NAME : ABDUL AZIZ

CLASS : PBI 5B

ID NUMBER : 2321043

A Healthy Aging Society in Japan

Japan is well known for the oldest country in the world. Normal people would be surprised by the
fact that they live longer, but economists like us see challenges and problems to solve. Japan is an island
country which is also known as the land of the rising sun. It is abundant in natural resources and marine
lives in the sea. In addition, the country is ranked to have one of the oldest populations in the world
despite its disastrous climate that usually decreases the amount of population.

One of the reasons for the longevity of lifespan of Japanese is surely the nutritious dietary that
they consume over their lives. This city is the country that shocked the world in a sense that they can
develop a healthy aging society through a good diet. On June 2018, I received a change to attend Meiji
University for summer exchange program as it is the partner with Chulalongkorn University. I went to
Tokyo, the Metropolitan city, and I have seen a lot of elders living in the city. My professor, at this age of
seventy, was teaching on this topic.

Therefore, I started to question why Japanese life expectancy is very long. I can hardly see people
who live longer than 100 years in Thailand, but it is quite common in Japan that people can still walk
when they are over a hundred years old. Marmot and Smith (1998) conclude in their study that the
longevity of the Japanese is resulted by good public welfare system and good dietary. This article will
scrutinize deeper into population pattern in the aspect of public welfare issue that is considered to be a
chronic problem.

What could be some of the reasons behind Japan low GDP growth rate over the past decade? I
looked into the data of social security rates of taxation and is shown as high as approximately 30% tax
collected from income. The average social security tax rates a decade ago was 25%. So my question is
why do Government collect the higher tax. Social security is the main sources of revenue for the
government to spend on social welfare, public program, and many other kinds of benefits that will
improve the public.

To sum up, Japan is doing great to keep their population, but this is a time-bomb for the future
generation and a challenge to the country to manage its human capital efficiently. The loop has to break at
some point to shape the country to a new path of the better future; otherwise, this path would lead to the
dark despair of the country and will drive the economy to collapse real soon.