7 ms·

Japan’s population drops by nearly 800k

niemandhier 3y ago
Much more important is the change in the age pyramid. A small society composed of many young and a few elderly can be a very happy one.
- Tozen 3y ago
  It's the opposite. Many/increasingly old and fewer young. With a strong anti-immigration and persistent anti-foreigner/xenophobic mindset.
  - pokepim 3y ago
    [dead]
  - mufti_menk 3y ago
    How does immigration solve the issue. Once they become wealthier, their birth rate is going to drop, so you have to keep importing poor people from overseas to keep your GDP rising. Why not address the issue itself instead of trying to bandaid it.
    - CoolestBeans 3y ago
      Because Japan's population problem isn't a wealthy nation problem it's a population collapse problem. It's not just that birth rates have gone down because the average Japanese person has become wealthier or more educated. It's also that the lost decades made raising more kids unfeasible for a generation and because of that there's now a large elder population that must be taken care of by a smaler population. Immigration at least ameliorates some of that problem, plus the economy is doing better which means people will have more time and wealth to raise kids. Even if you can't reverse the population decline you can at least not make it a dramatic collapse and go through all the human suffering that entails.
      - gmerc 3y ago
        Now do the same narrative for Germany and Singapore and Korea who are on the same slope
      - mufti_menk 3y ago
        All developed countries have falling fertility rates, most below the replacement rate. Japan used to be the poster child for the issue, now they're not even the worst example. How many tens of millions of migrants would be needed to offset the unbalanced age pyramids in Japan, China, South Korea and all the Western countries beginning to experience the same problem? How could such a massive number of people integrate into a country? The reason people don't have kids is not just the cost of doing so but the massive commitment it entails. People have more agency and mobility than they did before and they don't want to give that up. Importing people and ignoring that is printing more money to pay off current debts.
    - benterix 3y ago
      And how would you solve the issue?
      - mufti_menk 3y ago
        You have to let it happen. There will probably be a lot of suffering but rising labor costs will force solutions like automation. Most social issues in developed countries, like people having less and less relationships, are due to urbanization and technology which is more difficult to solve, but immigration is not going to fix that anyway. People recognize that endless growth is not sustainable but are too terrified of the alternative, as soon as it shows signs of slowing they want to keep it going by any means necessary.
- majkinetor 3y ago
  Happy and aggresive...
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  This can only happen if population is exploding or life expectancy is low. Neither is the case.
  - quantified 3y ago
    Increasing life expectancy is a population and economic problem, as it's expensive to keep people on past their ability to produce. Not that anyone is going to willingly give up their gains.
- benterix 3y ago
  How do you plan to eliminate old people? Often people don't appreciate grandparents until they pass away.
Vecr 3y ago
How do people game this out, not just for Japan but for South Korea as well? With terminal or near terminal demographic collapse, I'm not sure what kind of nation will be left. I always assumed that international rules and the inertia of current policies would get them into an Alaska like state, where the people and the government have continuity from the current situation, but with not very many people. I think that might be too optimistic though.
- Tozen 3y ago
  It appears the thought process is an increasingly smaller unchanging bubble containing "pure bloods" will be maintained, as the country slowly dwindles towards irrelevance or economic collapse. And apparently, some prefer to go out that way.
  - bamboozled 3y ago
    Japan is a frustratingly backwards country (policy wise) in 2023: Even an all-time high increase in foreign residents of more than 10%, to 2.99 million, couldn’t halt a slide in the total population, which has declined for 14 years in a row to 122.42 million in 2022. Japanese naturlization laws: (Acquisition of nationality by birth) Article 2. A child shall, in any of the following cases, be a Japanese national: (1) When, at the time of its birth, the father or the mother is a Japanese national; (2) When the father who died prior to the birth of the child was a Japanese national at the time of his death; (3) When both parents are unknown or have no nationality in a case where the child is born in Japan. It's a funny place in this way. They seem to prefer extinction level population decline rather than accepting children of foreigners who were born there. I know it's not the only country who doesn't do naturlization from birth, but seems short sighted considering. You think they could get past it at some stage, but no. There are apparently millions of illegal immigrants working in Japan who don't gt any type of residency status.