in the long run the fortunes of nations are determined by population trends. Japan is not only the world's fastest-aging major economy (already every fourth person is older than 65, and by 2050 that share will be nearly 40 percent), its population is also declining. Today's 127 million will shrink to 97 million by 2050, and forecasts show shortages of the young labor force needed in construction and health care. Who will maintain Japan's extensive and admirably efficient transportation infrastructures? Who will take care of millions of old people? By 2050 people above the age of 80 will outnumber the children.
Who will take care of millions of old people? Robots!
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Every aging society faces distinct challenges. But Japan, with the world's oldest population (27.3 percent of its citizens are 65 or older, almost twice the share in the U.S.), has been dealing with one it didn't foresee: senior crime. Complaints and arrests involving elderly people, and women in particular, are taking place at rates above those of any other demographic group. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior. Their crimes are usually minor—9 in 10 senior women who've been convicted were found guilty of shoplifting.
Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that's changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than sixfold, to almost 6 million. And a 2017 survey by Tokyo's government found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone; 40 percent either don't have family or rarely speak with relatives. These people often say they have no one to turn to when they need help.
[...] Neither the government nor the private sector has established an effective rehabilitation program for seniors, and the costs to keep them in prison are rising fast. Expenses associated with elder care helped push annual medical costs at correctional facilities past 6 billion yen (more than $50 million) in 2015, an 80 percent increase from a decade before. Specialized workers have been hired to help older inmates with bathing and toileting during the day, but at night these tasks are handled by guards.
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For nearly 40 years, the Chinese government harshly restricted childbearing through the one-child rule in order to control population growth. That may soon change. Beijing appears to be on the cusp of abolishing all of its family planning rules — and is even encouraging young couples to have more children as a matter of patriotic urgency.
But attitudes toward parenthood have changed. Even though there is a two-child policy in place now, many Chinese still don't want to have more than one child — or any at all. "I think having one child is enough," said Chen Yiwen, a 25-year-old accountant and newlywed. "I won't be tempted to have more — even if the family planning policy is abolished." [...] "Besides, we already have two little babies — a poodle and a corgi," she said.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Thursday August 27 2015, @01:52PM
> Who will take care of millions of old [Japanese] people? Robots!
Who will produce millions of new robots? China.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:10PM
Nah, by 2050 it won't be economical to smuggle tech past the NCW (New Chinese Wall). Getting stuff in is easy. It's getting tech out that is the hard part. Too many counter-drones and automated weapon emplacements. Tunnels work but there is more money in moving people through the tunnels than finished products.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:31PM
On a side note, the matter transporters seem to be working better than the data transporters, so beaming tech to space and back still remains an efficient solution.
If you're going to write about the future, there's no reason to be down on it ;).
(Score: 4, Informative) by tibman on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:51PM
Didn't think the matter transporters factored into it, sorry. I figured everyone knows how great they are. Just can't use the things around government jammers. I have heard they are giving out permits to some businesses next year though! Maybe we can all meet up for another SN reunion. Should go much smoother now that Ethanol-fueled doesn't have tank treads for legs and MDC has only three personalities instead of his previous five. The state still won't charge him with murder no matter how much he confesses.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:46PM
The only thing funnier than your comment was me accidentally moderating it +1 Informative.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:16PM
but there is more money in moving people through the tunnels than finished products
People are the easiest way to smuggle tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:35PM
You mean what will produce millions of robots. Other robots!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:33PM
The young people. Like every society that has ever existed.
Well that, and they will be all enjoying the ongoing companionship of hundreds of Hello Kitty plushies per person.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:39PM
Maybe they'll be the first to legilize the suicide booth, you know since 'it's so shameful' to grow old or something.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:24PM
Actually, the proper answer is "the Philippinos, as is already the case"
They won't say it too loud, of course.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Daiv on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:33PM
All I see are benefits to the Japanese economy. No need for expansion (so no clamoring for MOAR TAX DOLLAS). Saturation is fairly high now, so less worry of crowding. More opportunities for jobs as they become vacated by retirees, so less stress and competition in schooling.
Is it just that the old people want more young people to pay for them to not work? Hopefully they built up a nice retirement fund, as I have little doubt most have.
Something tells me that there will be a small increase in Japanese population in the next 20 years and a steady increase for years after that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:44PM
Putting aside economics for a moment, Japan is jammed pack full of people. Seriously, a lower population has to be more sustainable long term.
And it looks like they are lowering the population without ugly laws, wars, starvation..etc.
All I can say is well done.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:22PM
The infrastructure and economy is already ugly enough to discourage population increase.
Look at the "helpers" on the commuter train platforms, then realize that these people are economically forced to work and deal with this kind of crowding. That's better birth control than most things I know of.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:48PM
Workforce is one area where supply side economics is actually relevant. The other being raw materials.
A shrinking workforce, without the reduced demand of a shrinking population, is not a good thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:53PM
Sounds good for pay though.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:00PM
If you don't take the inflationary component into account.
