When Yutaka Takahashi strolls around his neighborhood in Japan's capital, he sometimes wonders where all the children have gone. "When we were young, it seemed as if there were kids all over. Now it seems as if there are only elderly people like me," said the 67-year-old retired oil company manager -- neither of whose 30-something offspring have children of their own.
Faced with a shrinking labor force, companies in the world's fastest-ageing society are looking to older people as well as younger women, immigrants and even robots to fill the gaps. Yet none of those sources, economists warn, will suffice to avert a nightmare scenario of ballooning social welfare costs, faltering competitiveness and declining living standards without one more vital ingredient -- a rise in productivity per capita.
Other countries face similar challenges. Already the majority of the world's older people live in developing countries, and by 2050 almost 80 percent of those aged 60 and over will reside in such places, according to a recent United Nations report.
DOUBLE SQUEEZE
Like other ageing societies, Japan is suffering from a pincer effect of falling birth rates and longer lifespans due to healthy diets and improved medical care.
Japanese girls born last year can expect to live to an average age of 85.8 years, making them the longest lived in the world. Their male compatriots fare slightly less well, with a life expectancy of 79, second to Icelandic men at 79.4 years.
Japanese policy-makers grappling with the baby shortage have sought ways since the early 1990s to make it easier for women to juggle jobs and families -- so far with a marked lack of success.
FILLING THE GAP
Many experts, however, doubt that fertility rates can rise enough to stem a decline in the work force.
"Even bringing the fertility rate to 1.7 would be an enormous gain, but the new workers wouldn't come on line until 22 years from now, and even at that, the number would be fairly small," said University of Michigan professor John Creighton Campbell.
Immigration is one often-mentioned solution, but even with a gradual opening to skilled foreign workers, few expect foreign workers to compensate for much of the labor shortage. "Fifty years from now, there will be 30 million fewer people," said Hitoshi Suzuki, a senior researcher at Daiwa Institute of Research. "It's impossible to let in that many foreigners. We are not going to become a country like America."
That means corporate Japan must step up its search for overseas markets and production centers while tapping two groups -- women and older people -- to try to fill labor gaps at home.
Women are among the most under-utilized segment of Japan's labor force -- many still quit or switch to part-time jobs after marriage and childbirth -- so there is scope for change if social and corporate attitudes change.
Whether all this will work, only time will tell. In the meantime, the old people of Japan get marginalised slowly and steadily.
source: www.reuters.com
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