Population of Japan to Shrink by 1/3

On the heels of a nightmare known as Fukushima and the Earthquake that brought so much damage to Japan, the ministry of Health and Welfare has announced that based on current statistics, by the year 2060 Japan’s population will decrease by 1/3.

The perplexing news doesn’t end there, the ministry also revealed that in that same year, 40% of the population will be at retirement age. Japan today has a population of 128million people, with many already at retirement age, concerns continue to rise about the country’s capacity to handle so many seniors.

For many years Japan has been at or around the top of most global quality of life rankings. According to the OECD, the nation leads the world in terms of safety, income, employment, and education. But much these standards will be hard hit if the government has less tax revenue to work with.  This is one of the reasons the current Japanese government is proposing the unpopular measure of raising taxes.

In the near future, as a response to these extraordinary circumstances, Japan may open itself up more to immigration. While the global image is that Japan is a very homogenous nation, immigration waves have occurred historically from places like China, Korea and even more recently – Brazil.  In the mid 2000′s almost 2 million foreign nationals were registered as living in Japan. According to these latest population projections, the nation is going to need to open its arms even wider to hold on to its excellent quality of life.

Source: BBC

Photo: My own.

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