Japan faces structural problems that threaten future generations, including snowballing government debt, swelling social security costs, a low birthrate and a rapidly aging population.
But politicians just sidestep vital decisions and shelve necessary reforms, allowing the state to keep spending rampantly by issuing vast government bonds that will make the burden on future generations even heavier.One figure might explain why these problems aren't being addressed: the high average age of people who actually vote.
With the society turning grey and the turnout of young voters remaining low, apparently due to apathy, the average age of those who voted in the 2010 Upper House poll was 56, a research paper published in July by the National Institute for Research Advancement think tank shows.
Internal affairs ministry data show that in the 2010 election, the 20-29 age group accounted for only 7.6 percent of all people who cast ballots.
Hiroshi Yoshida, a Tohoku University professor and expert on fiscal science, pointed out that the turnout rate was only 33.68 percent for eligible voters aged 20 to 24. In contrast, among those aged between 65 and 69, 78.45 percent cast ballots."For political parties, discussing issues elderly people find unpleasant would just bring disadvantages in an election," Yoshida said during a recent interview.
The situation is predicted to get even worse for young generations. If the turnout trends continue unchanged, the average age of adults who vote will keep rising to 60 years old in 2030, according to the NIRA paper.
"Elderly people have greater impact on election results, so politicians just push for policies preferred by elderly people," Manabu Shimasawa, an NIRA researcher and one of the coauthors of the paper, told The Japan Times. "Actual election policies advocated by parties are exact reflections of this."Indeed, the future for younger generations — including those not yet born — is already bleak.
Minoru Masujima, a senior official in the Cabinet Office, estimated in 2008 the benefits each generation will receive from government spending and the financial burden they will have to pay, including social security costs and taxes, throughout their life.
If the social security system and other conditions remain the same, people now aged at 60 or older will enjoy a net benefit of up to ¥39.62 million per household over the course of their life.
But people not yet in their 20s will see a net loss of ¥83 million per household, given snowballing government debt and the worsening state of the social security framework, most notably the ailing public pension system.But for Sunday's poll, not one major party is pushing steps to ease this growing benefit/burden disparity among generations.
The Liberal Democratic Party, which polls indicate could win by a landslide Sunday, has called for massive public works spending, which might temporarily boost the economy but is likely to leave even more government debt for generations to come.
The LDP's campaign pledges unveiled Nov. 21 make no mention of steps to curb state spending, even though Japan has the world's highest ratio of public debt to gross domestic product.Nippon Mirai no To (Tomorrow Party of Japan), whose members are loyal to ex-DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, has advocated an annual allowance of ¥312,000 to support households with young children.
The party's platform, however, neglects to state where the money would come from to pay for this spending increase.
NIRA's Shimasawa has pointed out that if such an allowance were financed by issuing more government bonds, it would only add to the financial burden that future taxpayers will face.
Yoshida of Tohoku University laments that no parties have advocated substantial social security reforms with a long-term view to correct the benefit/burden disparity between generations.
"Currently, there's no one in politics who represents the interests of future generations," Yoshida said. "If you had a time machine, you could bring such people from the future, but that's not possible."
Japan is a wide and advanced country. They do everything modernly and efficiently. This affects in how they think and how they act. In my opinion, the reason why the birth level in Japan is low is because they think that having children will be a burden and slow their mobility. The government also add some rules and suggestion about not having too many children that strengthen Japanese people’s way of thinking about having children. In my opinion, this way of thinking is not wrong, especially in this modern world, I believe that not having too many children is a right decision. However, the thinking of having children will be a burden is wrong in my opinion. Because having children will bring happiness. When a lot of people in Japan think of not having children, this will also be dangerous for the government since they still need ancestry to continue Japan and not having decreases in population.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article above, Japan is facing an ageing population where there is a decrease in the fertility rate meanwhile their life expectancy kept on increasing due to the fact that Japan has a very healthy environment just like in Monaco. However, high rate of life expectancy does not always resemble a good condition in the long term, Japan may face a shortage in labor force due to the fact that their population does not regenerate equivalently, their fertility rate is very low, resulting a low population in the labor force. Meanwhile for the aged population starting from 65 and above can’t get involved anymore in the labor force, eventually, it leads to one way in which it makes the Japanese firms to outsource or employed worker from outside Japanese people. There are several ways to encounter this condition and I believed Japan has taken several actions in encountering this condition such as Policy on numbers of children for every each family, and also enforcing a traditional festival where they tried to motivate people in sexual intercourse, for the purpose of increasing their fertility rate again.
