Japan’s Demographic Crisis is Getting Worse

this video is brought to you by nebula and tldr's race across Europe Japan's demographic crisis is bad and things are getting worse births are falling the population is aging and in Decline to the point that Japan in the words of prime minister fumio kashida is on the brink of not being able to maintain its societal functions in this video we'll take you through the latest data explain why the crisis is so bad and look at the government's plan to fix it [Music] if you haven't already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos let's get straight into the data the key metric here is the fertility rate which is the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime generally speaking a total fertility rate of around 2.1 children per woman is the level needed to maintain a stable population though obviously things like migration and mortality rate also have an impact on this anyway Japan's fertility rate is low in fact recently released data from the country's Health Ministry for 2022 put Japan's fertility rate at just below 1.26 down from 1.3 the year before the new figure dips below the previous record low from 2005. in terms of the raw numbers of births 2022 saw the lowest figure since authorities began tracking the data in 1899. the number of birds fell five percent to just over 770 000 marking the first ever fall below 800 000 a milestone reached eight years earlier than previously expected this long-term and continuing decline in birth rate as well as Japan's relatively restrictive immigration rules has seen the country's population decline for 12 years straight now the current population of around 125 million is projected to fall to 87 Million by 2070. in addition to declining overall Japan's population is also aging thanks to its low birth rates and the longevity of Japanese people who have one of the world's highest life expectancies Japan actually has a median age of 49. the second highest in the World Behind only Monaco which has its own unique demographics now it's worth taking a moment to actually explain why this is bad news for Japan Japan is seeing its older population grow as a proportion of its total population while the proportion taken up by younger people shrinks in other words the workforce is shrinking now there obviously is more to life than just working producing and paying taxes but in a capitalist system it's not good for productivity and economic growth if there's a persistent shortage of workers especially when at the same time you have an increasingly elderly population that requires more and more spending on things like Social Security Health Care and More Japan already saw its working age population Fall by 13.9 percent from 1995 to 2021 and from 2020 to 2014 it's forecast to shrink by a further 20 percent this is seriously concerning for businesses in the country according to a recent Reuters poll of nearly 500 major companies in Japan 94 said they feel a sense of Crisis over the falling birth rate this sense of Crisis is something felt not just by businesses but by government too this is because a low fertility rate means less less working age people relative to pensioners which means you have to tax workers more to maintain Public Services especially Public Health Care prime minister fumio kashida said at the beginning of the year that the nation is on the brink of not being able to maintain its societal functions adding that it's now or never when it comes to policies regarding births and child rearing it's an issue that simply cannot wait any longer so why is the government actually going to do about it the government has announced plans to increase its funding for child care by around 3.5 trillion yen which is around 25.2 billion US dollars per year for the next three years under the current child allowance system parents are entitled to 15 000 Yen or roughly 107 dollars per month for each child under the age of three for children from the age of 3 to 15 parents can receive 10 000 Yen per month the government's proposal is to extend this so that children from 15 to 18 can benefit and also scrap the household income cap for the allowance additionally they want to give double the amount of money given to parents with three or more children to 30 000 Yen per head per month the government also wants to open up day care centers and Nursery places to Children regardless of the employment status of their parents all of these measures are designed to help potential parents overcome the financial barrier to having children after all the High Cost of Living and raising children coupled with three years of wage stagnation are one of the main reasons why people simply aren't having many or any children so will all this be successful in halting the decline in birth rates well we don't know for what it's worth the business Community doesn't have much faith in the government to solve the crisis in that Reuters poll we mentioned earlier of 500 major companies just 14 said they were hopeful that the government's measures would work while 34 percent say said they wouldn't and there's good reason to be skeptical fumio kashida's government isn't the first that's taken on the birth rate challenge trying to reverse the decline was a major project of Shinzo Abe when he was prime minister but similar policies aimed at lifting the financial burden of having children have evidently done little to turn things around that's because the issue isn't purely Financial but also cultural and societal for many Japanese women there is a Justified concern the burden of having and raising children will fall disproportionately on them and damage or even end their careers the government has at least sort of recognized this and aims to increase the percentage of new fathers taking paternity leave to 50 percent by 2025 and 85 percent by 2030. the proposals we've discussed are largely for implementation from the next financial year onwards so the government will continue to develop them throughout this year plus there's the question of how these things will be funded which which is a whole other political debate in the country but in general critics say the proposed measures are mostly about putting additional money into existing schemes and do not address the underlying problems including gendered parenting roles corporate culture and more nevertheless Japan's crusade to get people to have children will be watched and assessed by countries around the world not just because of the implications for Japan as a country but also because the decline in birth rates is something that's happening in many other countries around the world there's also some other huge news by the way we've just launched our new series tldr's race across Europe take a look to celebrate the ten thousandth order from the Tierra merch store we committed to hand delivering orders to a bunch of real tildir fans so we split into three teams assigned points to each delivery location on the map and let teams try to score as many points as they could in just 30 hours the problem well only one team is allowed to make each delivery and any team which doesn't make it to the location of the ten thousandth order by the end of the game is disqualified welcome to tildiar's race across Europe I'm Speed Demon now why is British transport the worst oh no I'm gonna be a few minutes maybe it's this one Zach is obviously thinking he's like nah Ben's Not Afraid you know I get it yeah have you spoken to any other teams guys it's not looking good and uh thank you for ruining our journey this is the worst thing that could have happened and I wouldn't put it past him he's a spike what what do you mean what what what how does that happen we've come through some kind of police barricade genuinely a very much an open question as to whether or not Jack gets back to the UK anytime soon yeah it was within an hour it is not possible did you have a ticket who's got tickets I'm so sorry now you can watch the first episode on the tldr EU Channel right now but we're also releasing every subsequent episode a week early on nebula so if you're a nebulous subscriber you can watch the first two episodes right now totally ad-free that's true of all tldr content by the way we regularly release our videos on nebula before they come to YouTube and everything's ad free so not even this advert is here it's not just the race either every week tldr produces well over an hour's worth of content which is exclusively for nebula that's exclusive discussions where our team share their thoughts on the latest stories extended daily briefings our nebula Series this week in Parliament and even full explainers so if you want the full tldr experience you really ought to be on nebula sign up now using our Link in the description to get everything the platform has to offer for just two pounds a month

Channel: TLDR News Global

Views: 215,023

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Id: BUT7dStRQGg

Length: 9min 48sec (588 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 13 2023