Aging problem in Japan?

 The birthrate in Japan is declining and its population is ageing.

Japan’s population is ageing fast and shrinking. According to the statistics, Japan’s 127m people are aging faster than any others on earth.

The number of births per woman during her lifetime has declined since it fell below 2.00 in 1975. Increase in the percentage of unmarried persons is thought to be one of the reasons behind the decline in Japan’s total fertility rate.

The proportion of the total population aged 65 years or older has also risen rapidly.  The average life expectancy of women was 84.62 years in 2000 and that of men was 77.64 years.

Recently  many of Japan’s older people go to pray not only for the long life, but also for a quick and painless death at the end of it. Their visits have revived the fortunes of old-established temples, notably in the ancient capitals of Kyoto and Nara.
Now, many small temples are also inviting old people to their places expecting some financial support . If Japanese government allows foreigners to run a temple in Japan, my next venture attempt can be related to this issue .

By 2015 the proportion of elderly will have risen to one in four of the population, or more than 30m. This is thanks mainly to an unusually large baby-boom generation passing into the ranks of the old. Between 1947 and 1949, 2.7m children a year on average were born to surviving Japanese soldiers who returned from war, married and settled down—about a third more than in previous years. These days the baby-boom generation began to retire.

A shrinking population already has implications for the workforce. Currently, some 16m Japanese are in their 20s. This number will shrink by 3m over just the next decade. This spring, during the annual job-recruitment round, new university graduates found themselves in record demand, and not just because of the recovering economy: over the coming years, companies will have fewer young graduates to choose from. That is nice for young job-seekers, except for one thing: as Japan ages and shrinks, workers must support an ever larger proportion of retirees. By 2030, demographers say, Japan will have just two working-age people for each retired one. Personally I wouldn’t want to be a young working person in Japan in those days.

Here are some graphs explaining the situation:

I think now we have enough statistical background. It is time to see some old people pictures from Japan.

 

 

NOTE:  I am writing artice on Japan in my following blog (SNS in Japan)

http://english.youshare.jp/blogs.php?action=show_member_blog&ownerID=1&blogID=3