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  IMO have to weather through cohorts of increased life expectancy due to modernity until their property/wealth transfers (especially in urban areas) gives newer gens more space to family plan. Older I get, the more people who previously didn't want kids due to material conditions lament wanting kids but still not having said conditions. Gut feeling is once enough density in East Asian countries drops from insufferable levels, TFR will pickup. Though might still not enough for replacement TFR, but perhaps settle at a more sustainable equilibrium. e: over post limit Equilbirium doesn't have to be current population level. maybe japan with 60m population and lower urban density to enable average house size increase from 1000 sqft to 2000 sqft + other interventions will get TFR closer to replacement @ 60M. Govs still going to have to pile on lots of carrots and sticks on top to make decisions swing towards 2 kid+ households. But it seems like most of Asia/Europe pop density + limited housing is one impediment to raising families.
michaelhoney 3y ago
The whole world is going this way: Japan is just an early adopter. It’ll be good for the planet to have fewer people: our challenge is to run a flourishing society that isn’t based on continual growth.
- sneak 3y ago
  Citation needed. The earth has tons of resources and can easily support several times the number of current humans. It is bad for the species to have fewer people. It's also bad for the production of novel art.
  - quantified 3y ago
    How is it bad for the species? How do you define "easily"? Sorry, I'm asking two questions that each deserve comprehensive answers.
    - sneak 3y ago
      Population decline is bad for the species because the endgame of population decline is population == 0.
      - quantified 3y ago
        That's a slippery slope argument which doesn't hold up. There are many endgames and goals. Managed properly, the human population will equal 0 someday because we will have further evolved into something else.
        Tozen 3y ago
        > the human population will equal 0 someday because we will have further evolved into something else. Ah, there are other possible paths. 1) Extinction (which has happened to many species) without any evolutionary successors. 2) Artificial life (it evolves without us). 3) Something else evolves (long after we are gone) and becomes the dominant species on the planet. Humanity has limited options, but nature doesn't and we can't count on it doing us any favors.
gmerc 3y ago
Singapore, Germany on the same trajectory.
- RGamma 3y ago
  Recently learned this: "As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021." -- WP Shrinking population (slowly) is cool with me and all but not like that.
DanielHB 3y ago
One thing that people don't realise about economic collapse is that immigration is a band-aid that will stop working soon. In fact a lot of middle-income countries are faring much worse than western countries, for example some cherry-picked births per woman numbers: Brazil: 1.63 US: 1.66 France: 1.83 Sweden: 1.67 India: 2.03 China: 1.16 Thailand: 1.33 People in rich countries are having more children on average than middle-income countries. A lot of people are saying that subsiding children (free daycare, free schools, free healthcare, stipends, etc) is not working, but the data seems clear to me. It does work, but it is not enough to keep replacement births going . Especially when you look at the trends of births per woman in those countries). Within our lifetimes I think we will see reverse immigration, rich-country people moving to middle-income countries for jobs in order to exploit natural resources because there are too little locals to do it. And rich countries removing barriers for immigration and still have trouble getting people to move in.
glimshe 3y ago
The endgame isn't the Japanese population reaching zero. Eventually, real estate prices will go down and, with increasing automation, having many children will again become affordable. There will be pain on the way there, as the infrastructure will degrade and many elder people will lack caretakers. But I believe the market will slowly adapt to the situation and create incentives for a new population equilibrium.
- Vecr 3y ago
  Birth rates don't appear to be reacting to that sort of economic incentive so far, as tried in other countries. Possibly it's just not enough or being done wrong, but that's not something you want to bet your country on.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    I agree you won't bet your country on this hypothesis. At the same time, I'd expect the reaction to take a while, perhaps over a couple of generations. We need a generation where having kids is cool again, but the incentives need to be well in place for that.

