f13.net

Japan's Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa may need to buy his birth-giving machine some flowers.


source (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/27/japans_health_minist.html)

Japan needs illegal immigrants.

I like how in describing the problem, he displays one of the issues that is causing the problem.

Sweden is also having problems with the population decreasing. It's mostly a result of little to no poverty, people don't have time make kids when they have career and other stuff to think about. When there's poverty people tend to make a truckload of kids in hope of the kids supporting the family later on. While it's a problem on a national level, it's pretty good on a global one. Earth could use a little depopulation of humans.

I bet there are more Swedes in Washington, Oregon, North Dakota and Idaho than there are in Sweden  :wink:

Yeah, Japan's having a population decrease because your women aren't trying hard enough.

In other news, Henry VIII needs a new wife to get that son he wants.

Women can't get pregnant by alien tentacles.

It's simple biology.

I had this discussion with a friend the other day.  Our half-asses conclusion was that throughout history children were a source of wealth.  The more children you had the more secure your old age would be and the more comfortable you life as you put them to work.

Today, in the more modern cultures chidren are a drain on personal resources.

No children = fantastic vacations, a new car in the garage, a nicer house in a better location and lots of opportunities for dining out and entertainment.

I blame child labor laws. Bunch of liberal pansies. Get back in those coal mines you stupid 3rd graders, I don't care what you smell.

Meh kids smell funny and their hands are always sticky and dirty.

Now we just need to make the rest of the world wealthy and we can lower the global population. I must admit I've been looking at the global pop and thinking about how we could be in a lot of trouble a few generations from now since we've eliminated a lot of diseases and wars (compared to our past we're actually pretty peaceful, even now) that once kept our population in check.

India's now the largest contributor to the global population growth and estimates for the year they pass China as the most populous country keep dropping (was 2050 then 2032, now 2030).

They could always legalize rape and delegalize abortions

I'm curuous to see how 'developed' nations deal with loss of population. Some European country (don't remember which one) introduced wage equivalent payments for mothers for a year after birth and tax breaks for companies that offer part time employment to parents with young children.

Raise the unemployment rate.  Problem solved.

Obviously the people doing the estimations have never heard of the second derivative.

Math humor, got to love it.

In all seriousness, educated, wealthier people tend to get married later, have kids later, and have fewer of them. Because they have other things to do. When you have no money and no job and your only source of entertainment is hitting two rocks together kids look more attractive. (Ok...I guess that wasn't completely serious after all...)

Probably Germany which has the lowest birth rate in Europe.

Based on everything I've read, Japan could probably use some population shrinkage. IIRC, they have something like half the population of the US squeezed into an area the size of California - and a lot of that is mountains.

USA:
Population: 298,444,215 (July 2006 est.)
Area: 9,826,630 sq km
California: 411,048 sq km

Japan:
Population: 127,463,611 (July 2006 est.)
Area: 377,835 sq km

I had some thoughts about this when I was living in Korea, which is another country with a rapidly decling birth rate.  With 50 million people in a country the size of Indiana, it's incredibly urbanized: giant apartments buildings are literallly everywhere you look, with more going up all the time.  Are they going to be half empty in 50 years?  Knocked down or just left standing because it's cheaper? 

I'm not worried about the human population in the long term.  Almost every single country to reach "first world" status has had a large drop in birth rates.  It does make you wonder what the cultural effects are going to be in the next 20-30 years, after the 2 out of every 6 people that now live in China and India have spread out over the world.

A world where everyone has a nice skintone?

I happen to think ghostly-white-where-not-red-from-5-minutes-of-sun is a nice skintone. And freckles.

You racist bastard. :-P

After the opening of the iron curtain and the reunification of germany a lot of east germans moved to the west because it was better developed and held more opportunities than the east. Even after 15 years of rebuilding (and most east German towns are now far better infrastructurewise than some western cities) most east German cities bleed people who move to west germany. Especially young people and a significant number of women (more women than men, which creates other social problems in the east where there is now a significant disparity between male and female population).

In the last few years several eastern cities began to tear down whole city quarters who were empty and uninhabited. Mostly because the money needed for upkeep was too high in light of the sinking tax income (with fewer people paying taxes there)

Most experts expect that whole cities will be ghost towns in a few years and will be completely teared down to cut the costs.

This is actually a very big problem for the Japanese.  This has been a major topic in many of my classes here so far.  While a declining birth rate might sound good to some people due to global overpopulation, its going to fuck over Japan hardcore.  At the current birth rate decline, Japan is estimated to lose about 30% of its population over the next several decades, going from 133 million to less than 100.  Meanwhile, since Japanese live really old, many more people are retiring and taking up pensions than are actually entering the work force.  This means government spending is going up while the actual tax income is going down (due to less workers entering the work force).  This will also lead to a major shortage of workers.  All this on top of some of the other major economic problems Japan is having due to the insane debt they are running (Japan leads the world in terms of debt as percentage of GDP, at 155%).  All in all, fucking over Japans economy in the long term.

