Why Japan is Shrinking Fast
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- Опубликовано: 8 дек 2021
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Japanese government: Let’s make people work, work and work
People: Stop having children
Japanese government: _confused Pikachu face_
Lol
Danganronpa
there is a reason why Japan is not poorer than africa after getting nuked. Hard work is in their culture
@@user-lb7rg3cx6wcompletely different circumstances.
@@usoppun yes and no. Hard work will still help a lot more but Africa is not a good example.
I found a small mistake at 05:27.
On the X-axis the years are moving in 20-years steps. But the last one would be 2100 and not 3000
kink with ... three dots?
came here to comment the same thing haha
Yep
I didn't even notice lmao. Well done for noticing.
The funny thing is this is actually a known psychological trick. If you try counting from say 9070, 9080, 9090, theres a decent chance you'll incorrectly say 10000 instead of 9100. It works better if you're counting in words out loud.
The small things we all get wrong because of how our brains are wired are always fun.
I'm from Thailand and I have met, spoke to, spent time with, and even still keep in contact with some Japanese acquaintances. Many of them like living in Thailand because it's much less stressful and more freedom, of course it's not as tidy, clean, well organized. We were all surprised, like, why wouldn't you guys live in your comfortable developed country? I guess it's not only about the "developed" thing that matters. Some Japaneses are so relaxed and fun, not all of them love working hard like robots. And it's not about their govt, but the Japanese culture itself. To make it worse, that culture includes resisting any changes and will try to preserve the "real" Japan at all cost.
What's even funnier is that your country is also facing demographics crisis on the future with Thailand population dropping from 74 million to less than 40 million by the end of 2100
@@agaXM Dude, in case you got it wrong, I have huge respect and admiration toward Japan and the people. And don't worry, Thailand has always been shitty, we are currently shitty, no need to wait for future. We only envy the life of more developed culture there in Japan. Japan may seem a bit "strict" to outsiders' eyes, but I have no doubt Japan will continue to be one of the greatest countries till the end of human history.
@@saidonfax what i mean is that your country soon will have similar problem like Japan duo to low birth rate and aging population i didn't mean to offend you sorry
There are also many Japanese wants to move to Philippines specifically Cebu, which I was also surprised
It is the end result of a xenophobic hierarchical, top down culture where self-interested Yamato supremacist elders must be obeyed above all else. Don't feel sorry for them though; they spurn that, and do not worship them either, they scorn and sneer at that. It is dangerous for the world when one race of people so looks down on and thoroughly 'others' all the other ones.
It will be interesting to see how Japan will solve its aging population issue. Speaking of Japan's population that's over 100 years old, the world's former oldest person, a Japanese woman named Kane Tanaka, recently died at the age of 119 years and 107 days old. She was born on January 2, 1903 and died on April 19, 2022.
So we gon' act like we dont why covid pop up in 2019 ?
@@pAampulLmoOusSee what? That don't have anything to do with anything
This problem is part of the reason why there's so much emphasis on robotics in Japan. Make a bunch of workers who won't change the demographics of the country.
Just open immigration laws. Literally would solve all their problems.
I couldn't agree more. Once the workforce it automized, the value they produce can support the population, which can be whatever size it happens to be at that point without consequences.
@@CLK.11 this sound 1940s Germany propoganda. There is no way you are going to compete with countries like China with a dwindling population. Enjoy living in a world ruled by China.
@@CLK.11 I as a European agree that it was our biggest mistake and that Japan should learn off our mistakes.
@@JayHere The chinese population is also expected to shrink
I mean considering the main reason people aren't having children is because of employment-related stress and long work hours, surely this is the main thing that needs to be tackled. I find it funny that the idea of employees being treated well and being given a life outside work is so ridiculous as to suggest that the situation is binary.
