Japan says one in 10 residents are aged 80 or above as nation turns gray
More than 10% of Japan’s population is now age 80 or older, the government said Monday, the latest worrying milestone in the rapidly graying country’s demographic crisis.
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This will happen when you overwork your populace to the point that they haven't the time to raise children.
In addition to a very xenophobic culture that doesn’t allow the addition of missing working-age people via immigration.
I am going to be downvoted but here we go: In addition to immigration that dont want to adapt to countries cultures and want to bring their own culture into the new countries.
The US is in for something similar in about 40 years now that the "job creators" have made it entirely unaffordable to live, let alone raise children, while also opposing legal immigration.
Yeah, I'm a 28 year old better off than most people I know personally, and I'm not even close to feeling like I'll ever make enough money to have children.
I'm a nearly 40 year old who decided to have a kid at 30 because my career trajectory looked promising and none of my siblings had kids/my wife and I wanted kids. We're those silly optimists who think if we can raise someone who loves this world and is part of the solution, we can make a difference.
I make roughly 3x the average salary and with just one kid.. I feel like I'm killing myself, doing permanent, irreversible harm to my body and mind with how much I work and how little down time I have.
I feel like life is passing me by while I'm trapped in a dark room churning out investor gains I'll only ever see a fraction of while the execs in my company pull down record profits and eye watering bonuses year after year, but I dare not stop, because like everyone else, I'm one moderate catastrophe away from destitution.
They could fix this very quickly with a government mandated one year off for both parents having a kid. Then with government subsidy for childcare/limits on childcare pricing.
I think a very large number of people would sign up for a paid year off, especially if they were confident the kids would not bankrupt them in the following years.
This is exactly it. Their young population is heavily overworked and underpaid. There is no work life balance, there is only showing dedication to the company. And for this you often aren't even paid enough to move out of your parents house.
To put this in perspective- in Japanese offices there is a thing called hanko. It's a small stamp that is unique to each person. Memos are often printed on paper, then circulated, then each worker stamps it with their hanko to indicate they've read it. This caused huge problems during COVID and many offices refused to close simply because the management didn't want to try any sort of 'digital hanko'.
The obvious answer to a Western culture is 'that's fucking stupid, replace that with any sort of e-document manager that tracks access and save a ton of time and paper and money'. But in Japan, the gray-haired manager gets respect and is not questioned so the hanko continues. The worker does not stand up and say 'I demand more money and better working conditions' because that is not how things work.
So of course the overworked, underpaid, 20something year old who is just scraping by has no time to go out and try to meet a partner, let alone start a family they won't have time for.
As a nation, they will reap what they sow. The nation is turning gray and there will be nobody to care for them, or replace them. I think they will come out stronger- perhaps in 10-20 years when more of the older traditional people die, some of the younger folks can make serious changes. But for now they need radical reform if they want to avoid a very unhappy decade.
| I think they will come out stronger- perhaps in 10-20 years when more of the older traditional people die, some of the younger folks can make serious changes.
Why does this sound like how Rogaine works with hair?
I don't think so. This sounds like a stunting that only ever leads to the same method of doing things.
By the way, holy shit is Japan inefficient.
Oh...so why are countries with short working hours and long vacations also having the same issues?
Different causes can lead to the same effect.