Much more important is the change in the age pyramid. A small society composed of many young and a few elderly can be a very happy one.

Tozen 3y ago
It's the opposite. Many/increasingly old and fewer young. With a strong anti-immigration and persistent anti-foreigner/xenophobic mindset.
- pokepim 3y ago
  [dead]
- mufti_menk 3y ago
  How does immigration solve the issue. Once they become wealthier, their birth rate is going to drop, so you have to keep importing poor people from overseas to keep your GDP rising. Why not address the issue itself instead of trying to bandaid it.
  - CoolestBeans 3y ago
    Because Japan's population problem isn't a wealthy nation problem it's a population collapse problem. It's not just that birth rates have gone down because the average Japanese person has become wealthier or more educated. It's also that the lost decades made raising more kids unfeasible for a generation and because of that there's now a large elder population that must be taken care of by a smaler population. Immigration at least ameliorates some of that problem, plus the economy is doing better which means people will have more time and wealth to raise kids. Even if you can't reverse the population decline you can at least not make it a dramatic collapse and go through all the human suffering that entails.
    - gmerc 3y ago
      Now do the same narrative for Germany and Singapore and Korea who are on the same slope
    - mufti_menk 3y ago
      All developed countries have falling fertility rates, most below the replacement rate. Japan used to be the poster child for the issue, now they're not even the worst example. How many tens of millions of migrants would be needed to offset the unbalanced age pyramids in Japan, China, South Korea and all the Western countries beginning to experience the same problem? How could such a massive number of people integrate into a country? The reason people don't have kids is not just the cost of doing so but the massive commitment it entails. People have more agency and mobility than they did before and they don't want to give that up. Importing people and ignoring that is printing more money to pay off current debts.
  - benterix 3y ago
    And how would you solve the issue?
    - mufti_menk 3y ago
      You have to let it happen. There will probably be a lot of suffering but rising labor costs will force solutions like automation. Most social issues in developed countries, like people having less and less relationships, are due to urbanization and technology which is more difficult to solve, but immigration is not going to fix that anyway. People recognize that endless growth is not sustainable but are too terrified of the alternative, as soon as it shows signs of slowing they want to keep it going by any means necessary.
majkinetor 3y ago
Happy and aggresive...
mytailorisrich 3y ago
This can only happen if population is exploding or life expectancy is low. Neither is the case.
- quantified 3y ago
  Increasing life expectancy is a population and economic problem, as it's expensive to keep people on past their ability to produce. Not that anyone is going to willingly give up their gains.
benterix 3y ago
How do you plan to eliminate old people? Often people don't appreciate grandparents until they pass away.

Vecr 3y ago

How do people game this out, not just for Japan but for South Korea as well? With terminal or near terminal demographic collapse, I'm not sure what kind of nation will be left. I always assumed that international rules and the inertia of current policies would get them into an Alaska like state, where the people and the government have continuity from the current situation, but with not very many people. I think that might be too optimistic though.

Tozen 3y ago
It appears the thought process is an increasingly smaller unchanging bubble containing "pure bloods" will be maintained, as the country slowly dwindles towards irrelevance or economic collapse. And apparently, some prefer to go out that way.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  Japan is a frustratingly backwards country (policy wise) in 2023: Even an all-time high increase in foreign residents of more than 10%, to 2.99 million, couldn’t halt a slide in the total population, which has declined for 14 years in a row to 122.42 million in 2022. Japanese naturlization laws: (Acquisition of nationality by birth) Article 2. A child shall, in any of the following cases, be a Japanese national: (1) When, at the time of its birth, the father or the mother is a Japanese national; (2) When the father who died prior to the birth of the child was a Japanese national at the time of his death; (3) When both parents are unknown or have no nationality in a case where the child is born in Japan. It's a funny place in this way. They seem to prefer extinction level population decline rather than accepting children of foreigners who were born there. I know it's not the only country who doesn't do naturlization from birth, but seems short sighted considering. You think they could get past it at some stage, but no. There are apparently millions of illegal immigrants working in Japan who don't gt any type of residency status.
dirtyid 3y ago
IMO have to weather through cohorts of increased life expectancy due to modernity until their property/wealth transfers (especially in urban areas) gives newer gens more space to family plan. Older I get, the more people who previously didn't want kids due to material conditions lament wanting kids but still not having said conditions. Gut feeling is once enough density in East Asian countries drops from insufferable levels, TFR will pickup. Though might still not enough for replacement TFR, but perhaps settle at a more sustainable equilibrium. e: over post limit Equilbirium doesn't have to be current population level. maybe japan with 60m population and lower urban density to enable average house size increase from 1000 sqft to 2000 sqft + other interventions will get TFR closer to replacement @ 60M. Govs still going to have to pile on lots of carrots and sticks on top to make decisions swing towards 2 kid+ households. But it seems like most of Asia/Europe pop density + limited housing is one impediment to raising families.

