Ageing in Japan

Introduction

The population of Japan is aging more rapidly than any other nation in the world. The unprecedented increase in retirees relative to the size of Japan's labor force will cause a radical change if the nation is to avoid financial crisis, or worse. These seemingly innocent demographic changes will force Japan to reduce its famous high savings rate, eliminate the pride of his trade balance, to more manufacturing abroad, to liberalize their own markets tightly controlled, and to assume a more active, high-profile foreign policy. Eventually, these transformations will shift the balance of influence in East Asia(Schultz 89-109).

Japan's Aging Population

Japan faces a rapidly aging population. This is not a new discovery, of course, that Japan's population is aging. Japan has the lowest birth rate of any urbanized nation, approximately no immigration and one of the longest life expectancy of the population. By 2025, the percentage of persons 65 and over will be maximum in Japan, followed by Italy and Hong Kong. Of all the industrialized countries, Japan will be the oldest in the world. There are several factors that led to this situation. Between 1947 and 1949 Japan Child boom. (Adachi 56-59) Japanese baby boom was very short, and after the birth rates have dropped dramatically. This is a short time, compared with a child in the United States boom (1946-1964) during the first half of the 1950's, three quarters of pregnancies ended in abortion. In the second half, 50% of pregnancies were aborted. And in the first half of 1960 pregnancies were admitted with birth control. In 1966. The birth rate has plummeted. Why? as this was the year of the fire horses, and according to Japanese fallacy, girls born in that year will be very discontented with their lives and are expected to kill their husbands. For this reason, the parents tried to evade procreation. They were either newborns for the year before or year after year. In 1970, a large number of births had been prevented with contraceptives and abortions(Kono 303-320).

Statistics

The proportion of lone been growing dramatically over the past 20 years. The source of fertility decline is different. Marriage patterns are changing. This is one of the quiet revolution under way in Japan. According to the 1985 census, 30% of women in late 20 were single, in 1990, five years later it was 40%, while in 1995 it was 50%(Bass, Oka 679-680). So why is it that Japanese women do not want to marry? Seventy-five percent of Japanese women in their twenties to support the concept called "New Singles". They said "I would like to take a life, do not worry about marriage." Only 50% of men support the idea. Thus, in other words, even when Japanese men want to get married, Japanese women can not. Another important factor in this change is that more women receive higher education in urban areas, as well as paid work. How to modernize and family are becoming increasingly urbanized, Japanese women are better educated and more ...