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There are four options - live with a smaller economy, make more babies, bring in immigrants, or increase productivity to the point where a smaller number of wor

There are four options - live with a smaller economy, make more babies, bring in immigrants, or increase productivity to the point where a smaller number of workers will be able to do the work that currently requires a larger workforce. The latter is not an unreasonable option. If worker productivity grew by an unimpressive 1% per year from 2010 to 2030 (the time frame given in this article), the 67.7 million Japanese workers of 2030 will do the work of 82.6 million 2010 workers, which is more than the 81.7 million workers in 2010's workforce. The sky is not falling, and there is no need to mandate that Japanese women become brood mares, and no need to import huge numbers of immigrants from poor countries.

VLM 13y ago
"live with a smaller economy ... The latter is not an unreasonable option" Former is not a bad idea either. How's the energy security of a rocky island with no petrol more or less right next to China? Oh they're shutting down nuclear plants too, you say? I hope they got lots of windmills and solar panels... This is an interesting way to analyze their 2030 scenario, lets say they only have the population to run at 80% capacity, sounds bad, but what if they only have the energy available to run at 75% capacity anyway? Sounds like squirting out more kids would be the worst thing they could possibly do in that scenario. Another "limiting reagent" analysis is that at least a decade ago Japan imported a bit over half its food. In other words they must import most of their food, or starve. Again, growing industrial giant to the west, hows that going to work out WRT food? Oh and at the same time as energy prices are going up / availability going down? Lets say they only have food to keep a mere 90% of the current population alive on a bland starvation diet, or certainly not as good as they currently eat now, anyway. Good luck talking them into squirting out a couple more kids to watch starve under those circumstances. "Well the bad news is, we're cutting the rice ration, but the good news is, we want more babies" hmm good luck. "import huge numbers of immigrants" = as long as you can feed and energize them, sure. Which Japan is not going to be able to do, so its all kinda irrelevant.

VLM 13y ago

"live with a smaller economy ... The latter is not an unreasonable option" Former is not a bad idea either. How's the energy security of a rocky island with no petrol more or less right next to China? Oh they're shutting down nuclear plants too, you say? I hope they got lots of windmills and solar panels... This is an interesting way to analyze their 2030 scenario, lets say they only have the population to run at 80% capacity, sounds bad, but what if they only have the energy available to run at 75% capacity anyway? Sounds like squirting out more kids would be the worst thing they could possibly do in that scenario. Another "limiting reagent" analysis is that at least a decade ago Japan imported a bit over half its food. In other words they must import most of their food, or starve. Again, growing industrial giant to the west, hows that going to work out WRT food? Oh and at the same time as energy prices are going up / availability going down? Lets say they only have food to keep a mere 90% of the current population alive on a bland starvation diet, or certainly not as good as they currently eat now, anyway. Good luck talking them into squirting out a couple more kids to watch starve under those circumstances. "Well the bad news is, we're cutting the rice ration, but the good news is, we want more babies" hmm good luck. "import huge numbers of immigrants" = as long as you can feed and energize them, sure. Which Japan is not going to be able to do, so its all kinda irrelevant.