A Dying Country: Japan to lose 30% of population over next 50 years,40% of remaining will be 65 yrs+ [View all]

[stockholmer]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0131/1224311002007.html

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.”

snip