One in five people in Japan are over 70

New estimates put the number of people in Japan age 70 or older at more than a fifth of the population for the first time.

Japan’s population is one of the fastest-aging and declining in the world. The working-age population fell by 4.6 million from 2012-2017, from 80.6 million to 76 million.

There have been some emergency measures to raise the retirement age and bring more women into the workforce. The Japanese government has approved plans for raising the optional age for drawing public pensions to 71 or older. Japan said they would finalize the plans as part of a set of legal changes after April 2020.

Japan’s overall population is predicted to shrink to 88 million by 2060. The number of working age 18-65 is set to shrink to less than 50 million.

Between 2015 and 2020, Japan’s workforce is shrinking by 3.3 million (4%).

From 2020 to 2030, Japan’s working-age population (ages 20-64) will fall by around 4.8 million to 5.6 million.

25 thoughts on “One in five people in Japan are over 70”

  1. So what? Japan people live longer than anyone else Out of the 5 oldest people in the world 3 are Japanese There is one out of four people over 75 in Japan who are still working

  2. So what? Japan people live longer than anyone else Out of the 5 oldest people in the world 3 are Japanese There is one out of four people over 75 in Japan who are still working

  3. The birth rate is too low, so we’ll introduce more measures to put women in the workforce. They do know how human reproduction works in Japan, do they?

  4. The birth rate is too low so we’ll introduce more measures to put women in the workforce.They do know how human reproduction works in Japan do they?

  5. So population decreasing by a third over the next 40 years without anyone trying to do anything draconian, like trying to immanentize the eschaton? Going to be a bit rocky, economically perhaps (although robots and automation may ease that part of it) but sure wish the whole world was doing this. Dropping from 7 billion back down to 5 billion sounds like a lot better than our current predictions.

  6. So population decreasing by a third over the next 40 years without anyone trying to do anything draconian like trying to immanentize the eschaton? Going to be a bit rocky economically perhaps (although robots and automation may ease that part of it) but sure wish the whole world was doing this. Dropping from 7 billion back down to 5 billion sounds like a lot better than our current predictions.

  7. Wow. I’m more accepting of government controls and incentives than most on NBF, but that’s too much for even me. Government telling you when to get married, how many kids to have? Even if they got away with implementing that, it still wouldn’t fix the underlying problem, and that’s work hours. It would be better if the companies realized that forcing people to work 70-80 or more hours a week is not helping their bottom line. Workers are stressed, less productive (studies have shown this), and have no family life, which means less time for raising kids or even for making kids. The rest of the world has 40-hour work weeks or less, and is just as competitive today and the people are happier.

  8. These doom and gloom scenarios are just nonsense. They could easily boost population, if it was a major priority. There are at least a hundred ways. My favorite is artificial wombs. But less extreme measures can work as well. There are the mundane things like tax deductions based on number of children, or a government “gift” of half a million Yen for marriage but where the amount diminishes based on female age. Get married at 22 or less and you get the full amount (in an installment over 5 years provided the marriage continues). 38+ and you get squat. As automation increases workers are needed less and less. How many more robots were “hired” when the population was going down? What does productivity look like now vs 1970?

  9. Wow. I’m more accepting of government controls and incentives than most on NBF but that’s too much for even me. Government telling you when to get married how many kids to have? Even if they got away with implementing that it still wouldn’t fix the underlying problem and that’s work hours.It would be better if the companies realized that forcing people to work 70-80 or more hours a week is not helping their bottom line. Workers are stressed less productive (studies have shown this) and have no family life which means less time for raising kids or even for making kids. The rest of the world has 40-hour work weeks or less and is just as competitive today and the people are happier.

  10. These doom and gloom scenarios are just nonsense. They could easily boost population if it was a major priority. There are at least a hundred ways. My favorite is artificial wombs. But less extreme measures can work as well. There are the mundane things like tax deductions based on number of children or a government gift”” of half a million Yen for marriage but where the amount diminishes based on female age. Get married at 22 or less and you get the full amount (in an installment over 5 years provided the marriage continues). 38+ and you get squat.As automation increases workers are needed less and less. How many more robots were “”””hired”””” when the population was going down? What does productivity look like now vs 1970?”””

