Japan’s Population Continues to Fall
Japan is the most rapidly aging country in the world. Statistics show a decline of about one million since the peak in 2008.
Official projections are for a further fall of 40 million by the year 2060.
Though the population fell in 40 regions of the country, ultra-crowded Tokyo is still growing, as the young move to the cities, and the country greys at an alarming rate.
Senior citizens now make up 26 percent of the country’s population.
What this means is that the government will have huge difficulties in dealing with rising social welfare costs, in addition to trying to pay its enormous public debt, at $12 trillion the highest in the world.
Add to that $500 trillion to pay off the costs of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdowns, and enormous costs in importing fossil fuels to replace shut down nuclear power stations.
In truth, Japan now has such huge debts that there will not be enough economically productive citizens to be able to pay them off.
Japan therefore really needs to accept immigrants, but is loathe to do so, despite the main business federation, Keidanren, demanding that six million foreign workers be allowed to enter the country.
Japan’s incompetent politicians haven’t woken up to the fact that the combination of ballooning debt and declining birth-rate constitutes a national crisis.
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