony 4y ago
      It's funny and a bit of a sore subject that you ask. I'm currently waiting on a final offer and COE (for a visa) from a startup founder in Nagano whose company might be imploding right now. I've learned the language, and I have the skills (product design) to live there, but it's very hard to break in unless you're already over there. Many people will take a crap English teaching job to land there and then interview on that visa to land a job in their desired sector, but knowing the language is crucial. This kind of visa abuse is also highly frowned upon. So, who knows. I might still end up where I want to work in time, but right now it's been crickets between emails with the founder.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I am Italian and live in Italy (after ~13 years abroad). Both Italy and Japan are in the worst possible position, in terms of aging population, than any other "non-small" developed nation. Some projections from the national statistic institute (ISTAT), which I cannot find online right now, project ~50M people by 2050, down ~10M from current levels.

aaomidi 4y ago
Eh honestly this is probably for the best considering Japan is probably not best suited for handling climate change impacts on their country.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Because they're an island nation? Perfectly suited for clean energy from e.g. offshore wind and advanced fission with passive afterglow heat removal systems.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Weather events like typhoons.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
mytailorisrich 4y ago
This is a challenging transition that all countries should prepare for and debate how to handle. But ultimately this is good news. Population cannot keep increasing and evidence is that it is unsustainably high now. So Less pressure on the environment, more space, hopefully increased productivity and wealth per capital (by harnessing automation). Japan specifically is overcrowded (coubtry is not that big and most of it is actually montains with people crowded in coastal plains), so this is an opportunity to increase individuals' quality of life.
- 4y ago

pavlov 4y ago

Japan has been closed to both tourists and immigrants for over two years. That’s bound to have an effect on population growth. Some tourists always end up staying and contributing to population growth: meet a local, get married, the usual.

yakak 4y ago
That sounds incredibly hard in Japan. I would think a lot more dual nationality marriages take the Japanese citizen abroad.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  It’s the reverse. The majority of the couples live in Japan. The most common origin of the foreign spouse is from China (where naturalization is much more difficult if not impossible), followed by Korea and the Philippines (where there are fewer job opportunities).
phreack 4y ago
And with no roadmap to reopen for the rest of the year at least, and considering they've always treated immigrants and descendants of immigrants a second class citizens, it does look like they just don't want foreigners at all and not because of health concerns.
- aidog 4y ago
  First tour groups will be allowed in next month, so that's outdated
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- alephnan 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku > And with no roadmap to reopen for the rest of the year at least The PM just indicated otherwise this week. > don't want foreigners at all and not because of health concerns. Well, the sentiment is that foreigners = don’t wear mask. And don’t wear mask = health concerns. Japanese people will be caught with masks in a middle of the forest with no one around for miles. Most of the Japanese population is vaccinated now, but the vast majority of people don’t wear masks, whereas an order of magnitude more of foreigners disproportionately do not wear masks. https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/uiwit7/getting_tired_of_masks_how_much_longer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/uiwit7/getting_t...

intsunny 4y ago

One issue is Japan's aging voting population cares little for policies that impact younger generations: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/world/asia/japan-election-rural-urban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/world/asia/japan-election... The young have the deck stacked against them and in turn are opting to not have children.

jquery 4y ago
>“ In Japan, Rural Voters Count More Than Those in Big Cities. It Shows.” Sounds familiar
- teakettle42 4y ago
  > Sounds familiar Probably because it’s an effort at narrative building from the NY Times.
  - harry8 4y ago
    Which states matter in deciding the president? How many of those are there? Where are they? Genuine questions, i don't follow it closely at all beyond the news media chatter about the path to the Whitehouse and so on. Agree the NYT is getting worse, more establishment Democrat driven now their supporters are who pays them. There is still enough institutional memory that through the naritive hit pieces there's frequently solid reporting of contradictory facts that totally undermine it in the same story.
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      swing states, Pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, nevada, arizona, are some. Florida used to be one but they've gone full on red (boomer population % has increased drastically over the past 20 years). I hope there is a schism in the republican party soon over Roe and other privacy rights that are under attack by the Magas.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      It’s not so much which states matter. Larger states generally matter more in Presidential elections. Especially large purple states like PA. The problem with Presidential elections is small rural states still have outsize influence via the combination of more EC votes than a population-based count AND winner-take-all elections (51% of the vote in. A state and you get 100% of that states electors) in most states. Turn there’s the Senate. Because it’s not based on population, CA and TX have the same influence as SD and DE. Combine that with arcane super-majority rules and a defective filibuster and it’s a recipe for outright obstruction by the minority party.

