A topic I’m personally fascinated by. Replacement level populations, to put it in Sabermetric terms. But this is serious business in Asia and Europe, and I’ll try to link to it more often. I highly recommend Canadian conservative columnist Mark Steyn’s many writings on the subject.
Here’s an article in today’s Washington Post on how Japanese women are continuing to eschew traditional child-bearing roles. Great for women’s rights in Japan, but terrible for Japanese birth rates.
From Japanese Women Shy From Dual Mommy Role:
“I have never met a Japanese man who did not want me to be his mommy.”
That is the reason, Takako Katayama says, that she has not married. At 37, she has carved out a comfortable life here in Tokyo, with her own apartment, a good job at a cable television network, and a network of family and friends.
She has not closed the door on marriage and children. When she meets girlfriends for dinner, they ask each other, “Where are the good guys?” But she refuses to settle for a man who works long hours, declines to share in child-rearing and sees marriage mainly as a way to acquire lifetime live-in help.
“I want a mature, equal-partner kind of marriage,” she said. “Anyway, there are complete lives without a baby.”
The numbers are staggering — the article says Japan has the world’s highest proportion of people over 65 and lowest proportion of children under 15. By 2050 population loss will strip Japan of 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.
I wish I had answers.
21 responses so far ↓
1 John Brooks // Aug 31, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Here goes my $0.02: Yeah this is slowly but surely becoming a major problem in Europe and Asia. The economic boom happening in both regions is going to dry up sooner or later when the death rate overcomes the birthrate.
According to Wikipedia, over 1/4 of the population will be elderly by 2020.
These countries economy won’t see a hit now, tomorrow, or even 10 years from now, but down the line countries like China, Japan, and South Korea. Though eventually down the line they will see a big hit.
2 Christopher Amano-Langtree // Aug 31, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Given what I know of Japanese men I can only say, ‘I am not surprised’.
3 Westbaystars // Aug 31, 2008 at 11:17 pm
My completely unscientific observations have been that the poor tend to have more babies than the wealthy. Those countries that are prospering, therefore, will see a decline in birth rate. But why would this be so?
In the case of Japan, beyond the sexist reasons given above, there’s a feeling that many girls have here that they just want to “play.” That is, many an OL (Office Lady) earns money for the sole reason of going on onsen trips or trips to foreign countries. A child will take away that ability.
At my previous employment, there was one couple, marries, who basically pooled their money so that they could go on trips every summer and winter vacation. One earned enough to pay the rent and food, the other earned enough for their entertainment. Neither were interested in having children - which would ruin that arrangement.
4 Shinsano // Sep 1, 2008 at 9:32 am
I think there’s a direct correlation with wealth. The only nation, as far as I can see, that bucks the trend is America. That leads me to believe it also has something to do with religion.
Generally speaking people who have more money are busier making money, or are possibly more selfish than those who don’t. In South Korea I know a number of young couples are daunted by the expense of having children. So they have one or two.
In Korea the official party line amongst men on this is that women want their own money, jobs, time etc (they don’t put it in such kind terms though). But that doesn’t explain why the same thing is happening in Europe, where gender tends to be as equal as anywhere in the world.
Fact of the matter is countries are going to have to deal with this pretty quick. I see Japan as possibly being the most dire situations, just because they don’t have immigrant populations replacing the lack of babies. For better or for worse, Europe does.
5 simon // Sep 1, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Doesn’t Korea lack immigrants too? In that case Korean society is just following Japan in terms of wealth and ageing.
Anyways, France has managed to reverse the declining birth rate among the native population through comprehensive welfare and support systems for mothers in society.
Machismo is more pronounced in Mediterranean countries and they have lower birthrates than northern Europe. Hmm..
6 Shinsano // Sep 1, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I’d like to see a list of immigrant population per year per country for 2006/2007. This one from wikipedia is just through 2005 and is totaled, so it’s not exactly what we’d want.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population
Any country with a birthrate under 2 will face problems. South Korea included. I believe the Korean birthrate has gone up in each of the past two years…from 1.10 to 1.15 to 1.29. Not sure which way Japan’s has been going.
I also know the immigrant population increasing pretty fast in South Korea. Is it in Japan?
7 John Brooks // Sep 1, 2008 at 3:54 pm
This page gives some insight.
At the end of 2004, there were 1.97 million immrigrants in Japan up 1.3% from 2000(1.7 million). This link goes into more depth about the breakdown.
74% of the immrigrant population comes from Asia and 18% from South America(which comes from mainly Brazil where many Japanese immrigrated to in the early 1900s).
Breaking that down further, it shows 41% of registered foreigners are permanent residents(which adds up to 466,000).
Also, further down the article it shows that 3.5 million foreigners entered Japan in 1990, 5.27 million in 2000, and 7.45 million in 2005.