Things become more expensive as more people need them. Wages inflate, because everyone needs employees to provide services, but at the same time, those wages need to compete with increasingly stretched retirement accounts. The system will find a balance, but it's by no means certain to be a good one for workers.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:38PM
And that is why Japan has been putting so much effort into robotics. They already have a need for them, and they see an increasing need.
OTOH, there *is* a dark side to this. The reason Japan is so desperate for mechanized workers is that they tend to be Xenophobic. They don't want to invite immigrants. Some Korean families have lived in Japan for hundreds of years and still aren't accepted.
That said, given their desires (and desires are never reasonable, not even yours) they are adopting a reasonable approach. Japan *is* overfull, so cutting the population is necessary. Doing this humanely involves an aging population being supported by a smaller working age population. So...robots. The question is, how far will this trend go?
P.S.: Given Japan's history, their xenophobia is quite reasonable. They have usually been independent, and have been repeatedly attacked by outsiders. (Yeah, more recently in WWII they returned the favor, but that's ONE instance. Japan has a long history of repelling invaders. Sort of like Britain, only more successfully.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday August 27 2015, @10:11PM
Given Japan's history, their xenophobia is quite reasonable. They have usually been independent, and have been repeatedly attacked by outsiders. (Yeah, more recently in WWII they returned the favor, but that's ONE instance. Japan has a long history of repelling invaders. Sort of like Britain, only more successfully.)
Yea, you should probably check again. Japan first invaded Korea in the 16th century, and Korea was actually run as a colony of Japan starting around 1910 (they were a part of the Japanese Empire from some time in the 1850's). So Japan's imperialism goes back much further than you give them credit for.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @11:30PM
Yeah. For the last 700 years, Japan has pretty much always been the aggressor. [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 28 2015, @12:53AM
And Britain invaded France, and ran part of France as, essentially, a colony. (Ever hear of Joan of Arc?) But Britain was invaded by the Norse, the Danes, and Angles, the Romans, The French (though you could claim those were Norse, the one's I mean started out from Normandy).
Nobody's ancestors were peaceful. Only some of them. That goes for countries as well as people. But Japan was more successful at fighting off invasions than Britain was, probably because their "channel" was a lot wider.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:36PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @11:58PM
Keynes was all about full employment and The Multiplier Effect.
If Japan was using massive *government* employment, *then* you would be accurate in calling what Japan has done "Keynesian" (his final solution after Capitalism has completely failed).
Keynes was a Capitalist at his core and AS YOU HAVE NOTED MANY TIMES BEFORE, bailouts of failed Capitalists is antithetical to Capitalism.
...and you have never specified what the solution is when Capitalism has completely fallen on its face--except waiting for the Capitalists who have kept their billions to do what they will (the model followed during the 2-decade-duration Long Depression).
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 28 2015, @02:57PM
...and you have never specified what the solution is when Capitalism has completely fallen on its face--except waiting for the Capitalists who have kept their billions to do what they will (the model followed during the 2-decade-duration Long Depression).
Let it sort itself out. It's worth noting here that we don't really know if the Long Depression was worthy of the name. There's a lot of vague talk and little in the way of hard measurement. And given the huge productivity gains during the period, I'm not really sure what's supposed to be bad about the period.
Keynes was a Capitalist at his core and AS YOU HAVE NOTED MANY TIMES BEFORE, bailouts of failed Capitalists is antithetical to Capitalism.
I don't want to shatter your high opinion of capitalists, but hypocrisy is not unheard of.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 29 2015, @12:03PM
If Japan was using massive *government* employment, *then* you would be accurate in calling what Japan has done "Keynesian" (his final solution after Capitalism has completely failed).
That's what they did. They subsidized massive employment in their construction industries paid for by the malinvestment of their postal savings system and heavy borrowing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:07PM
Tax the crap out of tobacco though, and make establishments (restaurants, pubs etc) that want to allow smoking pay extra for licenses or put the licenses up for bidding (with a high enough reserve price) for each area. That way you ensure that enough places will be smoke free while there are still places for the smokers. Of course ban in it hospitals and other areas for safety reasons.
Then the answer to who will take care of the old people = drug money from the smokers and similar addicts. Sure some smokers will linger and cost a lot of money, but the majority would die earlier but typically after their most productive years have past thus costing a lot less while contributing more via tobacco taxes.
If people want to pay extra to die for your country why make it so difficult for them to do so?
Perhaps it's a bit harder to tax addictive junk food/drinks, so the unhealthy obese might be a net drag to the system despite generally dying earlier. Go let the economists figure that one out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:21PM
If smoking killed fast, it'd be fine, but it kills slooooow and there's shitloads of side effects that need to be taken care of and that costs loads of money.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:12PM
If smoking killed fast, it'd be fine, but it kills slooooow and there's shitloads of side effects that need to be taken care of and that costs loads of money.
It kills faster than old age. The real problem from a cold economic standpoint is that it lops off productive years of labor. Better to go with the suicide booth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:13PM
I have seen very few smokers die before "old age", often they die a long, expensive slow death stretching all the way into the 70's.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:37PM
This has been studied. The cost of added health care needed to treat smoking-related illnesses far outweigh current taxation levels.
