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Comment by shock-value | Hacker News Reader

The issue with Japan is not specifically the decline nor absolute level of overall population. It's rather the demographic makeup which is shifting older. The next few decades will be increasingly difficult for them as their economy will need to support a larger level of retirees. https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2019/

China has a similar issue coming down the line. https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2019/

For reference, the U.S. population pyramid looks a bit "healthier" (more balanced), though the retirement of the boomer generation will still pose a challenge. https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2...

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> The next few decades will be increasingly difficult for them as their economy will need to support a larger level of retirees.

How do you come up with this stupid idea? Japan has deflation and slow growth because of demographics, meaning the economic problem is the exact opposite. Old people spend very little money, meaning they need very little support to take care of them. The economy is dying because those old people don't spend their money, resulting in surplus workers that can't find well paying jobs who then subsequently drop out of the labor market. If old people somehow spent all their life savings on medical bills to stay alive for one more year then a lot of young people would end up getting that money.

Those young people have a whole life time of earning money ahead of them. It's only when you deny them the ability to earn that money that they suffer. Full employment will just create more demand for increases in productivity which then results in greater increases in productivity than one would expect if there wasn't urgency.

Where are you seeing that there is a labor surplus in Japan in recent years?

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/07/674548447/facing-critical-lab...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-workculture...

> As of 2019 Japan's unemployment rate was the lowest in the G7.

> Japan is now facing a shortage of labor caused by two major demographic problems: shrinking population because of a low fertility rate, which was 1.4 per woman in 2009, and replacement of the postwar generation which is the biggest population range who are now around retirement age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan

That's the usual specter; however, before modern times, populations grew and shrank for many reasons. Once people were out of the weeds from childhood disease, people lived reasonably long lives.

One big difference now is people expect to "retire". That's a modern construct. Sure, people used to add less and less to society as they aged and ultimately would need some subsidy, but much less than today.

They expect it because it's been the norm for a couple of generations. And we're paying a lot for it (in Europe, at least).

But yeah, it looks like we'll go back to no retirement soon enough, the current systems are not sustainable. Lots of people will be pissed off.

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