Impact of Japanese population decline
Why is the population decline in Japan such a bad thing? As of 2015 there is an estimated eight million homes that are unoccupied. As the population declines there will be many more. About half of these eight million homes are completely abandoned since there is no one to buy them.
Rural areas tend to have a huge percentage of abandoned homes because young people prefer to move to the big cities, like Tokyo, where they can get the jobs they are after. Many people who inherit houses can’t sell them so they just sit there. Some people are even being paid to move into houses in some towns. When nobody is taking care of these houses, they slowly deteriorate and become covered in weeds. Nobody wants to pay the costs to demolish a vacant house so they are just left standing.
By the year 2050, 43% of the population is going to be over the age of sixty. The Life expectancy in Japan is around 83 right now and keeps going higher and at the same time fewer children are being born. There was also a baby-boom in Japan after the Second World War contributing to a bigger elderly population. This means that there is going to be a lot of old people that will need to be taken care of. In 2015, over 15,000 elderly were actually found living in unauthorized nursing homes. Even though this could turn out to be a good thing for some low-income seniors who need a place to go, many of these unauthorized nursing homes aren’t safe or have abusive workers. Also, many are now dying alone and their bodies might not be found for weeks showing that there needs to be an increase in nursing homes and workers.
Traditionally, the children used to take care of their mother and father but now things are changing and the young have to move away or are too busy with work. This means that there will need to be more people that can take care of seniors.
Japan is the world’s third biggest economy and important ally of the United States. Their economy will not continue to grow with less people to replace the retiring workers. There will be less foreign investments in Japanese companies and less consumers to spend money in the future. Fewer babies means fewer workers and less people paying taxes.
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