No no the solution is to bring in millions and millions of more workers with even worse conditions that will lower the overall working conditions. It's worked so well in the west :)
It has nothing to do with work hours our ancestors were literal coal miners , land labourers , I mean it's way too stressful to work in farm and mines so it's not that simple . It's same everywhere even in so called socialist Scandinavia birth rates aren't going up which I guess is not a bad thing..
@@itoakira917 Scandinavian countries aren't socialist.
@@The_Keeper_of_Names Maybe thats why he said "so called"...
@@itoakira917 it's more of a handful of factors, overwork is one, but now the work that gives good employment/wages requires highly educated people, and that people will be forming themselves until age 23/25 or more depending the area, and are less likely to have childrens until they find themselves in a financially stable situation, and highly educated people tends to be more stingy when it comes to have those children, plus don't forget that women would usually spent all their time taking care of the house, and now they took a more active role in the workforce, which leaves a hole in the domestic life. There really is a myriad of other reasons, but allowing a more relaxed lifestyle would likely help miles with the problem, though i'll admit i've never been in japan so i can't say if what i see as the biggest factors are biased, most from what i see in this problem comes from videos like this and other similar type of sources.
Edits: spelling
5:35
I love how year 3000 comes at the end of 21st century😂😂
RIP 2100 - 2900
Basically this whole problem would be remedied by just making the life of young people better, and the reason for falling birthrates in Japan is mirrored in a lot of other developed countries. The wages are simply too low and the cost of living is simply too high.
The amount of people who say this when if you just look graphs you know its not rue astounds me. You lot just want more welfare end of. Through out history work hours and how hard you work has been dropping and so have birth rates. Young japanse people have it off better than ones in the 1920s.
Something outsiders like you can't understand is a thing called culture. It is very frowned upon to be different from others. It sucks from an outsider's point of view but it's what makes Japan.
It's like you don't even watch the video. Who would support the older generation if people do less work?
@@m.zahiruddinmohhar6492 bro, you do realize the work going over the video is for the vast majority of all jobs in Japan right? It's not taking care of the elderly that is doing this its these other jobs that's forcing people to work 80 or more hours a week giving them no time for themselves and no time to build a life or meet people to have a family. I don think you watched the video my guy.
@@billthekid1591 what? You think working 80 or more hours a week is a good and fun life?
I literally wrote about this a week ago for school, and this would have been a great source for my essay.
I farted does it smell on your side?
@@archersbeready6229 The internet is a bad place because of people like you
@@archersbeready6229 Yeah that shit smells like a rotten sloth corpse
Omg ✨📈
Plottwist: He is your teacher and used your essay to make this video
This video just helped me with my sociology homework, i love this channel
Super interesting video and the pivot to razors at the very end was next level. Lol
Hi, I'm part of that 2% of immigrants living in Japan.
To clarify, if you are from a natively English speaking, developed country; have no fear, your immigration application will be basically guaranteed to be approved. However, retention of it's foreign nationals is really a huge problem here. Probably less known, and less discussed is the path to integrating into Japanese society, which...that is to say, doesn't really exist. Many foreigners, even my own friends and coworkers, have given up on trying to make a life here due to...a laundry list of problems. It's far too complex for this comment, but let's just say that existing inside this country is incredibly difficult, and there are hardly any support networks to help you navigate it. If you're unfortunate to come here alone and lack the fortitude to survive, you'll join a rather surprisingly high suicide rate amongst foreigners here. I guess, for a twist of dark humor, as the saying goes...when in Rome...
omg, I want to know more. any suggested reading on this?
Same with Rudy, do you have any readings that expand on this? I'd like to know more. :)
yoooo same, im a foreigner here to and i havent really had any problems here (mostly cuz im surrounded by foreigners) but yeah, i totally get these points and it really is too complex for the faint hearted
The list of foreign nationals who committed suicide in Japan is incomplete, you can help by expanding it
Well don’t move there I know for a fact Japan just wants Japanese people there and I don’t blame them , people love to go to other countries and ruin them , this is why Japanese people are so respectful and have such honor because they don’t allow the outside world crazy people to stay and cause chaos.
