Japan is set to lose a midsize city, approximately the size of Austin Texas, every year according to a Financial Times report and stats from the IMF.
“The reason Japan’s population is now falling so fast is not the low birth rate but rather an increase in the number of deaths,” said Akihiko Matsutani, professor emeritus in applied economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
The population decline is despite record immigration.
Interesting Stats
- There were 944,146 births in the year to October 2018 compared with 1,368,632 deaths.
- Long-term projections suggest Japan’s population will fall to just 50 million in a hundred years. That’s the same population as a hundred years ago.
I suspect the long-term projections are hugely wrong. If so, Japan’s mountain of debt will pose a huge problem. Japan’s battle against deflation will turn into a battle against inflation.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Russian demographics are more serious. Russia loses one million of their best educated every year.
The Grand Solar Minimum and coming Little Ice Age will take care of 30 to 50 percent of us in the next decade.
Ain t that great, when you come to think of it ? If only did would happen on a global scale ! Do we really have to be 20 bln soon on a already half destroyed planet for the mere benefit of the J&Js of this world ? Mankind has already passed its boom cycle and is now being kept alive in a delusive world of intrinsically worthless fiat money! How long can this go on, I wonder ….
The only place in the world with much population growth is sub Saharan Africa. And that will likely change. What you hope will happen is happening.
How does this compare to Russia’s demographic decline. Oh, I forgot Russia quit releasing that data. China appears to be disguising their decline also.
China’s strangeness will come far in the future. Once the one child directive kicked in, and people preferred boys, there no only a big drop in births, but an especially large decline in women. When that group of people hits child bearing age, many of the boys will have no wife and thus no children, so the drop in births will be steep. There are so many unknowns, it is hard to know what will happen.
Russia is pretty much debt free now, paying off its Soviet Union debt 2 years ago… maybe that is why they pose such a threat to the Western nations.
In one stream of thought, Russian is not a threat because of declining population, migration out of the country of the intellectual class, a moribund economy composed of natural resource exports and not much else. Another stream of thought, observes that Putin may be at best a ultra nationalist sociopath or someone playing a weak hand as best he can. Either way he is dangerously unstable, I look forward every month to his new super deluxe weapon of the month. Last month, new doomsday bomb all set to be put on super secret new submarine. Surprised, the Patriarch of Russian Orthodox church didn’t council him on the insanity of such a weapon. Lastly, do you ever hear of any interesting art coming out of Russia? None. Even the communist did better. Putin is night watchmen for an expanding Russian cemetery. I could go on all day about Russia. Thanks.
Japan has long had some seriously messed up demographics. In the midst of WWII, they had a huge birth boom, hoping to populate all the areas they had conquered. Once the bomb dropped, the birth rate dropped to near zero. Thus, they have a huge number of people born in 1942-44. Those people are currently 75-77. It isn’t surprising that the death rate is rising. The better question is what the demographics will do once those people are gone.
Not to worry, it’s only fiat, easily done away with, especially with the ‘out with the OWO, in with the NWO’ script on pace… no one will care about debt in a decade, especially with Mother Nature’s cleanup act in a decade or less.
That is Great news. Way too many people on this planet anyway. In the future people will either figure out a way to survive or they won’t. Survival of the fittest.
Well, if this keeps up, pretty soon those guys in the white gloves that shove the passengers into the Tokyo subway cars like sardines will be out of a job.
Then there’s this:
Fewer people means better quality of life, unless you enjoy sitting all day in traffic.
Doesn’t really work out that way, for minorities standing in the way of expanding populations feeling they need more Lebensraum…
The unbearable lightness of global s**tholes: more Lebensraum ideology by stealth.
We don’t need fewer people, just need to spread them out more. I hear Wyoming is nice.
Just further evidence that humans are no match for nature/cycles. The eugenicist, the original driving force behind the gloBull warming religion, believe population growth is the scourge of the earth.
Westerners are linear thinkers that not only like the simplicity of one variable analysis (if this, than that), but also believe trends continue indefinately. Whether it’s house and stock prices, interest rates, temperatures, sun spots, earthquakes, a heartbeat, or population, everything with energy has a cycle (amplitude/wavelength/frequency).
Even the universe pulses, but man, especially powerful ones, think they can manipulate or eliminate the cycles. This hubris only increases/decreases the amplitude, and this normal decline in population will be no different.
After prosperity comes the economic decline, and when this cycle overlaps the cooling cycle a rogue wave is produced that causes crop failures, famines, and then plagues. Historically, this led to migration and wars, as people sought productive land and other people’s stuff to survive. In modern times, leaders primarily need a distractive war to make people forget their self-interested leaders are not omnipotent.
Throw in the man-made insanity of the gloBull warming evangelist, who at a minimum will convince their cult that an economy-killing carbon tax is needed to save the world (reduce the population), and one can begin to appreciate how the amplitude of this normal decline in population can go rogue.
Geez, lighten up a little. It’s not all that bad really. Unless you have beachfront property I doubt global warming will do much other than maybe make it easier to grow corn and wheat in Canada.