michaelhoney 3y ago

The whole world is going this way: Japan is just an early adopter. It’ll be good for the planet to have fewer people: our challenge is to run a flourishing society that isn’t based on continual growth.

sneak 3y ago
Citation needed. The earth has tons of resources and can easily support several times the number of current humans. It is bad for the species to have fewer people. It's also bad for the production of novel art.
- quantified 3y ago
  How is it bad for the species? How do you define "easily"? Sorry, I'm asking two questions that each deserve comprehensive answers.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Population decline is bad for the species because the endgame of population decline is population == 0.
    - quantified 3y ago
      That's a slippery slope argument which doesn't hold up. There are many endgames and goals. Managed properly, the human population will equal 0 someday because we will have further evolved into something else.
      - Tozen 3y ago
        > the human population will equal 0 someday because we will have further evolved into something else. Ah, there are other possible paths. 1) Extinction (which has happened to many species) without any evolutionary successors. 2) Artificial life (it evolves without us). 3) Something else evolves (long after we are gone) and becomes the dominant species on the planet. Humanity has limited options, but nature doesn't and we can't count on it doing us any favors.

gmerc 3y ago

Singapore, Germany on the same trajectory.

RGamma 3y ago
Recently learned this: "As of 2021, South Korea is the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.81. The TFR of the capital Seoul was 0.63 in 2021." -- WP Shrinking population (slowly) is cool with me and all but not like that.

DanielHB 3y ago

One thing that people don't realise about economic collapse is that immigration is a band-aid that will stop working soon. In fact a lot of middle-income countries are faring much worse than western countries, for example some cherry-picked births per woman numbers: Brazil: 1.63 US: 1.66 France: 1.83 Sweden: 1.67 India: 2.03 China: 1.16 Thailand: 1.33 People in rich countries are having more children on average than middle-income countries. A lot of people are saying that subsiding children (free daycare, free schools, free healthcare, stipends, etc) is not working, but the data seems clear to me. It does work, but it is not enough to keep replacement births going . Especially when you look at the trends of births per woman in those countries). Within our lifetimes I think we will see reverse immigration, rich-country people moving to middle-income countries for jobs in order to exploit natural resources because there are too little locals to do it. And rich countries removing barriers for immigration and still have trouble getting people to move in.

glimshe 3y ago

The endgame isn't the Japanese population reaching zero. Eventually, real estate prices will go down and, with increasing automation, having many children will again become affordable. There will be pain on the way there, as the infrastructure will degrade and many elder people will lack caretakers. But I believe the market will slowly adapt to the situation and create incentives for a new population equilibrium.

Vecr 3y ago
Birth rates don't appear to be reacting to that sort of economic incentive so far, as tried in other countries. Possibly it's just not enough or being done wrong, but that's not something you want to bet your country on.
- glimshe 3y ago
  I agree you won't bet your country on this hypothesis. At the same time, I'd expect the reaction to take a while, perhaps over a couple of generations. We need a generation where having kids is cool again, but the incentives need to be well in place for that.