The Economic Impact Of Population Decline And Aging In Japan

Despite the remarkably serious problems caused by aging and population decline in Japan, there are very few books that inform the world about them in English. Through this book, a Japanese economic demographer clearly shows the various economic consequences of population problems in Japan, especially the impacts of continuing ultra-low fertility and the world’s highest life expectancy in the post-demographic transition phase. The explanation is at a basic level but covers the overall economic issues including labor, capital, technical progress, consumption, savings and investment from a demographic perspective. Finally, some remedies for economic growth in Japan are proposed. Because economic policies are expected to have short-term effects while demographic ones to increase the fertility rate need some time to take effect, earlier books about the Japanese economy have hardly ever dealt with demographic policies. Furthermore, this book directly addresses the integrated economic and demographic policies appropriate to Japan. These are different from the French natalistic social policy, the Scandinavian policy of a work–life balance or the immigration policy in Australia or the United States. This book emphasizes the power of local communities in Japan as a part of East Asia. In this sense, the book provides a new key to readers who are interested in the future Japanese economy and population.

This cutting edge collection examines Japan’s population issue, exploring how declining demographic trends are affecting Japan’s social structure, specifically in the context of Greater Tokyo, life infrastructure, public finance and the economy. Considering the failures of past Japanese policies from the perspective of population, national land, and politics, it argues that the inability of past administrations to develop a long-term and comprehensive policy has exacerbated the population crisis. This text identifies key negative chain reactions that have stemmed from this policy failure, notably the effect of population decline on future economic growth and public finances and the impact of shrinking municipalities on social and community infrastructure to support quality of life. It also highlights how population decline can precipitate inter-generational conflict, and impact on the strength of the state and more widely on Japan’s international status. Japan is on the forefront of the population problem, which is expected to affect many of the world’s advanced industrial economies in the 21st century. Based on the study of policy failures, this book makes recommendations for effective population policy – covering both ‘mitigation’ measures to encourage a recovery in the depopulation process as well as ‘adaptation’ measures to maintain and improve living standards – and provides key insights into dealing with the debilitating effects of population decline.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the most pressing challenges facing Japan today: population decline and ageing. It argues that social ageing is a phenomenon that follows in the wake of industrialization, urbanization and social modernization, bringing about changes in values, institutions, social structures, economic activity, technology and culture, and posing many challenges for the countries affected. Focusing on the experience of Japan, the author explores: how Japan has recognized the emerging problems relatively early because during the past half century population ageing has been more rapid in Japan than in any other country how all of Japanese society is affected by social ageing, not just certain substructures and institutions, and explains its complex causes, describes the resulting challenges and analyses the solutions under consideration to deal with it the nature of Japan’s population dynamics since 1920, and argues that Japan is rapidly moving in the direction of a ‘hyperaged society’ in which those sixty-five or older account for twenty-five per cent of the total population the implications for family structures and other social networks, gender roles and employment patterns, health care and welfare provision, pension systems, immigration policy, consumer and voting behaviour and the cultural reactions and ramifications of social ageing.

Japan and Germany are at the vanguard of a new population dynamics in developed countries: population decline in the absence of war, famine and pandemics. This book presents an in-depth overview of the social and economic implications of this development.

Whilst all of the major industrialized countries are currently experiencing population ageing, Japan is at the forefront of this demographic trend. This important new book explores the serious economic and social challenges that a rapidly ageing Japanese economy will have to overcome in the first half of the 21st century. Following a comprehensive review of the economics of ageing both in general and in Japan, the authors present a range of future scenarios produced using an integrated economic-demographic model. This unique model integrates demography and the macro-economy, paying special attention to pensions, health care, and long-term care. The results reveal that, even if future demographic trends are more favourable than predicted, Japan will still experience a slowdown of economic growth, reduced savings, and rising costs of pensions, health care and long-term care. However, with appropriate policy measures and rapid implementation, the authors believe that a situation in which both young and old continue to experience long-term improvements in well-being remains possible.This book is arguably the best available English language survey on the economic implications of population trends in Japan. It will be widely read by researchers of economics, demography, public policy and public finance, and will also provide useful supplemental reading for graduate or upper undergraduate courses in economics, social policy, and Asian studies.

Is Japan’s aging and, more recently, declining population hampering growth and reflation efforts? Exploiting demographic and economic variation in prefectural data between 1990 and 2007, we find that aging of the working age population has had a significant negative impact on total factor productivity. Moreover, prefectures that aged at a faster pace experienced lower overall inflation, while prefectures with higher population growth experienced higher inflation. The results give strong support to the notion that demographic headwinds can have a non-trivial impact on total factor productivity and deflationary pressures.

This book is a concerted attempt by economists to investigate and offer remedies for some of the difficulties associated with an ageing labor market.

This book integrates the economics of aging and insight based on political economy and explores generational conflict in the context of governmental spending. This problem is general, as the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted: lockdowns protect the elderly, but hurt the young. Policies to address global warming impose taxes on the elderly, but would bring benefits largely in the future. This book addresses intergenerational problems by placing its focus on budget allocation, taxation, and regulation. By using Japanese and US data, the authors conduct statistical analysis of whether regions with aging populations may adopt policies that generate benefits during a short period of time instead of policies that could benefit current young generations for an extended period of time. If the policy preferences of voters depend on their age, and if policy adoption by a government reflects public opinion, the change in demographic composition in a region may affect governmental policies. In an aged society, the elderly are pivotal voters. Budgets may be reallocated from policies favored by younger generations, such as education, to policies the elderly prefer, such as welfare programs. This generates an intergenerational externality problem: voters with short life expectancy do not take into consideration long-term benefits. Moreover, the current tax bases may be replaced by other tax bases that do not harm the elderly. The results reported in the book largely support these hypotheses. Evidence also shows that the gender and racial composition and institutional factors, including the extent of fiscal decentralization, are important in anticipating effects of population aging in other countries.