You are misinformed. Canadians will need to move much further south or take up hydroponic gardening in their basements if they hope to grow anything in the decades ahead.
Using character assassination without knowing the person or reading the content and data – sounds like a person with an agenda instead being on a quest for truth. Good luck, you’re going to need it.
Believing? I thought you were Mr science. Not Mr religion.
Other than economics, I dont see a problem with the ant farm getting a bit smaller.
It doesn’t get smaller in aggregate. Life always fills in every nook and cranny where there is enough resources for it to survive. If some ant farms get smaller, others expand to appropriate the resources those no longer need. That’s just how competitive evolution works.
The elephant in the room in that chart is Ukraine…another shinny success story of U.S. regimey changy policy on behalf of rich gigantic corporations and the military industrial complex. Also too, and another proof of U.S. very very long long use of MMT for all things for rich gigantic corporations and the military industrial complex.
Population is not the underlying problem, debt is. In order for compounding debt to be repaid, population must also compound at least as fast.
Look on the not so negative side.
Wont C02 emissions fall as a consequence, globally.
Unemployment wont be a problem.
More breathing space.
Robotisation will be a partner to society.
Kids will be wanted.
It will probably stabilise but st a lower population level.
Its not the end of the world, forcing family sizes could have bad consequences.
Etc etc
It will stabilize the way such things always do: With those reproducing displacing those who don’t. Japan is in a far remote corner, and still heavily populated by most any standard. But eventually, the Japanese will be displaced too, by expanding masses hungry for land. Unless they get busy producing a sufficient surplus of military age males to deter invaders.
“Please clarify which way you think the long term projections are off.”
In general, long-term projections are suspect. Look back at the Domino theory in Vietnam, global cooling projections in the 1960s, Greenspan’s productivity miracle in 2000, etc.
At some point attitudes changes. I believe attitudes towards having children in Japan will change. That will end the deomgraphic cliff.
I believe you to be wrong. This article may change your mind.
A Quarter of Japanese People in Their 20s and 30s Are Virgins, Study Finds
By Megan Schmidt | April 11, 2019 1:06 pm
man sleeps alone Japan virginity crisis
Nearly a quarter of Japanese people under age 39 are virgins, according to a new analysis by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo.
The findings, published in BMC Public Health, show that Japanese young adults are having less sex today than their counterparts were decades ago. Both men and women are having their first sexual encounters later in life, and many are entering their 30s as virgins.
While Japan’s increasingly sexless generation may seem shocking, people in other wealthy and developed nations are also opting to keep their pants on, so to speak. But even so, it appears that Japan is an outlier.
….
I don’t think Japan is that much of an outlier. In Asia, I think a few countries have lower birth rates than theirs. For example, I know South Korea has both a lower birth rate and a higher suicide rate than Japan.
I’ve also seen Japanese bloggers openly question these studies that claim nobody’s getting busy there. For whatever reason, it’s fashionable to claim Japan is a mystical place with inscrutable ways, but for the most part they’re just regular people. Besides, there are new studies claiming the US and other countries are becoming more sexless too, particularly among young adults.
Japan isn’t so much inscrutable, as simply a generation ahead in many ways. They’re the Land of the Rising Sun, and all… 🙂
Economically, they got their credit bubble done and over with a generation ago. Demographically, ditto their population peak. NTT was ahead of most in rolling out wireless broadband, so Japanese kids have been in a position to substitute their phone, and electronics in general, for social interaction for longer than elsewhere.
A country where darned near everyone is old, is also a country where old people’s concerns are culturally front and center. Not those of young people, including sex. It’s not entirely accidental that peak sex-obsession in the West, coincided with the huge Baby Boomer cohort’s prime reproductive years.
Once the credit bubble bursts, and demographics turn fully Japanese, and kids’ upbringing is as thoroughly virtualized here as there, the West will likely follow similar trends. Things may still stand out more in Japan, since there are so few immigrants there. While in the West, there is a constant stream of people arriving from cultures which are more virile, and where sex and reproduction remain closer to front and center.
1960 Global Cooling was not a long term trend but a short term fad. If you want a long term forecast (or the first forecast on global climate change), you need to go back to the 1890’s and its originator, Svante Arrhenius.
There has to be a reason for this? No one has bother to try and find out. Could the aggregate male T levels be declining, I imagine this could be a factor as this just isn’t natural male behavior. I guess if that is the case it could be an environmental exposure like plastics causing this.
Sooo, what does Syria look like?
What is the story with Ukraine? It looks like their population is falling off a cliff.
War, nuclear accident, gangster state, young people moving to Moscow or Western Europe……. Venezuela isn’t exactly thriving, either; but at least they weren’t nuked from within a generation ago.
Russia also captured several areas. I don’t know it the population drop reflects the loss of those areas, or it if the reported loss includes only areas they still control.
Forgot about that, thanks. Obviously the loss of Crimea means millions of people no longer in Ukraine.
