Case study: Japan, Asia

Japan is a country situated in the Pacific Ocean, in Asia. People who lives there, are
about 130 million, with a density of 340 people/square Km. Therefore, it’s the tenth
most populated country in the world. Its population can be
divided in three age brackets:
 Young people: 13.1% (17 million)
 Adults: 64% (81 million)
 Elderly: 22.9% (32 million)
Knowing this, we can calculate the dependency ratio, who is the result between the
sum of young people and elderly divided by the adults, multiplied by 100. In Japan, the
dependency ratio is 59.8. So, 100 workers has to support the needs of just 60 people.
Besides, the number of children is going down and the total population is shrinking.
This means that in the future, there will be less workers, and more elderly so the
dependency ratio will get worse.
Because of the lack of young people, Japan is having a lot of problems: some school
had to close, so children have to travel now. Then, the number of recruits is falling
down, with problems in the defense of the country. Another problem is that the
electronic industry is not working because of the shortage of labour. So Japan needs to
attract foreign workers.
To increase the workforce, since 1994, Japan has adopted
a policy to encourage more births and to enabling
mothers remaining doing their job so men are encouraged
to stay at home. Besides, workers are allowed to work
after reaching pensionable age (the age at which people
can take pension has been raised from 60 to 65).
To try to solve the problems of the increase of elderly,
like the high number of diseases, Japan need a greater
health care. Some workers are obliged to leave their job
to take care of their eldery relatives. This means that
Japan had to build more care homes, or houses without
stairs where elderly people can stay. Unfortunatly Japan has invested a lot of money to
clear the destruction of tsunami. So the situation has not been considered yet.

Alessandro Zerillo - IH