News Research: Japanese population shouldn't shrink to less than 80m

[thomas]

A group of private-sector experts have urged the Japanese government to stabilize the country's population at 80 million by 2100. The group, chaired by Akio Mimura, honorary chairman of Nippon Steel Corp., submitted a proposal to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, emphasizing that the highest priority should be on young people and women. The proposal suggested that the government should "create a social environment that will enable people to realize their aspirations to marry and to have children". The proposal called explicitly for higher incomes and improved employment for young people to achieve the population goal.

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates that Japan's population will shrink to 63 million, about half the current level, in 2100 and that people aged 65 or older will account for about 40 percent of that. [...] To stabilize the population at 80 million, the total fertility rate, or the number of children a woman is expected to give birth to during her lifetime, should be boosted to the replacement level of 2.07 in 2060, up from 1.26 in 2022, according to the group. If the goal is achieved, the ratio of elderly people would be limited to 30 percent of the population in 2100, and the proportion of foreigners would be 10 percent. The group said Japan can maintain an economic growth rate of 0.9 percent between 2050 and 2100 if the government takes additional measures to strengthen Japan's resilience, such as improving corporate productivity.

Also:

The group argued against adopting an "immigration policy" to compensate for the population decline, saying Japan should only accept highly skilled or professional foreigners.

Population must stabilize by 2100 at 80 million, group warns | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

 

[Maciamo]

The Japanese government has been trying to encourage people to have more children for at least two decades without success. The same is true in many European countries. Governments cannot force people to have children — at least not in free and democratic countries.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

I thought poor people tended to have more children than those with higher income. Obviously the answer is more poverty.

 

[Lothor]

A group of private-sector experts have urged the Japanese government to stabilize the country's population at 80 million by 2100. The group, chaired by Akio Mimura, honorary chairman of Nippon Steel Corp., submitted a proposal to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, emphasizing that the highest priority should be on young people and women. The proposal suggested that the government should "create a social environment that will enable people to realize their aspirations to marry and to have children". The proposal called explicitly for higher incomes and improved employment for young people to achieve the population goal.




Also:

The group argued against adopting an "immigration policy" to compensate for the population decline, saying Japan should only accept highly skilled or professional foreigners.

Population must stabilize by 2100 at 80 million, group warns | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

Japan doesn't have any choice but to accept foreigners that are not highly skilled/professional if it wants enough employees. All other developed countries do, as far as I can tell. And there's a certain arrogance there, assuming that highly skilled/professional foreigners actually want to come to Japan, when many other countries pay their workers better and have a more enlightened attitude towards work.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Japan doesn't have any choice but to accept foreigners that are not highly skilled/professional if it wants enough employees. All other developed countries do, as far as I can tell. And there's a certain arrogance there, assuming that highly skilled/professional foreigners actually want to come to Japan, when many other countries pay their workers better and have a more enlightened attitude towards work.

Oh they do, alright. Just not on a path toward citizenship and only on a temporary basis. And it helps to have Japanese ancestry. My part of Aichi Prefecture had a lot of Brazilians. I heard that Shizuoka had a lot of them, too.

Brazilians in Japan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This article was interesting...I left Japan just as they were trying to get the Brazilians to leave, too, as it happens.