More so when you take into account the effects of second-hand smoke on nonsmokers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:17PM
This is correct.
This is not.
That was once true, about sixty years ago. Once workplace bans went in the demonstrable health effects went with it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:27PM
The cost of added health care needed to treat smoking-related illnesses far outweigh current taxation levels.
Compared to the added health care costs of not getting smoking-related illnesses and not getting that tax revenue?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by curunir_wolf on Thursday August 27 2015, @10:31PM
This has been studied.
Yes, it has. Unfortunately, the statistics often quoted, especially regarding "second-hand smoke", are really over-inflated. This was done purposefully to demonize smoking (and smokers) and generate public support for authoritarian interventions. Look carefully at how things are tallied, and you will note that the health care and fatality statistics are based on all diseases that smoking can cause or exacerbate - including one of the highest killers, heart disease. That's regardless of whether the person suffering from the illness ever actually smoked, or were around smokers. In these statistics, lung cancers is always counted as smoking-related, even though there are other causes of lung cancer.
You don't really see anyone questioning the statistics because, well, smoking causes so many health issues who cares if it sounds worse than it is, because maybe it will help encourage people to quit (or not start). But you should realize that some amount of the costs you're talking about really won't go away even if everybody stopped smoking today and instantly cured of any damage it caused.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:30PM
Firstly, I'm not sure what the correct answer is. However, many industrialized countries have aging populations. However, Japan stands out as having some of the strictest immigration policies in the world - you really need to be Japanese to be a Japanese citizen.
Germany is a very good comparison. With one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, the country's population is largely dependent on immigration. In the past (60s and 70s) there were actually pro-immigration policies in place to replace working class labour, with the Turks being the most visible group attracted. The population issue is relatively solved, however there are social tensions with the immigrants and their families.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:50PM
What makes Japan so awesome is that it is a monoculture. This, as it turns out, is also its primary flaw.
IMHO, stay weird Japan.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:20PM
Support families with more children, encouraging more births. Then take care of the children so they grow to serve and support the country. Tax anyone healthy not having kids, and the problem will be solved quickly. Encourage traditional families, with the woman taking care of the home and the family and the man going out to work.
Don't treat the symptoms. Treat the cause. The cause is moving away from traditional family values into liberal traps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:04PM
The reason people there AREN'T having kids is because it's too expensive to live there with the standard wages most people manage to earn. (You have people living in manga cafes and people renting a fucking BOX to sleep in at "capsule hotels" because it's the only way they can survive - this doesn't help attract a mate.) Taxing the shit out of people without kids will just intensify this situation. To solve it you have to pay people more. But companies aren't going to pay people more willingly, and if you pay everyone more via government funds (which they can't afford anyway) then the businesses will respond by raising their prices as they typically do when they charge "based on what market is able to pay."
The problems Japan is facing is pretty much the exact same problem in ALL developed nations, including those of North America. We just manage to minize it's effect on us by importing people from other countries to make up the slack and in no small part having all those benefits offered to minority groups to help them succeed - which those immigrants tend to be as well. Japan doesn't have immigrants that can become permanent citizens and I'm pretty sure they don't have any special benefits given to any gaijin living there. We can see the result in Japan's dropping population.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:03PM
The people complaining about longevity and lack of population growth must have bought into the fantasies of infinite economic growth and infinite returns for investors. Perhaps now they will move to an African or Middle Eastern country where the average age is 16 and people are constantly dying off from disease and violence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @11:22PM
Yea it would be nice to have a society achieve a steady state but maintain a high quality. Seems everything in society has to perpetually "grow" for it to "work".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 28 2015, @01:32AM
I think Japan's declining population results from larger waves of cultural evolution catching up with them. At the foundation, there are traditional gender roles and the extreme patriarchy of classical Japanese society; men were strong, women were quiet and passive. You can see echoes of that today in the coquettish behavior and falsetto women adopt when around men--it's an entirely different story when nobody's around but the hens.
Layered on top of that is the post-war mania to bounce back from the country's defeat. Every man in the country was expected to kill himself working hard to rebuild. 80-90 hour work weeks are still the norm, even when there is no real reason for anyone to stay that late. Women, however, are not expected to stay past 5:30pm because the assumption is that they have to get home and take care of the children (who are returning from cram school at that time). Also, women are typically given no real responsibility in the workplace because they're expected to drop out of the work force as soon as they marry and have children. There's a very real glass ceiling. So, released from the office early in the evening, with no real opportunity or pressure to excel, they often go out with their girlfriends.
And, thanks to the sexual revolution, those groups of girls out on the town are quite comfortable having casual sex with the few men who, for various reasons, aren't tied down at the office. The result is a couple generations of younger Japanese women who are empowered in their identity and sexuality, accustomed to having fun and being free with their time, against generations of their male peers who are so totally surrounded by men that they have no idea how to relate to or talk with the girls.
It all combines into a terrific downward demographic spiral. As with most things, however, there is a silver lining for some. Japanese men and foreigners who escape the rat race can make out like bandits.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @02:17AM
STFU gaijin.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 28 2015, @01:28PM
anata mo urusai, bakamon
Washington DC delenda est.