So Japan's really high standard of living is literally contributing to this downwards trend in its economy. You can say that Japan is failing with success.
Potential solution: stop overworking the working class. Maybe, enforce policies and legislation for the promotion of fair working hours. This wouldn't have much effect in the short term, but I assume the long term impacts would be beneficial.
That’s the problem if you want your elderly to have a good retirement then your working population needs to work hard especially if there’s fewer and fewer of them of course that leaders to less future workers.
no? i mean other countries have the same great living quality and they do not have such a problem.
Few problems. It's not just the working class, in fact the extreme overworking in Japan is more common amongst the middle class, and second, it's not a legal problem, it's a cultural one.
They aren't required by contract or law to stay work these long hours, and like he said in the video, they're given plenty time off that they just choose not to take. The extremely long hours stem from the mindset that, if you aren't giving more than you need, giving 200% every day, you're letting everybody down, and you'll be seen as a slacker.
So it's a much more complicated problem to deal with, which makes the whole situation worse. Financial support for newlyweds or first-time parents might help, but I don't know.
@@jmaitland5709 alternative: implement laws that incentivise people taking their alloted paid leave, or sticking to their working hours. Or financially penalise those who overwork. Either by not paying at all for overtime, in all its forms, or by fining people and companies who enforce or indulge in overtime
The problem with your solution is belief in the “benevolent government”, to which there is no such thing. At best, governments are indifferent to the well-being of their citizens as they are more than happy to reap the benefits of a country doing well while doing not of the hard work.
And while regulations are a positive, they don’t mean anything without enforcement or good judgment. And after the last two years of the COVID pandemic, I’m not confident in the government doing anything good as history proves over and over again that whenever government gets involved, it just makes the problem worst.
This is something that the average person is gonna have to solve on their own.
that sponsorship was the smoothest transition ever recorded in every multiverse's history
Thanks for sharing such a valuable video mam.
Shaving helped make a video about a shrinking country. Keep up the good work
In American; “I’m 65 yrs hence very old & can barely move so need to retire since I’m dying soon. I need to rest”
In Japan; “I’m 65, just entering my prime. Still got over 35 good years to go before I retire. Time to cash this 80 hr work-week check”.
Good u r American
Ok.
Dont care. US is a British colony
@@arolemaprarath6615 *was* a Bri'ish colony
Even Americans are painfully overworked and unpaid here, we don't even get good fucking benefits
I remember a couple of years back they closed and/or demolished all but one elementary school in my area because there simply wasn’t enough children to fill them. It was heartbreaking to watch both the staff and students part with a place they had made cherished memories.
seriously hearing things like that from a perspective of a booming country with growing demographics (from Indonesia btw) is very strange and heartbreaking
A bit ironic is that at least per official numbers there are about 50000 kids that don't have a daycare facility near enough them for them to join, not considering the unaccounted ones either
@@ryhanzfx1641 Well, one man's crisis is another man's dream.
The building my grandmother attended for her full 1st-9th education in and my dad and I both attended elementary in was going to be demolished as well. But this is because it was too SMALL for the number of young couples having kids in my area after a bunch of really cheap, poorly built housing developments went up on former farmland.
Fortunately, another former student with a family that's been in the area even longer than mine bought the property and converted the inside to apartments but left the exterior exactly as it was, even leaving most of the playground equipment for any kids that may end up living there.
I am canadian and two of my childhood schools are gone, for the same reasons :( It sure hit hard.
I live in Japan and.. watching this video broke my heart a little and I fill scared for my future 🇯🇵
Please don't feel hopeless, if enough people do their part in upholding the economy and having children then the problem can be solved (assuming the government doesn't ruin it).
Future are u crazy no future in Japan!!!!/otherwise putting immigrants
Woah Henson shaving, something new. Nice transition
I love how humanity when faced with a problem can Over solve it.
