Why is the japanese population declining faster and faster every year. Often in videos there are rarely kids seen and most of the population comprises of adult people than kids. How will Japan encounter this ?
There's many factors to it, all relating to various things such as lifestyle and culture. Things such as high costs and accepting to live without being married surely also doesn't help. Raising kids in Japan isn't a given; just the fact of signing them up to a daycare can get pretty expensive. Combine that to the lifestyle of some Japanese people that have to work nearly everyday with ideally the mom that has to take care of the kid, it's not easy.
Basically I want to say that it's all a money/lifestyle issue, there's more to it though
This isn't a problem unique to Japan. South Korea, for example, has it worse. Many countries have birth rates well below the replacement rate of ~2.1 children per woman. At its core, this is a socio-economic issue. A multitude of factors make having kids unviable, so young people simply choose not to.
Even if birth rates miraculously jump to 2.1, the short-term decline is irreversible. Kids born today don't enter the workforce for ~16–20 years. Immigration is the only short-term solution, but that's a very touchy subject.
We're entering genuinely uncharted territory, and it'll be fascinating to see how the world adapts over the next few decades. After all, no one can predict the future.
PS: I wouldn't worry too much about it. Japan won't collapse overnight or anything. In general countries are very resilient—they'll bend long before they break.
I think another reason is that there is so much old people, and this isn’t meant in an offence way, but since there are a lot more old people than working class, workers have to pay taxes that a bit less than half the population can’t since they don’t work. I think this is why there are some people who still work that should be retired, and why Japanese working class don’t really have enough money to raise kids, like some others have said.
I mean I’m not an expert in this sort of subject but if you look up the population age charts, there is a lot more 60+ than in many European countries. And again this isn’t the only reason why but I think this point is interesting and worth saying here
The demographic situation is particularly acute in Japan because the 団塊 generation is 75-80 now. Many will continue to live to 95 or older, but they are unable to work or contribute to the economy, except as healthcare consumers.
I think probably some of the biggest factors are...
- Work overload. So many people get overloaded with work they don't feel like they have time to raise a family. Even in families in Japan, it's very common for the dad to have to live apart from his family for work reasons, and only get to visit them at certain times of the year. This also is shown commonly in anime and video games.
- Prices. Many young people in Japan want to be parents but don't feel like they'll have the money for it, so before they even enter the working world they decide to be single, of course unless the opportunity would arise.
- The "lost generation" of Japan. Also, hikikomori. Those are topics better just Googled rather than me trying to sum them up.
- In addition, I feel like modern Japanese society often wants you to seek individual success. The school system's preparation for work is meant to get YOU into society, not you AND your to-be family.
Take these with a grain of salt, because I didn't do proper research at all or anything. Just, this is stuff I've heard before and thought about briefly.
Compare the number of people in the 18-35 range to those older.
For the population not to decline, the 18-35 group would not only have to replace themselves (2 kids/woman), but they would also have to have additional children to make up for the population differences between themselves and their older cohorts (which there are many more of). That's unlikely to happen given that the Japan currently sees a fertility rate of 1.14 kids/woman. That number could start to trend up if the factors contributing to low fertility rates (some social, but largely economics) were addressed, but changes like these are usually slow.
This isn't the end of the world. Trends like the decline in population rarely continue forever. They tend to go in one direction for a while until they start to cause problems and then they swing back in the other direction until that starts to cause problems (and back and forth it goes).
Hmm... If all of these mean that the population is unlikely to be reversed then how will Japan counter it? Because even the Japan natives are reluctant to embrace large immigration, it also needs to survive economically.
Reduction of the population does not mean an economic collapse.
While reduction of the population will probably result in a lower GDP, it will also likely lead to a higher GDP/capita i.e. while the total sum of the economy is smaller, each individual will tend to have a larger portion. As the individual GDP/capita increases this will tend to lead to higher birth rates which will start to reverse the trend.
Immigration can't really solve this. The numbers are too big. It can only offer a temporary band aid to address symptoms of the problem (e.g. GDP, acute labor shortages) , while possibly making the actual causes worse (e.g. GDP/capita, strain on resources).
There aren't any quick solutions. Only long term ones.
