Aging (and Shrinking) Populations

[campbell]

JAPAN

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201.../#.U02Pd_ldX_M

Japan’s population has shrunk for the third year running, with the elderly making up a quarter of the total for the first time, government data showed Tuesday.

The number of people in the world’s third-largest economy dropped by 0.17 percent or 217,000 people, to 127,298,000 as of last Oct. 1, the data said. This figure includes long-staying foreigners.

The number of people aged 65 or over rose by 1.1 million to 31.9 million, accounting for 25.1 percent of the population, it said.

With its low birthrate and long life expectancy, Japan is rapidly graying and already has one of the world’s highest proportions of elderly people.

The aging population is a headache for policymakers who are faced with trying to ensure an ever-dwindling pool of workers can pay for the growing number of pensioners.

The country has very little immigration. Any suggestion of opening its borders to young workers who could help plug the population gap provokes strong reactions among the public.

Good thing they like robots more than foreigners, I guess.

[Dan Moore]

Not sure where to put this:

Britain to consider telling retirees when they're likely to shuffle off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/wo...s&emc=rss&_r=1

“There’s no point being all British and coy about it,” he said. Gender, age and “perhaps asking one or two basic questions, like whether you’ve smoked or not,” Mr. Webb said, should be enough to determine how long, on average, someone is likely to live. Having an idea of life expectancy would help retirees with private pensions manage their finances more efficiently, he said.

[snikelfritz]

Originally Posted by campbell

JAPAN

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201.../#.U02Pd_ldX_M

Good thing they like robots more than foreigners, I guess.

All the talk of Japan's great stagnation is interesting when compared to GDP per person, which has been growing nicely, it's just that the number of people hasn't.

[campbell]

Originally Posted by Dan Moore

Not sure where to put this:

Britain to consider telling retirees when they're likely to shuffle off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/wo...s&emc=rss&_r=1

Interesting, though they should also give percentiles.

[campbell]

JAPAN

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...n-age-children

The number of children in Japan has fallen to a new low, while the amount of people over 65 has reached a record high as the population ages and shrinks, the government said.

There were an estimated 16.33 million children aged under 15 as of 1 April, down 160,000 from a year earlier, the internal affairs and communications ministry said on Sunday. It was the 33rd straight annual decline and the lowest level since records began in 1950.

Children accounted for 12.8% of the population, the ministry said. By contrast, the ratio of people aged 65 or older was at a record high, making up 25.6% of the population. Jiji Press said that, of countries with a population of at least 40 million, Japan had the lowest ratio of children to the total population – compared with 19.5% for the United States and 16.4% for China.

[campbell]

SOUTH KOREA

http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2015/08..._LID=164548916

(Bloomberg) — It’s only twenty years ago that South Korea was so intent on population control that getting sterilized put young couples on the fast track for public housing. Even the army was in on the act, offering a free pass from annual military training to any man willing to shuffle off for a vasectomy.

In the space of a generation, everything has changed. Korea’s population is aging rapidly and its workforce is shrinking. The number of people aged 15 to 64 will peak at 37 million next year, and then steadily drop. After the rapid gains in efficiency that saw the rise of industrial powerhouses like Hyundai Motor Co. and Samsung Electronics Co., improvements in labor productivity are also getting harder to find.

Under this mounting pressure, the economy’s potential growth rate could slip by a percentage point to 2.2 percent in the 2020s. The government says the next few years may be the last real chance to escape the demographic trap, and President Park Geun Hye’s administration will release a blueprint next month for a five-year plan to tackle aging and the low birth rate.

It will have to address a workplace culture that isn’t geared to women balancing a career with child-rearing, and to find ways to help couples, who are marrying later, to have kids and raise a family.

At the other end of the spectrum, government efforts to stimulate consumer spending are being challenged by the swelling ranks of seniors. Average life expectancy is above 80 and older people are trying to save more and spend less during their ever-longer years of retirement.

[campbell]

JAPAN
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE HOUSES WHEN POPULATIONS SHRINK?

http://www.domain.com.au/news/tokyos...150824-gj6arl/

Yokosuka, Japan – Ever since her elderly neighbor moved a decade ago, Yoriko Haneda has done what she could to keep the empty house she left behind from becoming an eyesore. Haneda regularly trims its shrubs and clips its narrow strip of grass, maintaining its perfect view of the sea.

The volunteer yard work has not extended to the house two doors down, however. That one is vacant too, and overgrown with bamboo. In fact, dozens of houses in this hillside neighborhood about an hour’s drive from Tokyo are abandoned.