Lol very true
@@marioferreira7605 population is problem because natural resources are limited
In just 100 year World population grows four times
@@yuvraj1971 i dont think so.. the landscape will change drastically with modern society not giving 2 shits for romantic engagement. It might be the opposite.. it becoming more snd more hard to earn a living.. one can only do so much why bother having kids when its not gona work out.. especially when most if the working class is doing 55+ hours
Honestly, I think most problems in human history have been caused by exactly that. Over-compensating to a previous problem.
or under solve it
When Japan's hospitals realized that they had a shortage of medical support staff, the nation came up with a uniquely Japanese solution: Instead of recruiting trained personnel from abroad, Japan began developing robotic nurses and orderliness. An extremely insular society.
Japanese people has a *"Superiority complex"*
@@user-is3yn7xr4c Ok weeb
Then after robot makers become ageing and die. They will close hospitals
I was told a story of an Indonesian friend who once worked as an elderly caregiver there. He wasn't planning to keep the job for a long time but once his boss knew that, he offered 10+ years contract with extremely high pay for him to keep the job. Iirc, the pay was way above the standard there. The boss said that he offered such proposal due to how uninterested the people there with such jobs.
Japan's Government Has Technology To Back So Yeah Japan Can Do This For All
Great video and astute observations about my home country - Thank you! Just a minor point - In 2min. 44sec. in, the black and white footage you inserted seems to be about a Chinese speaking country (or HK?), but most likely not Japan (unless it was taken Yokohama Chinatown?). Not that it matters, just something I noticed, being a Tokyo native.
To the choice at the end. A third option could be to start new programs and pass new laws to encourage and enable people of fertile age to have kids. Addressing the main concerns listed here for why people currently don't. Though that may be hard for the economy short to mid term.
A solution not mentioned is the overworking of employees. Japan needs a cultural change in the work environment. Fewer hours, more paid overtime and people will easily have more children.
On average, the Japanese are amazingly wealthy. Working less for less pay should be affordable for huge numbers of people, if property prices and rents are lowered. That usually happens in an economic crisis, so no big surprise that the government hasn't made any drastic steps in that direction yet.
people always blame economic reasons for low birth rates which is easily disproven by the fact that economic incentives do not solve the problem. The fact is people wat to have family's the size they were raised in you cant fix it.
@@Yora21 isn’t rent very expensive in many Japanese cities though
how many subs can I get from this comment? Current: 331
@@Yora21 Japan’s economy has shrunk significantly since 2012. Japan still faces economic challenges that were brought about since the 1990s. Japan’s wages have been stagnant as well. The economy is in a much dire straits than just pay.
Gotta love how one of the choices isn’t to stop working younger people into the ground for less money. Maybe then they could actually form relationships and get it on and have kids. People have kids if they have the energy, the money and the available time. Once a much of your life is taken up by Work that doesn’t even pay well, how the hell can you do anything else. I mean our economies literally don’t give a shit about the breakdown of the community, because anything that gets in the way of making money is something that needs to go. And then the same leaders complain about crisis like this.
Sounds like everything is working as intended. Modern society is deliberately structured to breakdown local communities and prevent collective resistances.
Cheap labors can always be imported, work can be outsourced. The ruling class just don't want to deal with all the old people still alive, so they shift the blame to the young people who aren't successful enough.
The problem with overworking in Japan is not in the laws, but in the culture. Japanese labor laws are very good when compared to the ones in America and Europe, however there is a certain shame in taking leave, because they want to appear as if they're working hard, even if their work is already done, a phenomenon seen mostly in office jobs.
@@LouisSubearth as an outsider this is unfortunately true…they are brainwashed…my partner leaves work at 7am and doesn’t return until 10-11pm in some cases. This is a totally normal thing to them.
@@HamHamHampster everyone is replaceable. no one is special
you're horribly wrong people don't need time or money to do kids in fact poor working class have more kids usually than upper classes.
