I think the concern is an ageing population rather than a shrinking one. Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it.
> Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it.
But this will be a trend that autocorrects itself after some time, as less elder people will be there in the future. Also, the younger people if both working will create more prosperity than being married with one working and the other one staying at home.
In the short term this sounds bad, but long term doesn't seem that worrisome.
The problem is that people in general are living longer but the retirement age is staying roughly the same. So as time goes on you have a higher percentage of the people who aren't working but yet consuming public resources.
In the short term it is bad. In the long term it is devastating. Which is why every developed country is aggressively increasing the immigration rate to compensate. Well except for Japan.
The problem is generally overstated, because of (a) efficiency gains and (b) unemployment.
Some people were alarmist about the ageing population in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Their doomsday predictions turned out to be wrong because of technological advances that meant fewer working people could provide the real goods and services for more non-working people.
And what cannot be buffered by technology simply leads to lower unemployment, which is a good thing as well.
Be wary of extrapolation. As more of the economy gets concentrated in knowledge industries, it's likely that more and more people will just keep working until they die.
My mom's been "retired" for almost a decade now. She's had 2 part-time jobs and usually a volunteer gig too for nearly the entire time.
The worst thing is that in places like Japan especially housing availability is a real problem. Which means you will have young people being forced to live with their parents well into their 20s.
And what happens when you have young people living with their parents ? Far less opportunities for sex.
I don't have the numbers, but anecdotally from looking for an apartment with my SO, there doesn't seem to be a big housing availability problem in Japan. Available apartments are plentiful, and outside of central Tokyo, Osaka etc, are priced reasonably. It's a far cry from the situation where I'm from in Sweden, where you have to be on a waiting list for 3 years to get your turn at a rental contract since there are just no apartments to be had.
Young people in Japan live with their parents due to lack of jobs. The Japanese employment market has recently had a massive shift towards part time labour instead of full time labor, leaving young people with jobs that can't support them.
Also, Japan has had a solution for the "opportunities for sex" issue for decades - the massive amount of hourly Love Hotels that are scattered all around the country (and people aren't shy to use - I've had to queue for one).
At my girlfriend's former job, a normal day went like this: the employees were expected to work from 9 in the morning to 8 in the evening (time on contract: 9-6) then attend staff meetings in another city, with one 30min break for the entire day (meant to be an hour, but who's counting?)
Remember that this is for a full-time employee - the main reason companies only want part-time staff now is so they can avoid paying their 50% of your health insurance and for vacations.
Working way too long isn't a new thing in Japan. The company not keeping up their end of the bargain (good benefits, job for life) is. If the govt grew some balls and actually enforced existing labor laws instead of letting companies abuse their employees, maybe people would have time and energy to have more kids earlier.
I totally agree with what you write - It's long been my pet theory as well that the soul-crushing long hours are a big part of the problem. My SO has a similar job - a normal day is 8 AM-8 PM, but she works a lot "on site" so she'll lose half to all the weekend days in a month to work. Sometimes he has to travel across Kyushyu and so has to get up at 5 AM. It's no wonder people get depressed, and when you're depressed, the sex drive disappears.
The fact that you can now not rely on your company supporting your family for life is just the final nail in the coffin.
My gf is actually looking at marriage as an honorable out with her company - if she just quit flat out, she'd be "abandoning" the company and placing a higher burden on her coworkers (company isn't doing too well...), and if she wanted to get a new job, it would be a huge black mark on her resume. Getting married? Well then OBVIOUSLY she needs to quit, it's not her fault.