8 Christopher Amano-Langtree // Sep 1, 2008 at 5:54 pm
The birth rate in Japan is falling below sustainable lessons and the number of elderly people are increasing. Japan is an expensive and not child friendly society. Immigrants are not being welcomed in nearly enough numbers to replace the shortfall. So far the response has been to bury heads in the sand.
9 Westbaystars // Sep 1, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Another thing. Can someone please explain why the falling birth rate is so dire? Why wouldn’t it be desirable to have population level off or go down? Is seem as though people are using up too many resources as it is. And the more crowded cities become, the worse off society is as a whole.
If a society is unable to fully employ its citizens, then wouldn’t a reduction in working population equal to the unemployment rate not actually be desirable?
10 baekgom84 // Sep 2, 2008 at 12:29 am
Isn’t it to do with the percentage of elderly vs the percentage of young people? Due principally to the fact that many among the elderly are incapable of sustaining themselves, and therefore rely on government assistance (i.e. government money) or at least, are being paid for by the youth with money that would otherwise be diverted to more economically-friendly pursuits. So basically, when you ignore the fact that they are human beings, they are a big drain on government resources. You need youth to pay their own way (and government taxes), consume, and generally boost the economy.
Or at least, that’s what I thought - I’m often wrong about this kind of thing. I don’t know where the unemployment factor sits in this debate. What is Japan’s unemployment rate? What is Korea’s, for that matter?
11 John Brooks // Sep 2, 2008 at 12:55 am
What is Japan’s unemployment rate? What is Korea’s, for that matter?
Using the CIA Factbook, Japan has a 3.9% unemployment rate(2007 est) and South Korea has a 3.3% unemployment rate.
Though looking at the birth to death rate for both:
Japan: 7.87 births to 9.26 deaths/1,000 population
S.Korea: 9.83 births to 6.12 deaths/1,000 population
So using that stat, it seems Korea hasn’t hit a birth rate drop like Japan has.
Moving on to 65 years and older:
Japan: 21.6% of the population is 65 or older
S.Korea: 9.9% of the population is 65+
On to the population growth:
Japan: -0.139%
S.Korea: +0.371%
12 simon // Sep 2, 2008 at 2:25 am
I read somewhere of one estimate by a sociologist (I think it was) that had the Japanese population at around 80 million by mid-century. That’s an approximately 33% decrease. Immigrants? Japan’s got robots, man
13 Shinsano // Sep 2, 2008 at 8:44 am
Baekgom, I think you’re exactly right. If people die off with no replacement, the population decreases and can’t sustain itself. I think Simon is also right with his robot quip. I’ve even heard that Japan has oriented it’s economy toward electronics with the population decrease in mind. Korea to some extent will probably do the same. And I wouldn’t rule out clones either. Europe, however, won’t. Their answer is to allow more immigrants as the U.S. has. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to French and German cultural identity over the next 50-100 years. It’s going to change and probably will become a bit more “faceless”, like the American culture they’ve looked down upon for the previous 50-100 years. That is, if their economies survive. The way things are going, they may just end up being part of Russia.
Thanks for those statistics John.
14 Jake // Sep 2, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I think it does have to do with culture as well. Like others have mentioned both Europe and Japan still have quite sexist cultures (when compared to America).
So women tend to delay getting married and having children until as late as possible.
But for some reason I think that if China lifted their one-child policy there would be a sudden boom in baby-making.
15 John Brooks // Sep 2, 2008 at 10:27 pm
But for some reason I think that if China lifted their one-child policy there would be a sudden boom in baby-making.
The government said they reconsider it earlier this year, but that went nowhere. When I get more chance to, I’ll check the stats on China.
Though my instict is that how would China survive a increased population jump if the One Child policy was abolished? How would the country find the resources for an increased population and the schooling for them?
Returning to Japan, it sadly still seems its still not very receptive towards immrigrants to solve the problem.
16 Westbaystars // Sep 2, 2008 at 11:33 pm
So in answer to my question as to why it’s bad to have a drop in new population, it’s to keep a system that obviously doesn’t work continuing on to infinity? Does that sum things up?
I’m sure that some of you think that I’m going insane with some of my rantings here of late, but that just doesn’t make any sense. Creating more consumers to perpetuate a broken economic model is going to break more things in the long run - like civilization as a whole. How is crowding more people into a smaller area to compete over fewer resources beneficial to society in any way other than generating more taxes to be wasted by those in power, most of it not getting to those whom this whole system is intended to help?
How were these issues handed in the past? Oh, yeah - WAR. When the neighboring populations got too large, they’d kill off all males between ages 16 and 36 over a period of several years to decades. With that much of the population taken out of the work force, and the destruction of crops and cities, once peace was declared, there was plenty for everyone to do without getting in each other’s way for a number of centuries at first, then decades more recently.
War has been replaced by domestic crime to ease the tensions in many “peace loving nations.” Those countries (or cities) with more violent crime probably suffer from a poor system of resource distribution. Whether that distribution system is government based or market based doesn’t matter. The society in such an area is broken. Will more babies really help?