One of the major factors is simply landmass, no room for expansion or room for infrastructure like agriculture to maintain growth. We are talking about a country that has less total landmass than California with 3.2x the population. Also being water locked doesn't help when your dependent on trade for basic resources.
I'm a Yank retired in Costa Rica. One of the things I like about Costa Rica is there are kids everywhere. When my Costa Rican wife and I visted Japan, we didn't see very many kids.
Japan's work culture is toxic and absolute trash, same with Korean work culture. It's not just putting massive overtime to show company loyalty - you're also expected to go out drinking with the bosses/coworkers, cutting into what personal time you might have left. You can technically refuse, but once your loyalty is questioned, your career mobility is stunted. I've seen the debilitating effect of this firsthand, having grown up with a father who would often not even come home because he'd work way past midnight and have to catch a little bit of sleep in his office before the morning. He became so burnt out that he one day just quit his very well-paying job and packed up and moved the family out of the country without any plan other than to maybe start a small business of some sort.
This aspect of culture needs to change. It's horrible, it's inefficient, it's the reason I would never ever consider going back there.
Japan is a very overrated country, really there is no country like the u.s., even if we are going downhill right now
@Jk more overated than japan? No idk why japan is so talked about by weebs like a heaven on earth when the country is going downhil
@Jk or Canada
@Jk You are correct Sir. Central and Northern Europe is great for quality of life. Australia/New Zealand also I might add ;)
@Jk the US has its problems but you don't pay 8 dollars per gallon of gas, high energy prices and high rent costs. Their medical system isn't very good either, you have to wait 6 months just to get a x-ray, if you ask people who have experienced both a lot of them say the American system is better
I lived 20 years in Japan, and talked until I was blue in the face about this exact issue to so many important people there. The handwringing and ostriching (head in sand syndrome) is in itself a subject for another video like this…
its because their urban areas are so densely populated that they don't notice the impending doom
I mean, what can people do about it?
Life is expensive, and becoming more expensive as years go on.
People have to work their entire lives away to make a living. There's no room for kids.
its because asian girls worship white guys nonstop smh
@@yonggeun4222 ayooooo
@@yonggeun4222 but Korea is plastic surgery
This is accurate, my parents is eating my head to get married, but because i know my work is not secured and might get booted any moment, i don't see it as the best idea. Plus work is eating most of my time
Omg it used to be my subject for research techniques at university 😁 it’s an interesting subject
Geography plays a huge role as well. Consisting of mountainous islands, they don't have a great deal of real estate to work with. Not to mention the natural hazards of living on the Ring of Fire. Cramming everyone into urban areas drives demand, and thus, prices, for everything, further increasing individual economic pressures and public infrastructure expenses in the form of taxes. They have to find a way to spread the population out, at least enough to stabilize their demographics.
Totally agree.
Geography and resources pretty much determines everything that Japan has done.
It sounds stupid but why not try building houses in the mountains and forests
They should conquer China and North Korea and make the Japanese Empire great again.
@@nutterinherbutter5080 logistics make it expensive to reach.
I'm Greek and my wife is Japanese. We have more in common than not, aging population, ever-changing customs, financial insecurity, insane amount of stress due to aforementioned points etc. However in Japan, being a massive country, it's not as felt as it is in Greece. It's not looking good, nonetheless.
MGT0W is the future! Thank God!!!
I wish you all the best to you and your wife!! Greetings from another Greek
Lucky you
As a Greek person myself, Greece has been going down Hill after ww2. Ironic.
@@Beupeu As a single woman, I agree to that statement. WGTOW.
There is a little bit of a jump in time between the years 2080 and 3000 in the graph @ 5:27
all the tentacle monsters gon be hella confused when they realize Japan dipped
As a Canadian, I always know what’s coming when someone brings up Tokyo’s population
Yep, same with when someone brings up California lol
wait, how does this similar to canada?
@@gracehinkle3623 people always refer that tokyo in its small area has as much of a population of canada has in its huge land mass
We will be shocked in the coming decades about how prescient The Handmaid's Tale (written in the 80s) really is.....