Italy, too? A decade or two ago the projected population of Italy looked a lot like that for Japan – way-heavy on old people by 2050. The US is a bit of an outlier in such projections because of immigration.
Demographics is going to interact with breeding in “interesting ways” in the near future. We have a couple hundred million years of breeding to value kids. Rather less time to adapt to value old folks.
I maintain Japan’s birth rate is okay as we head into a declining world economy. They’re as innovative with robots and automation as anybody and they still have a cohesive society.
Abe is making a mistake following the western trend of wanting to import unskilled workers. They don’t need them.
Of course Japan is screwed economically, but so is everybody else. The goal is to have a country that can weather the storm and work together rather than despising each other over every imaginable human trait. I’d much rather be in their shoes than ours.
The economy of Japan proper, is completely screwed. There simply aren’t even remotely close to enough qualified younger workers, to replace those who wish they could have retired 20 years ago. The “kids” in the office over there, are guys in their sixties…. Those are the generation who is being groomed to take over. From those in their 80s who wish to retire… But who will never get the chance.
And, it’s a self reinforcing problem. Since absolutely every STEM qualified Japanese male receive 100 job offers a day, simply for being a Japanese guy able to fog a mirror, and none of them have any kids nor other responsibilities, they have no reason to not put off “growing up” for later. Exacerbating what is already a huge problem of intergenerational succession.
“Robots” just make things even harder. The more capital you have, the more absolute depreciation your total capital suffers. Hence, in practice, the more people you need working, just to keep the machines running. The fear mongering nonsense that capital can ever replace labor, is both theoretically impossible, and in practice laughable.
Because of how advanced Japanese production is, there are no “standard” jobs. Every one of those 80+ years old geezers stuck working forever, have a job different from everyone else. Hence, noone can take his place, absent a long apprenticeship.
It’s very different from the situation in less advanced economies, where a guy pushing a wheelbarrow, can relatively easily be replaced by another guy pushing a wheelbarrow. From abroad if necessary. In Japan, one guy has instead, over his lifetime, perfected automating wheelbarrow pushing. So, instead of pushing a wheelbarrow, he is overseeing some gigantic, hypercomplex machinery that pushes all the country’s wheelbarrows. More efficiently than they are being pushed anywhere else in the world. And he is now nearing 90. And noone has the remotest clue what he is doing every day in order to ensure all those wheelbarrows are being pushed…… Multiply that by millions, and you have Japan.
Of course, the economy of Japan proper, is just a rather arbitrary aggregate. Rational individuals are the only economic actors. National borders just lines on maps. So individual Japanese will be fine. As will Japan based enterprises, who have a two to decades head start on their Western brethren in adapting to both a world where there is no longer a credit bubble, and one where all growth in both markets and inputs, are foreign.
So, the Japanese will be fine. All 50 million of them. Toyota as well. But Toyota will be a lot less “Japanese” in 50 years. Instead becoming more “multinational” in the truest sense of the word. And “Japan,” as in the nation state drawn on a map, will be much less economically significant.
Thanks for the dose of realism.
Hi Stuki:
You are describing a Japan I don’t recognize. All the offices and conferences I’ve been to in Japan have been filled with younger people – most people retire at 60 in my experience. Maybe this is just high tech, but it seemed to be the norm from the conversations I’ve had with plenty of my Japanese compatriots. It seemed that many were reluctant retirees however, as saving for retirement doesn’t seem to be a high priority – they seem to settle for living off the state pension.
It is possible I only talked to a small, unrepresentative group.
If you are working only with young people in Japan, you are by definition working with a (dwindling) minority….
It’s a big country, though. So in absolute numbers, there are still plenty enough non geezers to fill a conference hall. There is also a more youthful “Softbank” economy, centered around software and other niches of high tech, operating almost independently of the Japan Inc. their parents and grandparents built. But in the big companies and institutions, where much of the hard, fundamental work was/is done which made Japan Japan, even in “high tech” fields like telecom, old and getting older is still the norm.
I do think relaxed immigration will help as long as they attract the right skill sets. It would be nice if they could identify the root cause for the unwillingness of the next generation to marry and have families. I own guess its what is affecting the US to some extent. People can’t afford to start a family and buy a home most likely because of inflated asset prices. Here in the US throw in burdensome student loan debt for unproductive degrees along with a general laziness of the remaining millennials and you get diminishes population growth. At least in the US we can hopefully fix the immigration system to get skilled and non skilled people to come be productive both economically and in a familial way.
Mish,
Please clarify which way you think the long term projections are off.
Falling to less than 50 million total population or more? Thanks in advance. (btw, I won’t be around in 50 years to see if you are correct!)
The Baby Boomers are dying off in increasing numbers. Japan has been in government-induced ‘recession’ for 30 years. As the prospects of the newer generations withered so did the incentive to produce additionals burdens (i.e. children) which would have made the poor economy even more difficult to deal with. With no prospect of ‘growing out of the debt burden’ Japan is screwed.