Nope, I still fail to see how a drop in birth rate is detrimental to society as a whole. And “because that’s the way the system has always worked” is not a valid reason. If the system is broken, it needs fixing.
17 Westbaystars // Sep 5, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Dang. It looks like this thread died before I got a satisfactory answer. Shinsano was right. It is difficult to have a complex discussion on difficult topics.
18 Shinsano // Sep 6, 2008 at 9:05 am
For the record I said the blog format doesn’t lend itself to complex discussions. I think that’s just the nature of the internet and especially blogs.
I agree with what you said, in part, but I don’t know how you can say the economic system is simply broken, that we don’t need replacement populations for any reason but war, and leave it at that. That’s not fair.
I’d say it needs an adjustment. The addiction to energy and consumer goods certainly needs to be addressed and people are slowly coming around to that idea. But that doesn’t mean an overthrow is in order. It’s taken me awhile to realize it, but the system does work. Especially in comparison to past ideas. It needs an adjustment. I can say we need replacement populations because that’s the way the system has always worked, because its true. A society that doesn’t need a replacement population is something along the lines of a Collectivist society.
19 Gus Lonzo // Sep 6, 2008 at 12:29 pm
In response to Westbaystars question, the reason that declining birthrates is significant is because if humanity’s goal is to “go forth and prosper” or to “be fruitful and multiply” or, as some have suggested, to populate the entire universe no less, then our “will to life” so to speak, (not our “will to power,” mind you, but our “will to life”) must be maintained and nurtured and strengthened, generation after generation, ad infinitum, and not ad nauseum, though one wonders… Otherwise, we’ll lose it and then eventually die out, the whole lot of us, one advanced nation after the other. And so, the decline in birthrates of nations like Italy, for example, where right now the people are suffering from a countrywide malaise, in fact, doesn’t bode well for the rest of us living in similar nations. Because eventually, we’re going to have to get off this planet and start colonizing other planets and/or their moons. And in order to do that, we’re not only going to have to be around, but we’re going to have to be around in vast numbers. I’m thinking here of the kind of numbers you might see in an Asimov novel–something on the scale of 20 billion or so, just for starters). I mean, come on people! Go and read Starhammer why don’t you! How did that vicious Laowan Imperium subjugate all of humankind? Numbers. Sheer numbers. They came with a force of something like 300 billion to our 10 or so. And that was it for us, for a while at least. But the point is, the days indeed have gone down in the West, and the problem can indeed be tied to wealth, which tends to breed decadence, which tends to breed very little, if at all. And so, the solution is… Communism! Yes, the West must become poor again if it’s going to have any sort of future among the stars. Either that, or we’re going to have to come up with a way to put the “umph” back in life for those of us who were lucky enough to have be born in a place where life is no longer the only game in town. And for the record, I’d prefer the latter solution by far.
20 Westbaystars // Sep 7, 2008 at 12:37 am
You’re right, it’s not fair to leave it at that. I did so for impact - in an attempt to get people to think about the current system. Does it or does it not work? It seems like all of the “experts” have been saying that it wouldn’t continue working for the past 30 years at least, yet it has. Is that due to population replenishment or other tweaks to the system?
And my mention of war was how over-population used to be “naturally” treated. I most definitely don’t recommend it.
I really like Lonzo-san bringing up space exploration. I’ve read the greats - Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Heinlein, and I’ve been very upset that we aren’t where these visionaries expected us to be in 2000. The lessons Asimov gives us of the Solarians is a very convincing argument for population replenishing; as well as against decadence an longevity. Jumping to the Empire trilogy (that spanned 5 or 6 books), it was the quickly reproducing sons and daughters of Earth, with their short lifespan, that populated the universe, not the long lived first wave of Spacers (from R Daniel Oliver’s humble beginnings).
How were people governed in those overcrowded Caves of Steel? Was a life of eating nothing but processed yeast and keeping one’s eyes constantly averted from others really that enjoyable? Is that the level of indignity that mankind must reach before we’re willing to really push for the stars? (For the record, yes, I’d be willing to take a one-way trip to help setup a permanent presence on Mars tomorrow, regardless of the likelihood of survival.)
Hmmm. Will we have the necessary number of people to join Rama II when it comes? Or will we have to fill it with criminals due to not enough of the qualified population volunteering?
Wow, you’ve really thrown my thought processes off topic. I haven’t read some of these books for 15-20 years, yet they’re all I can think of now. [Look! Something shiny!]
Alright. To see mankind take off toward the stars, we’re going to need incentive. If conditions on Earth get so bad due to over-population, then that would be a good incentive. I can see that. But will the funds be there for such exploration? Or will they be diverted to maintaining outdated social systems that don’t benefit anyone but those who know how to play the game?
21 simon // Sep 7, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I’ve read or heard that at the current rate of consumption of natural resources by the developed world, we would need 4 Earths to support even the current world population of about 6 billion people all living at developed world standards.
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