Its always canada used as an example when its talk about density
Japan isn't much of a "late-game civilisation." It was an early-game civilisation that lolligagged until the 1900s only to catch-up with the rest of the top players within a century or two.
honestly it is kinda impressive, Japan was an agrarian backwater in 1860 and by 1920 they were one of the world's major players
And that is because of the Sakoku. They improved once they opened up during the meiji period.
The current industrial Japan would not exist if it weren't for the aid of western imperialists especially the still alive English Empire.
@@user-is3yn7xr4c what “English Empire” is it you speak of?
@@Jean_Jacques148 they mean the us. they mean the ys.
I would not be worry but positively welcome these trends, truly.
So great
As a person who lives and works in Japan i was pounding my fist on my desk at how spot on this video is, especially with the working situation. What can you do though, yeesh
77th like :)
103rd like :)
Let's start a revolution! Wait, nobody really cares because that's not their personal problem and since the government being indifferent about their conditions, why would they give a F
**FARTS**
If you can, move out of the country: Brazil, Mexico (wouldn’t recommend unless you live and start a business in border city), USA (if your English is good, could be a great option), or Canada (don’t know much about Canada).
Don’t lose hope despite the situation you’re in. There is always an answer, a solution to your problem.
love how we jumped from year 2080 to 3000 at 5:35
Put BIG RED HEART imoji here cause I can't from my keyboard
Yeah I didn't understood that number too
I think he meant 2100
There is also all the brutal natural disasters that plague Japan, like Tsunami's, Typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes...it seems like they have the most intense natural disasters, frequently...But i don't know how many people would consider that, moving there...They are right on fault lines and part of the "Ring of Fire" volcanoes.....Overall, they seem like very nice people, and because of the older ages, it's probably more peaceful because of that....
I would love to ingratiate to japan and live and work there for sure.
We are going to see some wild demographic changes in China soon. It seems that Asian countries are speed running development and reaching uncharted territory for modern economic development where the west seems to have a slower sustainable pace.
China has problems. You just don’t hear about it.
Which part of Asia
@@anotherguycalled6253 People have problems when they recognize you as the commenter but not me.
Weird isn't it
Well yeah, Asian countries speed running development is because of years of western exploitation and a need to be on par with other western countries, otherwise they would be pushed aside and ignored as the west enrich and better themselves with new technology while leaving less develop countries to starve, as seen in African countries in regards to covid aid and vaccinations.
While that was the case a while back you have to remember it's easy to drive behind the snow plow especially when you keep stealing fuel from it all the time. Any way you look at it China hit a biiiiiggg wall and it's not growing too much now.
It’s a bit like the systems collapse theory, where one of the ways complex societies fall is by mounting costs. As societies grow more complex, they encounter new problems which have high costs to solve. However, these costs are usually offset by increased efficiency in the population. This in turn leads to new problems which are found with even higher costs. Sometimes, these costs grow to exceed the production of the population, but to unsolve the problem is even more costly. It’s a bit like how the Roman Empire faced increased costs of its garrisons, but it couldn’t pull the garrisons back and give up the foreign territory because the society had come to rely on the goods coming from the foreign territory. I am concerned that Japan’s population (as well as Western Europe, to some extent) will be facing similar collapses relating to supporting the elderly
I agree, at some point they are just going to have to scrap pension plans, but no old people (who by then will make up a majority) would every vote for this, which makes system collapse more likely the longer the problem is not addressed.
I think there needs to be a major re-think about pro-natalist policies, and very soon.
the uk is already full
Tainter Moment
@@paver9661 Nah, you could easily fit a lot more people in, and feed them, if the government prioritised farming a bit. But I think it would be better to do this by encouraging more kids rather than mass immigration. Nothing wrong with immigrants, but culture matters.
@@alex29443 going to be hard to encourage more kids when everyone’s working their arse off
Since the topic is related to Japan, I thought your sponsor was henshin!
