THE JAPANESE government has published stark new evidence that the nation is on the cusp of a demographic crisis, forecasting that its population will shrink by 30 per cent in the next half century.
A report released yesterday estimates that by 2060 the number of people in the Asian powerhouse will have fallen from 128 million to about 87 million, and almost 40 per cent of them will be 65 or older.
The report by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research warns that by 2110 the number of Japanese will further plummet to 42.9 million – a third of the current population – “if things remain unchanged”.
Japan’s population began falling in 2004 and is ageing faster than any other on the planet. Over 22 per cent of Japanese are already 65 or older and women now have roughly 1.3 children each, well below the population replacement rate.
Experts have warned for years that the inverted population pyramid is a harbinger of economic and social disaster, but the latest prediction by the institute, which is affiliated to Japan’s health and welfare ministry, is one of the most alarming yet.
“This is Japan’s biggest problem,” said Florian Coulmas, who heads the Tokyo-based German Institute for Japanese Studies.
“It affects every aspect of the country’s society, economy, culture and polity. Japan is ahead of the rest of the world. That requires adjustments that no other country has had to make in the absence of war, epidemics or famine. But Japanese politics is totally incompetent. The politicians haven’t woken up to the fact that this is a national crisis.”
Japan’s low birthrate is not seriously out of kilter with the rest of the developed world, but the country is unusual among its economic competitors in shunning mass emigration – or immigration – roughly 2 per cent of the population is classed as “foreign”. That, and one of the planet’s highest life expectancies, has seen the demographic changing.
Yesterday’s report predicts that Japanese women will live on average to 90.93 years in 2060, up from 86.39 years, and men will live to 84.19, up from 79.64.
The shrinking and ageing population means the government will struggle to cope with ballooning social welfare costs, and to pay for Japan’s enormous public debt – at $12 (€9.13) trillion it is the worst in the industrialised world.
Last year’s earthquake and tsunami, and the costs of cleaning up after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, have added to the burden on state coffers.
Japan’s leading business federation, Keidanren, has for years spoken of the need for up to six million foreign workers, and some politicians have long called for lowering the drawbridge of fortress Japan to allow mass immigration.
“In order for Japan to survive, it must open its doors as an international state to the world and shift toward establishing an ‘immigrant nation’ by accepting immigrants and revitalising Japan,” said a 2007 report by a prominent group of conservative politicians.
Such warnings, however, have not resulted in policy action.