Why 'womenomics' won't be enough to turn the tide for shrinking Japan
Kevin Rafferty says entrenched male privilege and rigid bureaucracy stand in the way of change
Japan is getting desperate about its increasingly grey future. This week, an advisory panel called upon the government to draw a line in the sand and maintain the country's population at 100 million by the year 2060. This is wishful thinking, reminiscent of King Canute ordering the incoming ocean to go back again.
At least Canute knew that the tide would recede soon after it had wet him through. Japan's problem is that its population, today at 127 million, is set on a steadily declining trend and is expected to fall to below 87 million by 2060, by which time nearly 40 per cent of Japanese will be aged 65 or over. It is projected to fall further, to around 43 million, by 2110.
What is wrong with the panel's recommendation is that governments do not produce people, at least not until dictators get control of human cloning mechanisms to produce people in their own image at will.
Governments need to be capable of joined-up adult thinking to understand what they can and cannot do, and which policies may have positive and negative persuasive values. There is not much sign that Japan is yet doing enough joined-up thinking.
The panel, which was headed by Akio Mimura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, did suggest that money should be diverted from the elderly and spent on improving child-rearing facilities and other childcare benefits instead, but that just begs a lot of questions.
Japan's fertility rate today is 1.41, and would need to get up to 2.07, the replacement rate, by 2030 to allow the population to stabilise at 100 million. This, in modern parlance, is a big ask, and would mean massive social and economic upheavals.