We all know two of the major factors of the declining birth rate of Japan are the work culture and taxes.
As the elder Japanese pass on, what kinds of social change will that bring among the younger generations? Will the younger generation decide that traditional conservative culture is too much a hindrance to social progress and greatly reduce its influence (similar to the dynamic of religion in the Nordic countries)? Will technology fill the labor gap? Will employers have no choice but to increase wages and benefits to attract talent? Will society open to immigrants of all kinds? How would that affect usage of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana in everyday life? Whatever the answers, it will be fascinating to watch.
The evil western capitalism doesn't really care about society's well-being, it prioritized only the individual rights of corporate elites' privatization of their wealth. The evil western capitalism would literally do anything in order to serve western imperialists' human-centeredness immature narcissistic idealism, including destroying mother nature's creations. Japan's government had became a puppet of the U.S government since 1946.
@@ian2372 Yeah lol that's the only thing that makes sense, it's not like Japanese people are overworking themselves for minimum wages. In such a wealthy country, you can't tell me it's not possible to have a working regular man and a stay at home mom/wife taking care of the household. Seems to me your explanation is the only thing that makes actual sense here, entitlement. It's not uncommon to hear in developed world that they don't have enough to start having kids but they do, it's just women's crazy expectations.
@@ararune3734 He's just looking for examples to justify his own xenophobic ideals.
@@averyshaw2142 offended by truth.. good 👍 serves you right
@@Chuk392 The truth is that developed countries that accept many immigrants are doing far better and have a much brighter outlook for the future than ones that prefer to stay closed off and isolated. These demographic issues with only get worse, so don't worry, we will see the results of their outdated values soon.
Or, if you're correct in your analysis, Japan can pass stringent labor laws, forcing the firms that employ 60% of the workforce to no saddle their employees with so much overtime, so that they're not so exhausted and demoralized and can then spend some time on romantic relationships - followed by raising children. As a bonus, that would mean those firms now can't get the extra work from their employees, and would therefore need to hire more permanent employees, thus reducing the number of seasonal and part-time workers, providing more people with job security and therefore a safety net they can rely on when planning a family.
While they're at it, they can also pass laws to encourage birthing and rearing children, just to nudge the process along.
Japanese already pay great respect to traditions and to traditional values, like family, so it shouldn't be too difficult to put the Japanese people back on the right track.
How's that for a solution?
Pipe dreams at best. At the top level, execs would never allow such laws to pass. Even those in law making positions have a very old mindset to work hard, die later.
They already have a bunch of laws but it's rude to report your superiors and it's disrespectful to your coworkers who are working overtime if you don't. And it makes the atmosphere at work turn sour.
While legislation can help there needs to be a more cultural solution which is quite fitting for a country that prides itself for it's culture.
So revolutionary, given that globalism enthusiasts, including this channel, have as their godly sent solution to everything, immigration.
Pretty much Islamic laws, which encourage nuclear families and looking after elderly relatives.
If families looked after their elderly and only call specialists when needed, it would reduce the strain on government expenditure, even if they implemented benefits for doing this, which they should.
Additionally, the education should be focused on where there the are labour shortage, and sustainable solutions for the long term.
Implementing fair working hours would also improve the mental health of the nation, reducing suicide rates, and therefore less employee turnover in the long term, though a short term solution would be needed (possibly short term Visas) for shortages in industry. Japan have a high productivity rate and song work ethic, so don't see this as too much of a problem in the long term.
Like you said, they have no choice. Change for Japan is here. I love their culture and I hope the best for them.
5:30 mistake of putting 3000 rather than 2100.
Every single country that has gotten rich has then had their birthrate fall below the replacement level. This is not a problem that is unique to Japan and so far no country has reversed the trend.
Japan's rate of 1.36 births per woman is bad but there are a good number of counties that are worse (South Korea at 0.86...) and many western democracies with excellent quality of life are similar or only slightly better.
