Shifting Demographics
Nowhere is there a more striking example of a global trend towards ageing and falling populations than Japan. Japanese government figures from 2013 put the median age at 45.9, with a fertility rate of 1.43 – below the 2.04 required to maintain population levels. By the end of this century, Japan’s population will have shrunk to 84.5 million, down from 127.5 million in 2017, according to the United Nation’s World Population Prospects 2017 report.
Especially sobering is Japan’s ‘potential support ratio’, or the number of working-age people per retiree. The UN divides the number of people aged between 20 and 64 in each country by the number of over-65s, revealing Japan’s ratio to be 2.1 – the world’s lowest.
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