Now, there are some ways to help stop this, but it involves some social change, which currently seems very unlikly any time soon.  For one, they could make up for the shortfall in workers by allowing in more emigrants.  Japan, however, is actually insanely racist towards emigrants, who basically have no rights in this country, and are almost never allowed citizenship.  It would also mean diluting their precious racially homogenious society.  I have a friend here who actually went to tokyo to give a speech at a conference in front of many politicians (ex PM and princess was even there) and buisness men.  He talked about this exact same issue, and said Japan needed to let more emigrants in out of financial neccesity, and they needed to treat them well.  He talked with many people after, and alot of them told him flat out they would rather see their company (and some even said Japan) crash and burn rather than do what he said.  Maybe younger generation will change over time, but hard to say.

Most Japanese also feel they pay to many taxes as it is, so raising taxes more to try and cover decreasing tax income and increased spending on programs to try and fix the problem, isnt really going to fly right now.

They also, of course, could just start having more babies.  But in Japan, if your a woman and get pregnant, you are expected to quit your job and become a housewife the rest of your life, no matter what you were doing.  If you dont quite, many get fired.  So culturaly, right now at least, there is this impression on women that they have to choose a career or a child, not both.  Which is helping (among other things) to cause the birthrate to decline.  Also, interestingly, reports are showing child abuse to be going up at an insane rate in Japan over the last decade or so, and its mainly comming from the mothers.  Other friend is actually working on a study to see if this is linked with the mothers being forced to leave jobs.

So yeah, Japans in a bit of trouble with this actually, unless they start reforming some things.  Which currently isnt popular, and probably wont get changed as long as the LDP keeps winning every election no matter what they do.

Abandoning entire cities. Not because of war, or disease, or some other natural disaster, but because there's simply no one to live there....

Boggles the mind.


But I guess, if you think about it, declining birth rates Could be seen as a sort of natural disaster.

I offer my services to assist our Japanese friends.  I am an ambassador to my nation! (we were told this whenever overseas, and we joked about it whenever we had a one night stand)

A really fascinating video on the subject of population growth and healthcare, and the difference between different countries and regions of the world- 20 minutes long.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080&sourceid=searchfeed (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080&sourceid=searchfeed)

So if I understand your point correctly, the main linkage why this is a disaster for Japan in the long-term is because of a male-dominant, racist culture? If that's the case I can't say I'm going to shed a tear if they want to crash and burn with the "old ways."

Then why do they keep choosing the tentacles? They're obviously not trying very hard.

In regard to Japan's treatment towards Gaijin, this bit from an article about Bob Sapp and K-1 came to mind:


mmmm retroactive taxes.
Damn those overseas athletes consuming space, food, energy and the like. Even though they're paying their fucking way regardless of the tax..

http://www.mmaringreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=857&Itemid=53 (http://www.mmaringreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=857&Itemid=53)

This thread really isn't helping my horribly uninformed distaste for the Japanese culture.

They do good things, right? Games, sailor suits, stuff?

Anime doesn't count, that stuff gives me seizures.

Manga?

Sushi. 'Nuff said.

Ah yes, I do enjoy sushi. That is an excellent point. Still, the food can be exported with fantastic results.

It seems people can't be imported without major problems.

Yeah, but you get past the smell by their cute slanty eyes.

Huh?

Nevermind.

Its probably best for you he didnt get it.

Teleku's excellent description of the demographic challenges faced in Japan also can be applied to Western Europe and Russia.

Russia's population is steadily declining, with the birth rate well below the replacement rate and life expectancy actually shrinking.

The countries of Western Europe are also producing children below the replacement rate. There are differences among population groups within each country. The native populations have extremely low birthrates, while the immigrant populations have higher birthrates.

Unfortunately, while European countries are not opposed to importing foreign labor, they do a poor job of assimilating them into western liberal societies, and instead tend to ghettoize their largely Muslim, brown, undereducated immigrants. This leads to discontent, alienation, and ultimately revolt, as can be witnessed in the ongoing civil unrest in the French suburbs.

European populations are growing much older, and producing fewer workers. European voters continue to demand more and costlier social services, placing greater demands on the shrinking population of tax paying workers. Ultimately Europe must either import more labor (and learn to successfully assimilate them, or become more like them), have (many, many) more babies (and do so immediately), or give up social services.

In some ways, Europe's situation resembles a reversal of the days of their colonial empires. Immigrants to European countries have historically originated in their old overseas territories. For hundreds of years, vigorous, growing, and dynamic European populations spread around the world colonizing and subjugating less developed regions and societies. Now the descendants of those conquered peoples are immigrating Europe and slowly but inexorably colonizing the dying European nations one baby at a time.