  11. Wow. I’m more accepting of government controls and incentives than most on NBF, but that’s too much for even me. Government telling you when to get married, how many kids to have? Even if they got away with implementing that, it still wouldn’t fix the underlying problem, and that’s work hours. It would be better if the companies realized that forcing people to work 70-80 or more hours a week is not helping their bottom line. Workers are stressed, less productive (studies have shown this), and have no family life, which means less time for raising kids or even for making kids. The rest of the world has 40-hour work weeks or less, and is just as competitive today and the people are happier.

  12. Wow. I’m more accepting of government controls and incentives than most on NBF but that’s too much for even me. Government telling you when to get married how many kids to have? Even if they got away with implementing that it still wouldn’t fix the underlying problem and that’s work hours.It would be better if the companies realized that forcing people to work 70-80 or more hours a week is not helping their bottom line. Workers are stressed less productive (studies have shown this) and have no family life which means less time for raising kids or even for making kids. The rest of the world has 40-hour work weeks or less and is just as competitive today and the people are happier.

  13. These doom and gloom scenarios are just nonsense. They could easily boost population, if it was a major priority. There are at least a hundred ways. My favorite is artificial wombs. But less extreme measures can work as well. There are the mundane things like tax deductions based on number of children, or a government “gift” of half a million Yen for marriage but where the amount diminishes based on female age. Get married at 22 or less and you get the full amount (in an installment over 5 years provided the marriage continues). 38+ and you get squat. As automation increases workers are needed less and less. How many more robots were “hired” when the population was going down? What does productivity look like now vs 1970?

  14. These doom and gloom scenarios are just nonsense. They could easily boost population if it was a major priority. There are at least a hundred ways. My favorite is artificial wombs. But less extreme measures can work as well. There are the mundane things like tax deductions based on number of children or a government gift”” of half a million Yen for marriage but where the amount diminishes based on female age. Get married at 22 or less and you get the full amount (in an installment over 5 years provided the marriage continues). 38+ and you get squat.As automation increases workers are needed less and less. How many more robots were “”””hired”””” when the population was going down? What does productivity look like now vs 1970?”””

  15. So population decreasing by a third over the next 40 years without anyone trying to do anything draconian, like trying to immanentize the eschaton? Going to be a bit rocky, economically perhaps (although robots and automation may ease that part of it) but sure wish the whole world was doing this. Dropping from 7 billion back down to 5 billion sounds like a lot better than our current predictions.

  16. So population decreasing by a third over the next 40 years without anyone trying to do anything draconian like trying to immanentize the eschaton? Going to be a bit rocky economically perhaps (although robots and automation may ease that part of it) but sure wish the whole world was doing this. Dropping from 7 billion back down to 5 billion sounds like a lot better than our current predictions.

  17. Wow. I’m more accepting of government controls and incentives than most on NBF, but that’s too much for even me. Government telling you when to get married, how many kids to have? Even if they got away with implementing that, it still wouldn’t fix the underlying problem, and that’s work hours.

    It would be better if the companies realized that forcing people to work 70-80 or more hours a week is not helping their bottom line. Workers are stressed, less productive (studies have shown this), and have no family life, which means less time for raising kids or even for making kids. The rest of the world has 40-hour work weeks or less, and is just as competitive today and the people are happier.

  18. These doom and gloom scenarios are just nonsense. They could easily boost population, if it was a major priority. There are at least a hundred ways. My favorite is artificial wombs. But less extreme measures can work as well. There are the mundane things like tax deductions based on number of children, or a government “gift” of half a million Yen for marriage but where the amount diminishes based on female age. Get married at 22 or less and you get the full amount (in an installment over 5 years provided the marriage continues). 38+ and you get squat.

    As automation increases workers are needed less and less. How many more robots were “hired” when the population was going down? What does productivity look like now vs 1970?

  19. So population decreasing by a third over the next 40 years without anyone trying to do anything draconian, like trying to immanentize the eschaton? Going to be a bit rocky, economically perhaps (although robots and automation may ease that part of it) but sure wish the whole world was doing this. Dropping from 7 billion back down to 5 billion sounds like a lot better than our current predictions.

  20. The birth rate is too low, so we’ll introduce more measures to put women in the workforce. They do know how human reproduction works in Japan, do they?

  21. The birth rate is too low so we’ll introduce more measures to put women in the workforce.They do know how human reproduction works in Japan do they?

  22. So what? Japan people live longer than anyone else Out of the 5 oldest people in the world 3 are Japanese There is one out of four people over 75 in Japan who are still working

  23. So what? Japan people live longer than anyone else Out of the 5 oldest people in the world 3 are Japanese There is one out of four people over 75 in Japan who are still working

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