Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

japantoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–76 of 76 posts

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#71

Post by pdxww »

pentae wrote: post #53
StraightShtr19 wrote: post #7

I wonder what if one of developed countries focused on males? Something like "future is male" and "support your father/husband/son" etc. Additionally remove any child support for single parents etc. Maybe that could work? Basically the opposite of current policies.

I've always wondered if a reasonable cap on child support/alimony would help - such as the median US income. This could possibly make wealthy men more likely to have more children and also potentially help keep families together.

It would. As it was mentioned earlier on HN, a woman can get 100k in tax-free alimony payments from a guy making 250k. She can even get his house.

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#72

Post by hrktb »

jpatokal wrote: post #66
hrktb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t these jobs going to be less and less needed as population decline ? I know there is the wave of elderly people who will be SOL, but to put on my cynical hat, I think the current government has already given up on them, so I see no help on the way for them anyway.

No. For the next several decades, the rate of people aging out of the workforce will be much faster than the rate of people dying, but they will still need food, healthcare, etc. In effect, Japan's population pyramid has inverted: the dependency ratio of workers to elderly, which was historically under 20%, is currently around 50% and is projected to increase to ~90% by 2050. http://www.ipss.go.jp/pp-newest/e/ppfj02/…

I seriously think the next several decades will just see elderly left on their own with little to no government effective help.

Basically the government raising its hand in the air and chanting “we care about you, we’re working super hard because it’s such a huge problem” while just thinking the problem will solve itself naturally.

Top middle class and above people have no issue with current demographic problems, and the current elderly population is surprinsigly well behaved and docile given the situation they are in (hell, France has demos for 4 months now and it’s nowhere as dire)

An interview from a while ago: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/22/national/politi...

> “Japan may be aging. Japan may be losing its population. But these are incentives for us,” he said.

> “Why? Because we will continue to be motivated to grow our productivity,” Abe added, citing robots, wireless sensors, and artificial intelligence as among the tools to do so. “So, Japan’s demography, paradoxically, is not an onus, but a bonus.”

Of course he’s just the facade of a party, he’ll also give other speeches about how they have very solid plans to help the elderly etc. But I kinda feel the above interview was an actual genuine view of how they see the situation.

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#73

Post by satyrnein »

pentae wrote: post #53
StraightShtr19 wrote: post #7

I wonder what if one of developed countries focused on males? Something like "future is male" and "support your father/husband/son" etc. Additionally remove any child support for single parents etc. Maybe that could work? Basically the opposite of current policies.

I've always wondered if a reasonable cap on child support/alimony would help - such as the median US income. This could possibly make wealthy men more likely to have more children and also potentially help keep families together.

Keeping families together by reducing income to women, effectively trapping them, sounds like the bad old days.

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#74

Post by systemBuilder »

apocalypstyx wrote: post #32
systemBuilder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY ^^. If population worldwide were to drop 90%, global warming and mass extinctions would end. In the 1970s we all worried about world overpopulation. ZPG - Zero Population Growth was desirable. Today that disaster is here! 90% of the world's population is not changing anything about mankind's future they are just hanging out ... we should focus on a smaller world by population and more productivity for the fut…

I honestly cannot tell if Poe's law is applicable here or not.

Your response is testament to how thoroughly your thoughts are programmed to serve the needs of others...

To clarify, fully 1% of GDP growth which is 16% of real (inflation adjusted) business growth, is from population growth. This is why our business-owned media wants us to think this is a crisis ...

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#75

Post by Nasrudith »

ve55 wrote: post #8

It would be nice to see more in-depth root cause analyses of the fertility issues that many nations like Japan are facing. It's obvious there are a lot of causal factors of various weights, but it's difficult to see which ones have the greatest effect as well as which ones we would be able to improve the easiest. Too often all of these issues seem to just be hand-waved as "something that just happens", with few group…

I think some of it is economics - having children is more K-strategy, more expenses and attention called for - and people don't need children for social security. Compare to say third world farm families where the marginal cost of children is low and there are more gains.

Re: Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise

#76

Post by tmm84 »

jpatokal wrote: post #30
seunosewa wrote: post #19

If automation is the future, isn’t a decline in the working population a good thing? The robots can just take over the vacant jobs. What am I missing?

Most vacant jobs in Japan are the kind of thing that's quite difficult to automate: farm worker, health care, construction, sole person running a convenience store, etc. The comparatively easy stuff like repetitive factory work has generally been automated already.

I can vouch for this statement. My first job in Japan was in construction. Most of the foreigners I know/see are nurses, care givers, construction workers or convenience store employees.
Post reply on HN