akmittal 4y ago

There are so many people from developing countries who desperately want to migrate to a developed country. Indians(specifically from Punjab state) spend their whole life's earning to migrate illegally to US/Canada/Australia. Im not sure why so little people migrate to Japan. Is it the policies or the language?

d3nj4l 4y ago
Always incredible when HN's anti-Indian racism comes out from just beneath the surface.
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doikor 4y ago
Japan has really strict immigration policies and is actually enforcing them (well at least outside of prostitution/trafficking)
- asdff 4y ago
  IMO this means the demographic problem is nonexistent for japan. If things became critical, all they need to do is loosen immigration policies and there is enough latent demand in the world for citizenship in a stable country that the population can be maintained through immigration.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
    Unless, of course, there were some let's say ideology that would make people chose to uphold restrictions on immigration even if it weren't in the rational interest of the country.
  - SnowHill9902 4y ago
    If immigrants replace Japanese in the country of Japan, is it still Japan?

throwaway_1928 4y ago

Indians are ready to come work for you, Japan. Just say the word.

kadomony 4y ago
Unfortunately, Japan is highly racist in their sponsorship of immigrants. They will take white people over other races every time. I'm not happy to recall the treatment I saw Indian tourists receive during my time in Shinjuku.
- throwaway_1928 4y ago
  In that case, investing in India might be the next best thing [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/japan-pm-kishida-announces-42-billion-investment-india-2022-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/japan-pm-kishida-announc...
  - kadomony 4y ago
    I don't know if this is done in good faith, but perhaps more as a "screw you" to China. India and China don't have the best relations, nor does Japan wish to see that change in the future.
    - throwaway_1928 4y ago
      Any country investing in another does so in their own self interest. The reasons are seldom altruistic.
- xedrac 4y ago
  I lived in Japan for several years and found most people there to be open and friendly to other races. I had friends from India, Nigeria, China, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Brazil, US and Europe. I don't know that any of them felt particularly discriminated against because of their race. I certainly didn't, except perhaps once when a really old guy tried to hit me with his cane. But that's not to say that it doesn't exist. I just don't think it's rampant everywhere in Japan.

ur-whale 4y ago

The fact that it's a bad thing seems to be implied. But, and in spite of the clear challenges this already does and will create, ultimately, is it really a problem?

asdff 4y ago
It is when you structure government funding as its done in most of the world.
rossdavidh 4y ago
Japan is one of the oldest populations on the planet, getting older. Just about everything in how society runs (in Japan or any other developed economy) assumes that old people get to retire, taken care of by young people. But, this requires a minimum ratio of young to old. Eventually, and Japan may already be getting there, you are putting too much strain on the economy of young people, so they cannot get enough resources to have children of their own, and you enter a downward spiral. You either end up with old people having to work past the time when they can really do so, or old people facing a declining standard of living as there is not enough working population to take care of them.
IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
"Clear challenges" is somewhat synonymous with "problems". So, yes.

didip 4y ago

Isn’t declining population a government problem? Perhaps it’s ok for the human race to reduce in numbers to help heal the planet? Population reduction is a very strong signal for the government to change its behavior and yet… they still behave the same for decades: long work hours, non-existent immigration policy, lack of support for working women, little job opportunities for young people, etc.

nine_zeros 4y ago
You see those stories about labor shortage, doctor shortage, lack of teachers, nurses, 30 min elevator music on phone to talk to someone? Yeah, that is what an ageing society feels like. Only in Japan and Italy, it's 10x worse than other places because they had no immigration for a long time. As we age and population declines more, we will have to assume that basics of society will become dysfunctional as there just aren't any workers to work in those areas anymore.
nylonstrung 4y ago
The problem is not degrowth but the transitional economic ramifications of demographics that skew increasingly towards the elderly, decreasing labor force participation rate and GDP while increasing the burden on social services.
slibhb 4y ago
The idea that the planet is wounded due to too many people and needs to be "healed" is complete nonsense. We aren't close to carrying capacity. You're taking various complaints ("immigration policy," "no support for women," "people work too much") and connecting them to a totally unrelated phenomenon (declining population). People are not deciding against children for rational reasons. I think it mostly has to do with social atomization. Cultures have always supported marriage and childcare. That's less true around the world. As a result people are getting married less often and having fewer children, often against their own desires.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > We aren't close to carrying capacity. Yet I have no trust in any governing body that exists when we do.