ReplyDeleteThe ageing population will always be a prominent problem even in an advanced country, in which they are capable of managing its social securities through their high performing finance affairs. However, problems arose as the government sells their bonds to accommodate their state's monetary and fiscal substances. It is exigent for Japan to provide mediums for its citizens to participate in an unstirred climate in politics to resolve its long-standing matters of welfare their elders and finances. The apathy to nurture their future through the youths is perilous. I believe in the power of the youth. The leadership of the youths initiates movements across the globe despite possible grim and browbeat treatments from other actors with a shallow paradigm, causing discrimination and underrepresentation, despite the significant potentials in empowering youths. Through the lens of the youths, they can catalyse positive innovations and initiatives to give impacts through collaborations across international boundaries, generations, and cultural backgrounds from discourses of today's prominent opportunities and issues to come.
ReplyDeleteA nation having a high life expectancy and low fertility rate; no wonder Japan faces this kind of problem. It has advantages despite the bad sides explained in the article, for instance, Japanese government would not need as many facilities compared to the country with high population and reducing economic disparity. But then it is the nature of political party to focus on the benefits for the majority to gain a lot of voters. What is wrong from the system is on how government provide advantages to the elderly people using the debt that is further being the burden of the youth. This is a kind of cross subsidy system that really have bad projection to the future of the country itself. No one could be blame, though, as the status quo perceive an inverted population pyramid and political parties will do maximum urge to win the ballot. Looking onto the positive side, this problem might trigger and raise awareness of Japanese on how bad the circumstances would be if the trend remains unchanged.
ReplyDeleteA nation having a high life expectancy and low fertility rate; no wonder Japan faces this kind of problem. It has advantages despite the bad sides explained in the article, for instance, Japanese government would not need as many facilities compared to the country with high population and reducing economic disparity. But then it is the nature of political party to focus on the benefits for the majority to gain a lot of voters. What is wrong from the system is on how government provide advantages to the elderly people using the debt that is further being the burden of the youth. This is a kind of cross subsidy system that really have bad projection to the future of the country itself. No one could be blame, though, as the status quo perceive an inverted population pyramid and political parties will do maximum urge to win the ballot. Looking onto the positive sides, this problem might trigger and raise awareness of Japanese on how bad the circumstances would be if the trend remains unchanged.
ReplyDeleteIt is no longer wrong to say that Japan is a High Income country. This fact can be proven as unemplyment rates in Japan is low. It is a good thing but a High income country usually comes with a package. That package is called aeging population and japan is one of the country which experience this problem at its finest. I say so as most of Japan’s population is made up of old people and only contain little or crtical level of young people. This serves a big problem for japan as the old people do no wok and is not economically effective any longer. They will present a problem as they act as a burden to Japan’s economy and it’s goverment. The japanese people care much about their elders and the goverment provides lots of support programs for them. Several examples are Free healthcare, bg pension funds and many more.
ReplyDeleteNow the problem here is hat there are very any of elders who are not working anymore and depend on goverment support programs. This causes the country and it’s young generation to feel burdened. I say so as where would a goverment get it’s fund? Of course that will be the economically active generation which in reality is very few in numbers compared to the elders. This causes Income tax to be very high as to maintain these goverment support programs. Aside frim that this causes a small talentpool. Japan is lack of young generation which can work for them so they allow foreigners coming from all over the world to work for them. This however only solves their problem temporarily as the GDP of the country is also affected because of this. How is it affected? Wll, if a foreigner works in your country they can spend their income.
DeleteBut unforunatly these foreign workers will not spend all their money in Japan. Some of them might want to go back to their country or have holiday with their families. This causes japan’s GNP to decrease. I agree that as of the modern day it isa pain to have lots of children. I tthink that the most sensible is having only two children in the family. I say so as he cost of raising a children these days are quite expensive as today we need to give hem proper food, give medical attention, pay their tuition school fess and university fees. This is why Japan people are facing aeging population. They are well educated and because of that they tend to be more reuctanttowards having childre. The women are also educated making them economically independent. Women who used to depend economically on men marry them to gain financial support. But because of them getting educated they can become indpendent and don’t need to marry and have a child to survive financially.
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