By 2055, Japan's population is projected to fall to 90 million, with (medium fertility/medium mortality): 8 million being children aged 0-14 46 million being

By 2055, Japan's population is projected to fall to 90 million, with (medium fertility/medium mortality): 8 million being children aged 0-14 46 million being "working aged" 15-64 36 million being 65 or older Population Projections for Japan: 2006-2055 Outline of Results, Methods, and Assumptions (PDF) https://www.ipss.go.jp/webj-ad/WebJournal.files/population/2008_4/05population.pdf https://www.ipss.go.jp/webj-ad/WebJournal.files/population/2... Let's ignore the assertion that 15 and 16 year olds are "working aged" no matter how you allocate resources 46 million workers cannot support 36 million retirees. Today there are around 3 million healthcare workers in Japan out of a working aged population of 80 million. In 30 years the number of retirees will be the same but the working aged population will roughly halve. This is just people working in hospitals, in-home care specialists are not counted. Nor are bureaucrats, only workers in 24 categories of direct-support healthcare fields are counted. Human Resources for Health Country Profiles: Japan (PDF) https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1147882/retrieve https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1147882/retrieve There are already critical shortages of healthcare workers and in 30 years the demand will be the just about the same (most healthcare resources are consumed by the elderly) but the labor pool will be smaller. If there were 0 bureaucrats there still wouldn't be enough people. Many European nations face the same demographic challenges that Japan does, to a very slightly less severe degree. Robots are one solution.