Japan’s problems are compounded by its ethnocentric concept of nationhood, where it is almost impossible for people who aren’t of ethnic Japanese descent to become citizens. There are third-generation descendants of Korean immigrants in Japan who have never lived in Korea, speak only Japanese and have only ever known Japanese culture, but who can never be legally Japanese.
Can you explain how the citizenship issue relates to the demographic problem? Are those people shut out of citizenship not having as many children? I’m a little unclear if you are even saying that it’s connected, or just saying that it’s one more problem Japan also has.
It's definitely an involved process to naturalize as Japanese, but it mostly requires that you have a method for supporting yourself financially and that all your taxes are paid. Japan doesn't allow dual citizenship though, which is why most people just get permanent residency instead. There aren't many differences between PR and citizenship, except the ability to vote.
It’s not fewer people that’s the problem, but fewer people too fast. A society needs labor to provide the goods and services people need. If the share of people who do labor (working age) to people who don’t (children and the elderly) becomes too lopsided, the burden on those who work becomes unsustainable. (The Boomers had the opposite: they had a smaller older generation and didn’t have many children, so during their prime years the working age population was much larger than dependants on both ends of the age pyramid. That’s part of the reason why they were so prosperous.)
Going by total fertility rate (children per woman):
2.1 is enough for replacement. No problems.
1.8 means every generation is 10 % smaller than the previous. We can deal with that.
1.5 means every generation is 25 % smaller than the previous. This starts to cause problems.
1.0 means generation size halves every generation. This is not sustainable.
If the share of people who do labor (working age) to people who don’t (children and the elderly) becomes too lopsided, the burden on those who work becomes unsustainable.
Except that raising children requires more time and resources than caring for elderly. So having less children frees up more resources to care for the elderly. Into the next generation there are now less people which require even less resources which means you need fewer workers to produce those resources.
History provides evidence for this. After every major war there were economic booms. This is despite wars killing off the able bodied workers leaving only the sick and elderly.
The only people who suffer from a lower population are the ownership class. They live by skimming a little of the productivity off of every worker.
It is a pyramid scheme. We have an economic system based on continuous growth. When it doesn't grow, it's a huge panic, such as during the pandemic or 2008 economic crisis. Now the number of workers and consumers, the base of the whole system, is starting to shrink and nothing much van be done without changing the essence of the system.
Of course those that became rich and powerful because of the system don't want to change the system that keeps them rich and powerful. But without change the system might not survive.
If you're nodding at the concept of overpopulation that's not really a "problem" as we're expected to top out around 15 billion as the rest of the world develops and then replacement rate is expected around 12 bil as things level back out from an earlier peak iirc.
Less humans mean less innovation. It means less energy and then less emissions total, but that's irrelevant long term. Without enough labor to support industry growth and technology, we'll be more on the sustaining ourselves side of labor. Which means we're far more likely to relapse into fossil fuels. Especially if the depopulation is rapid which will destabilize industries.
The argument that any number of human will stochastically offset its own emission through science and technology is patently absurd. You need a certain amount of people in order to sustain hi tech infrastructure. But 8 billion now and still 8 billion in 2080, which would be the largest possible "natural" change in trajectory of global population, one of the best things for humanity when it comes to global emissions.
The more likely trajectory of 10.5 by 2080 is much more likely to lead to exhaustion of resources and ecosystems, not to mention lead to more wars, famine, and global warming, all of which will fuel each other.
If you want innovation and advancement of human knowledge. The thought of "make more babies" being an important factor is funny as hell. Thanks for the chuckle.
That's where automation comes in to do the menial repetitive jobs and the remaining humans take on more complex tasks. Everything will work itself out.