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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 growt
by 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 agoThe government needs people working so they pay taxes that are used for government benefits, such as retirement
- tenebrisalietum 4y agoLess people = cheaper land = cheaper lots of other things, including housing, food, etc.
- Tiktaalik 4y agoThey 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
- sdenton4 4y agoEmpty land is wild land, and extremely valuable for the long term survival of human civilization.
- throwntoday 4y agoAs remote work oppurtunities increase and the younger generation begins to settle down, there will be a natural return to small towns on the outskirts where they can offer their families more for less. Japan does a good job of making their cities liveable for anyone, and commuting in/out is unparalleled. >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. Automation in agriculture continues to expand. And in my experience most Japanese tend to prefer locally made products despite the higher prices. This was most obvious when I saw the pile of australian steaks sitting next to a much smaller cut of domestic steak that were nearly sold out at the supermarket. Or consider that Seiko make identical watches domestically, and in SEA, but the "Made in Japan" models are only sold in Japan. There are still ~1MM babies born in Japan every year. They will be fine with a reduction in population. They don't seem keen on expanding immigration anyway, or a demographic shift, so I don't understand the desire to push mass immigration on every nation with a declining birth rate. They're not bothering anyone by wanting to keep Japan, Japanese.
- fomine3 4y ago> small towns on the outskirts > commuting in/out is unparalleled. Choose either one.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoJapan's public pension plan is not particularly generous, although it is pay-as-you-go, so less working people = a higher percentage of retirees, true.
- pcrh 4y agoIncome taxes are one form of government revenue. Sales taxes, VAT, duties, etc, also raise income, and scale with consumption, not population. Also, many people have pensions that are based on their lifetime savings, investments, etc. Not all pensions are paid from current government revenues.
- vivekd 4y agoThe necessity of this might look different in Asia where children are expected to care for their aging parents thus taking the burden off government pension and elderly care costs
- tforcram 4y agoWhat children? The reason the population is declining is because they didn't have children, increasing the burden on the government. I've been to rural Japanese towns where it felt like there were no young people at all, only elderly, and the largest employers were related to elder care. I suppose one aspect that might reduce the burden on the government, is that all the savings of these elderly are not going to someone's inheritance, but instead to the elder care institutions.
- asdswe 4y ago
- mekster 4y agoYou talk as if immigration is some kind of switch but Japan has been a mono culture and they don't speak anything but Japanese, so it'll be hard to have that many foreigners to support the population decline. And then pensions and healthcare become problems. Cheaper housing means real estate business is going to shrink with many open rooms. Where is your optimism coming from?
- pcrh 4y agoThe "optimism" is based on the fact that, despite the doom and gloom predictions, Japan's GDP does not appear to actually suffer from an ageing population.
- ravar 4y agoWhy do people care so much about GDP, the number is higher now than for my parents generation but it is much harder for people now to buy a home/start a family. A recent thought I had is that less durable consumer goods actually increases our gdp by the same factor that it makes us poorer. If you have to replace a refrigerator every 5 years instead of 10 you are spending twice as much to have a fridge but GDP says you are twice as rich. GDP is kinda like measuring a programmers productivity by LOC production. It is correlated with productivity when you are not judging based on it but once people start optimizing for it it no longer correlated. What is it that we actually want from society?
- pcrh 4y agoI was using GDP as a shorthand representative of the general economy. For example, if Japan's population halved, but its GDP remained constant, then each individual Japanese person would be twice as wealthy.
- birksherty 4y agoI don't think it works that way, the difference between rich and poor gets bigger though.
- steve76 4y ago[dead]
- MadSudaca 4y agoYou say that a country such as Germany taking in skilled workers from European countries and other places in the world don’t make a big difference?
- pcrh 4y agoI don't mean that immigrants don't contribute. I meant to show that differences in immigration policy between Japan and (for example) Germany do not appear to greatly affect GDP statistics.
- mushbino 4y agoTheir economic system relies on perpetual growth. They need more working bodies or their economy will continue to decline and profit margins will fall unless they make some major changes.