Japan’s Demographic Time Bomb

April 14th, 2016

Awake Goy

Japan’s Demographic Time Bomb

April 14th, 2016

Via: Vox:

Japan has a major demographic problem: 26 percent of its population is elderly, the largest percent of any country in the world. That’s because Japan’s birthrate is declining, as is its overall population. In other words, a huge chunk of its population is getting old and leaving the workforce, and not enough people are being born to take their place.

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By 2050, the OECD projects, nearly 40 percent of Japan’s population will be elderly.

This is very, very bad: Countries need new people to support the older ones who can’t work and to generate economic growth. If Japan doesn’t turn its birthrate problem around, or somehow make each of its workers a hell of a lot more productive, it’s in for a disaster.

“The working age population is falling by about 1 percent per year, and the rate of shrinkage will eventually approach 1.7 percent per year, so that even productivity growth of two percent or more will deliver very low aggregate or per capita growth,” the OECD report explains. “There will simply be no way to sustain high living standards and quality public standards in a ‘super-aging’ Japan unless the country is able to achieve much higher rates of productivity growth.”

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