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Japan Aging Problem

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Submitted By apc321
Words 1296
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Abhishek Chandra
Japan’s aging problem results crutches for the economy
Due to decades of low birth rates, the Japanese population has been aging more rapidly than that of other countries that are more economically developed, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The population started shrinking in 2005, and the working population peaked in 1995. By 2050, each elderly Japanese will be supported by just 1.9 workers, showing a decrease from 10 in 1950.
With its declining birthrate and aging population, Japan clearly has to do something to maintain the size of its labor force (which was 62.98 million as of 2010). Mass immigration, one of its few other options, has been proposed numerous times over the years, but for cultural and societal reasons, the xenophobic government has been reluctant to propose immigration reform.
One of the drawbacks of rapid ageing in Japan is that it will be the youth who will bear the brunt of the suffering. Although unemployment rates remain among the lowest in the developed world, many of the jobs will be lower skilled ones. The children of the baby-boomer generation are currently entering their forties, which creates overcrowding at the middle-manager level of Japanese firms. Due to a seniority-based pay system, a huge strain is created on business costs, leaving less money to provide younger employees with adequate training and higher skilled jobs.
The lack of a younger management in Japanese firms has led to a decline in innovation. In the prime of their working lives, the youth wanted to conquer the world with their technological products. Now, in their sixties, they want a quieter life. The same seems to go for the country as a whole. This effectively halts the progress of the pioneering and dynamic technology industry of Japan.

What Japan Needs
By the United Nations' approximation, Japan

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