Server6 4y ago

I've posted this quote before, but still think the concept stands: "There's trilemma facing ageing nations, whereby you can have two of the three: ethnic continuity, a thriving economy or a comfortable lifestyle without the huge stress of mixing child-raising and a modern economy. Israel has sacrificed the latter, Japan has chosen to take the economic hit, while Britain’s leaders have given up its ethnic continuity. But that, alas, was a short-term solution, since young immigrants don’t magically avoid the fate of Father Time any more than the rest of us do."

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ineedasername 4y ago

Is there a sociological reason why Japanese people are not having children at rates that sustain the population?

gnulinux 4y ago
Anecdote, but for some people, the question is the opposite, why are people having children? I understand that humans have biological desire to reproduce or some people may have a sense of community that may create the desire to generate nest generations. But for people who don't feel these feelings, making babies sound like extraordinary amount of work for questionable gains. I personally can't ever see myself having children. Just my personal thoughts, this comment is not meant to include any judgement opinion.
- MadSudaca 4y ago
  It's an interesting idea. Some personalities will only have children if they're forced by circumstances. This was the norm back when contraceptives didn't exist, and cultures (probably out of necessity), structured themselves to compel people to have children. Another interesting idea, is that over the long-term, cultures that allow their members the freedom not to have children, may be overrun peacefully or forcefully by those that don't, or that at least, provide larger incentives to have children. Moreover, again over a long enough time horizon, people's who naturally don't have the inclination to have children, will disappear from the gene pool, making having children (all other things equals) the most common and culturally sensible option.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Yes, I understand that can be one reason. I guess I'm curious if it's the reason. There can be negative economic incentives, cultural norms, lack of infrastructure to support larger child populations, etc. I also know there's a tendency in more developed (or at least wealthier) countries that as they become more prosperous their populations have fewer children. I'm sure there's multiple reasons, but in the US it can be difficult to have children and support them in a single income. Yet at early ages daycare alone can eat into a significant part of someone's takehome salary. That economic equation puts some downward pressure on the # of kids.

soheil 4y ago

Elon Musk has repeatedly said the greatest threat to civilization is population decline [0]. It's such a diametrically opposed narrative compared to what world governments and leaders have been saying over decades now namely that over population is what we should fear. Surely both those statements cannot be true. It seems like the answer is of great importance since potentially the fate of humanity depends on it, yet I seldom see it discussed seriously or at least as seriously as anything else like climate change. [0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1483484932961972227?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1483484932961972227?lang...

redisman 4y ago
It’s “only” a problem because all societies and economies are built like a pyramid where the bottom (working age people) is always bigger than the top. It seems like inevitably that is going to invert as countries get richer
- soheil 4y ago
  Are you assuming as societies get richer and more technologically advanced there is less of a need for labor? Hasn't this myth been busted repeatedly over centuries since the Industrial Revolution?
  - softcactus 4y ago
    I think you are conflating two different ideas. The first being that automation destroys jobs, that has been disproven. But automation does increase productivity to the point of one person being able to do the work of ten or a hundred. Meaning that we don't have scarcity the same way we used to. Logically this increase in productivity would lead to a decrease in working hours-- but as the comment you are replying to says, our economy is a pyramid scheme. We aren't able to fully benefit from the increase in productivity because of the pursuit of infinite growth.
extant_lifeform 4y ago
When elon musk or jordan peterson say we are going to run out of people, its a dog whistle for we are going to run out of 'white' people, you know the productive kind?

billfor 4y ago

On a positive note, they will have a bit more space to live in the cities. Apartments tend to be very small and stacked together.

cuttothechase 4y ago

125.5 MM is still a lot of people for a place like Japan with its group of relatively small-ish islands when compared to other places - 350 MM for US and 38 MM for Canada.

