Japan eyes demographic time bomb

BBC ^ | 19 Nov 2007 | BBC

[ari-freedom]

that's why Japan keeps building fake people:

[lesser_satan]

ping

[BGHater]

[Romneyfor President2008]

I would guess that Japan will have to import more foreign workers from SE Asia and China for labor, housekeeping, nannies, etc. Basically, they’ll have multicultural problems.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

Robots!

[DTogo]

Yeah, this has been a concern for many years now; especially of the government that needs more young tax-paying drones, to support the older no-longer-paying-taxes drones...

[FreePoster]

They need to make babies. They need to shut down that fake woman project right away.

[ari-freedom]

you end up with a big welfare state when nobody has kids due to sexual liberation.

[truthguy]

I’m not sure Japan is in a population crisis. I’ve been to Japan many times on business and the place is just teeming with people. It’s a very overpopulated place. Taking the population down from 140 million to 120 or 110 million might just improve the quality of life for the Japanese people. What’s the alternative? Let the population grow to 150 or 160 million?

[ClaudiusI]

Well, if they ever needs volunteers to go over and impregnate the population, I’d be happy to sign up.

[Altura Ct.]

Of course they could start having more children which would be a natural reaction to preserve your race, culture and way of life. Or they could open the floodgate and allow millions of invaders to completely change thier country.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Of course they could start having more children which would be a natural reaction to preserve your race, culture and way of life.

Very few people have children for such reasons. People have children for their own personal reasons - in poorer countries, children are intended to help work for the family unit and more are born. As the poorer countries start becoming more prosperous, the birth rate falls as parents weigh the increased cost of raising children in a wealthy nation versus the decreasing benefit to themselves.

Europe is also looking at the same demographic trend - parts Germany are returning to the wild due to lack of population. In the US, if immigration is excluded, the birth rate is barely sufficient to replace the population lost to death. China and India are both projected to stop and reverse their population growth rates during this century as they become increasingly prosperous. Disregarding possible technological achievements such as the end of aging, the world's population is likely to be smaller in 2100 than it was in 2000.

[spetznaz]

I’m not sure Japan is in a population crisis. I’ve been to Japan many times on business and the place is just teeming with people. It’s a very overpopulated place. Taking the population down from 140 million to 120 or 110 million might just improve the quality of life for the Japanese people. What’s the alternative? Let the population grow to 150 or 160 million?

Japan is in a population crisis, and the large numbers that you are seeing are part and parcel of the problem. Why? Well, because most of those people are middle-aged (with a good number of elderly since Japan has a large ratio of the elderly). However there are very little young people. Now, the problem arises when those middle-aged people become elderly, and the number of young people becoming adults to replace them is not sufficient. In essence, there are fewer people coming up into adulthood than there are adults going into the elderly brackets. This has huge implications in terms of everything ....e.g. tax, social services, employment, etc.

Now, there is a simple solution to this ....immigration. The problem is that this 'simple' solution is not all that simple. For one, Japan is probably the most 'homogenous' (I would say xenophobic, but homogenous will do for now) society in the world. Not racist per se ....they simply like their own (and there are a number of pluses with that approach, so it shouldn't be knocked on its head). Second of all letting the numbers of immigrants that would be required to 'mend' the situation in the future would lead to a lot of problems. For instance, the fabric of Japanese society (which does depend some bit on it being ...well ....'homogenous') would change.

Now, there is the option of the japanese people simply starting to more offspring. The issue is that, as in many wealthy nations, kids do not compute (e.g. in the US it is an issue ....it is just that immigration tends to whitewash it, but take away the numbers coming in from immigration and the US is more or less like Europe when it comes to birth rates). There are more and more numbers of SINKs and DINKs (Single Income No Kids, and Dual Income No Kids) coming up all over the industrialized and industrialising world. Thus, unless you can convince people to 'sacrifice' and ave kids for the benefit of the nation, building up the population through births is an issue. Already in japan there are areas where schools are shutting down because of having no children (one documentary i watched showed a school with exactly ONE child).

Thus, they do have an issue over there, and it is one without easy answers (unless you can somehow make people start reproducing ....not having sex, but actually reproducing). Japan will either have to cut down on their living standards as well as watch their economy decline, or they will have to do what has always been anathema in Japanese culture .....allow mass immigration.

I'm sure both approaches must be unpallatable.

For now everything is alright ....but all those myriad people you saw while in Japan on biz will age some day (unless they stumble on the fountain of youth), and when they do they will not have enough young people growing up to take their place.

That is when the problem will kick in.

[Wiz]

No Sh*t! What you are you saying is Japan should be colonized by Chinese that will transform it into another Chinese colony and kick out US military presence from Japan. Never say that again! Just immagine millions of Islamist immigrants invading US transfroming US into an Islamic state. Do you want that to happen?

[Romneyfor President2008]

I don’t know man, that’s close to those culture of death theories. I’m not saying that’s what you believe in of course.

I believe (have faith) that population is always good, even overpopulation. It is always good to have lots of people. Birth control is not a good mentality.

[Romneyfor President2008]

I didn’t say what Japan should do. If you read my post carefully, I just say what I guess Japan would do.

Psst...they are already bringing over foreign labor.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

The same problem in other civilized countries. Low birth rate makes politicians worry. Politicians invite uncivilized people in to replace the civilized ones. Disaster follows.

[Terabitten]

you end up with a big welfare state when nobody has kids due to sexual liberation.

From Rudyard Kipling's "Gods of the Copybook Headings"

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

[txzman]

It is going to be interesting to see what absolute need, and human ingenuity create to deal with this. One can only imagine the advances this might force in terms of manufacturing, computers and systems.