“There are empty houses everywhere, places where nobody’s lived for 20 years, and more are cropping up all the time,” said Haneda, 77, complaining that thieves had broken into her neighbor’s house twice and that a typhoon had damaged the roof of the one next to it.

....
These ghost homes are the most visible sign of human retreat in a country where the population peaked a half-decade ago and is forecast to fall by a third over the next 50 years. The demographic pressure has weighed on the Japanese economy, as a smaller workforce struggles to support a growing proportion of the old, and has prompted intense debate over long-term proposals to boost immigration or encourage women to have more children.

For now, though, after decades during which it struggled with overcrowding, Japan is confronting the opposite problem: When a society shrinks, what should be done with the buildings it no longer needs?

Many of Japan’s vacant houses have been inherited by people who have no use for them and yet are unable to sell because of a shortage of interested buyers. But demolishing them involves tactful questions about property rights, and about who should pay the costs. The government passed a law this year to promote demolition of the most dilapidated homes, but experts say the tide of newly emptied ones will be hard to stop.

....
Japan’s birth rate has been stuck below the level needed to maintain the population since the 1970s, as young people postpone marriage and many women put off having children as they enter the workforce.

....
Japan’s population of 127 million is expected to drop by a million a year in the coming decades. Efforts to increase its low birthrate have been only modestly successful, and the public has shown no appetite for mass immigration. “We have too much infrastructure,” said Takashi Onishi, an urban planning professor and the president of the Science Council of Japan. The government, he believes, will eventually have to cut services like water and road and bridge maintenance in the most depopulated areas. “We can’t maintain it all. We’ll have to make those hard choices.”
.....
The new national law, which came into effect in May, could help more municipalities cull their vacant houses. Among other changes, it removed a perverse incentive that has contributed to the problem. A tax break introduced decades ago to encourage home construction sets property tax rates on vacant lots at six times the level of those on built-up land. That means that if an owner demolishes a home, the tax rate soars – a big reason many let even crumbling houses stand.

[GuyWithHighIQ]

The only thing a shrinking population scares is corporations who can't get cheap labor anymore. That's why they're pushing for open borders to protect their record-shattering profits.

It is *good* for countries with high population densities like Japan and South Korea to depopulate. Japan needs to focus on cutting public spending, though. The weight of the annual interest payment on their debt will exceed their tax revenues shortly.
South Korea is fine with their more conservative public spending.

What people should focus on is median income (Or at least GDP Per Capita), not aggregate nominal GDP.
Aggregate nominal GDP doesn't measure life quality.

Originally Posted by snikelfritz

All the talk of Japan's great stagnation is interesting when compared to GDP per person, which has been growing nicely, it's just that the number of people hasn't.

But the top .01% in the country are only making 50x the average person and not 5000x like in the west!!! We have to open our borders to drop wages and/or do some more QE to lower the income so the rich can get even richer and the poor can get even poorer!!!

Pro-immigration (il)logic 101.

[campbell]

Funny you should mention that -- someone has a theory as to why Germany is "willing" to take on so many refugees right now.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...y-refugees.php

WHY DOES GERMANY WANT SO MANY REFUGEES?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Germany will take 800,000 refugees this year and 500,000 annually over the next several years. Merkel no doubt will receive acclaim for humanitarianism, while nations that balk at taking refugees will be denounced.

I don’t doubt that there is a humanitarian component to Merkel’s decision, and in some respects her willingness to take in so many refugees is a feel good story. But keep in mind that Germany has an economic interest in bringing in young workers, and that this interest isn’t mirrored in many other EU member states.

Germany faces a severe labor shortage, both short-term and long-term. A study by the Robert Bosch foundation suggested that Germany’s workforce could shrink by about 6 million by 2030.

The main cause of the labor shortage is, as one would expect, population decline. This summer, the Telegraph reported:

I guess the Germans don't like the robot answer to decreasing labor force.

Play this animation... kind of interesting:
Track TFR against life expectancy -- US, Japan, and Germany

[GuyWithHighIQ]

Originally Posted by campbell

Funny you should mention that -- someone has a theory as to why Germany is "willing" to take on so many refugees right now.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...y-refugees.php



I guess the Germans don't like the robot answer to decreasing labor force.

Play this animation... kind of interesting:
Track TFR against life expectancy -- US, Japan, and Germany

Merkel is a pro-corporate politician like many other politicians around the world.
A shrinking population leads to higher median & average income, higher HDI, and lower GINI coefficient (The richest people earn less while the poorest and average people earn more).
Of course, the corporations don't like it that their CEOs and major stockholders will earn just 50x the average person and not 5000x like they are now.