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eganist 4y ago
Their peak looks like it was 128.6 in 2009, and they're at their lowest since 1993. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population I do think the WPR's projection is a little weird though. They see almost no change in the birth rate until about 2078... not sure how they concluded that.

pcrh 4y ago

It appears to be axiomatic that Japan's ageing population is necessarily "a bad thing", and that this can be tackled by immigration. However, Japan's GDP growth is not too different from that of similar OECD countries that have much greater rates of immigration. Many European countries also have similarly ageing populations, but their more relaxed immigration rules don't seem to make a big difference to economic growth. So if Japan's productivity is maintained, I don't really see that a falling population is a major concern. In fact, it could even conceivably have a pay-off in terms of reduced environmental burdens and cheaper housing.

arroz 4y ago
The government needs people working so they pay taxes that are used for government benefits, such as retirement
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  Less people = cheaper land = cheaper lots of other things, including housing, food, etc.
  - Tiktaalik 4y ago
    They already can't give away housing in areas of rural Japan that are emptying out. The value of land is socially created. When there's no one around, no economy, etc, it's basically worthless. Japan is rapidly approaching this point. You'll be able to get cheap land if you want to be a weird hermit, but everyone else is going to continue to flood to the cities, the only places where there will remain any sort of economy. Not really sure how or why food would get cheaper with less people. If anything the opposite as it's more expensive to make it locally with less workers available. Less people seems worse all around to me.
    - asdswe 4y ago
    - 4y ago

softcactus 4y ago

I fail to see why this is an issue. What did we expect, for the human population to grow exponentially on a planet of finite resources? The question should not be "how to get birthrates back up" but how to ensure a decent quality of life for the aging population without also compromising the livelihood of the younger generations. Encouraging couples to have kids artificially is a band-aid solution ignoring a larger problem.

arvinsim 4y ago
It is an issue because our current capitalistic system is based on infinite growth. Either we change it or suffer the consequences.
- dismantlethesun 4y ago
  We can keep infinite growth by being continuously clever and developing better technologies, methadologies, and sciences. This is what Japan did and is why their GDP keeps pace with other societies.
- timst4 4y ago
  Certainly. However it will not change, at least it will not change of its own accord. A Declining birth rate is merely a symptom of cultural anxiety and despair. The post-war generation is enormous and they living longer than any generation ever has. In nearly every developed country they hold the power and the capital, and they are short term focused in every possible way. They plan to drive the bus into the brick wall at full speed to protect the last few minutes they have to enjoy the ride. Articles such as are a thinly veiled demand for fealty. Why aren't you having more children? Why aren't you buying into the world order we created?
  - softcactus 4y ago
    Exactly. If you actually want people to reproduce then the economy should be organized to maximize the fulfillment, comfort, and security of individuals. The real issue is they (our leaders and corporations) need an ever-increasing pool of labor to drive the infinite growth economy that they are heavily invested in.

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timst4 4y ago

Not really surprising. Perpetual growth is a myth, and there is no silver bullet to prevent climate change. Permanent warming and its consequences are now a foregone conclusion. Younger people see the writing on the wall, and birthdates in developed countries will continue to fall. Countries should begin to manage the draw down of population rather than see it as calamity. It will happen either way.

option 4y ago

This should be good - less people, more resources (land, fuel, etc) per person

sonicggg 4y ago

yread 4y ago

Russia lost 1M people last year (they do have a population ~160M so per 100k it's almost the same loss)

AlexanderDhoore 4y ago
Being in the same statistical bucket as Russia... Yikes.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
People die at a much younger age in Russia on average though.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  That's starkly apparent looking at population pyramids. Russia's trails off tremendously with age, but has a large young population. Japan's is immensely top-heavy. Russia: https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_russia.png https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_russia.png Japan: https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_japan.png https://www.livepopulation.com/images/chart_age_japan.png From: https://www.livepopulation.com/country/russia.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/russia.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/japan.html https://www.livepopulation.com/country/japan.html

hungryforcodes 4y ago

No one ever mentions sex when it comes to conversations about declining birthrates in the western world. Its always very abstract discussions (immigration, free personal time, etc) around the main issue. No sex basically means no babies. It seems there is a latent western sexual crises no one wants to talk about.

bilbo0s 4y ago
No sexual crisis in the west. But there is a reproduction crisis. We have gobs and gobs of sex. What we usually don't have are gobs and gobs of children. Whether that's good or bad I think reasonable people can debate.
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  Would love some stats on that to be honest.
- dwaltrip 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure I saw some stats that people are having less sex.

inawarminister 4y ago

Decent thing is at least in Tokyo, where I live, the fall in population don't really mean anything. There's still children around (not as much as in my home country, but still.) There's still elderly around. All the jobs are full even if they need more. More and more automation is needed. The countryside sure get it really hard though.