Published November 22nd, 2006 by Future Atlas
Shinking Japan
Columnist Fred Hiatt examines Japan’s demographic challenge — “sustained and inexorable population decline” — in the Washington Post.
As a result of this decline, the country’s population is projected to drop from 128 million now to 100 million in 2050. Crucially, the average age will be high and the elderly population large, with some 36 million people 65 and over.
A central issue is that women would like to have more children, but delay or avoid marriage and childbearing because Japanese society in general, and husbands in particular, leave women overburdened and without options.
In essence, Japan has given women too little equality, but enough freedom that they can back away from the system that they feel abuses them.
Hiatt writes:
In fact, robots and other ways to improve productivity are one of four possible routes to economic growth despite an aging population. The others would be making better use of women; immigration, which has increased slightly but remains unpopular in this ethnically cohesive country; and keeping the elderly working longer.
One result will be a continued flow of innovative ideas in robotics from the country.
Hiatt alludes to a fundamental question that Japan will pose: what is the meaning and purpose of economic growth? “What is happiness? Can we be happy without economic growth?” asks a Japanese demographer.
A lot of evidence suggests that growth may not be essential to well-being; income ceases to contribute substantially to happiness when development brings levels to about $10-15,000 thousand dollars a year in per capita income. Japan may test whether a society can remain satisfied without an upward trajectory.
More on the article at Future Uncertain.