Japan may be the poster child (no pun intended) for declining population but really it's just a preview of what is going to be happening everywhere else very soon.
Basically the mouse utopia
@@raymonds7492 I would say it's the opposite problem of the mouse utopia. Modern society is so hostile to natural human needs that people aren't so much choosing not to have kids as being forced into it by outside circumstances.
You see the same thing with many animals in zoo enclosures that are too unnatural for them, they just stop breeding.
It's the poster child for aging population, not declining. Like you said, places like South Korea are declining much faster.
Philippines 2,148.56 hours a year it isnt a correlation causation.
@@TipsyArmadillo bruh that implies feudalism is less hostile.
One thing I thought was interesting when I visited Japan in 2019 apart from it being an amazing place was how many elderly workers there were in Japanese society. There were old people doing all sorts of jobs that really shocked me as a westerner. It was quite endearing but I had a lot of respect seeing these people working so hard in their old age. In the west most people in that demographic would be retired but in Japan they were working in construction, retail, hospitality, public service, transportation etc. from my western eyes that was really quite shocking. I knew beforehand they had an aging population but it was another thing seeing it first hand for myself.
is the point of life to work 60hr weeks until death?
guessing they didn't have a choice
Reminds me of how the German ambassador came to my country and couldn't believe how almost everyone she saw on the street was a young person.
@@millevenon5853 well objectively speaking , there is no definition of point of life . It is whatever you want it to be . Also what else can you do ? It's not a failure that people are living to such an old age . Infact it is a reflection of the country's wealth and prosperity . Also Japan is trying nearly everything to solve this problem - increasing welfare for the aged , mass public transportation , and automation , encouraging people to have more children . You can argue about immigration but the japanese people are strongly opposed to it . This is a every unique problem of the modern era . For most of human history most people died before the age of 5 . But now , for developed countries atleast , the complete opposite is true . So I don't think much can be even done about the fact that old people will be working much longer .
Sometimes is common to see elderly people here working on Mexico, but the issue is that many people since they worked on an informal job they can't retire; so they don't have any other choice. Worst case scenario you can see them asking for money on the street or in subway wagons.
It is VERY hard to get to move into Japan. It can take a year + to be able to
Japan seems so much fun!
2070: 90 million
2080: 85 million
3000: 84 million
after 2080 seems pretty stable to me: 5:32
I used to work for a big Japanese company in Canada. Had an offer to relocate to Osaka Head office. No way in hell I would move there. Long but very unproductive work hours. Not to mention the lower salary as well. At the end I quit and joined a Canadian company instead. Since then I have much better work life balanced.
You no good company man!
@@1pcfred don’t know for sure but I am surely not a samurai.
you didnt work for a Japanese company stop lying your just trying to make up a story for likes
@@TheNexusman7 unlike you I have a job and life. You can have all the “likes” you want.
Japan 1965: 5th most populous country.
Japan 2021: 11th most populous country.
7:22, best thing to do, I suggest, is make special buildings for seniors and help them live mostly independent for as long as possible. I would at least suggest a basic number of health educated staff, touch screens to orders groceries, maybe even health access, iv therapy, physical health studios, that kind of thing.
less expensive solotion
cites where there is only work for the government and only young people work there put in there jobs that gets the country money boom
japan desides fudge old people young is good kill old
Nice utopia, but not realistic. Japan has many benefits for the elderly. They get reduced payments for health care and insurance. There are services such as adult day care (for the wealthier people who can afford it although it too is subsidized by the government) and they have nursing homes that provide 24 hours care. The problem as the video noted is paying for all of this. With the decreasing population there are fewer and fewer people to fund these programs. Also, with an unemployment rate of only 2%, no one wants to do these jobs.
Talking about work culture there, for some reason if you take your allocated annual paid leave or if your shift ends at 5 and you leave at 5, it is considered that you aren't loyal to the company or the govt. agency you are serving. So basically on paper they have really attractive working hours, paid leaves and child care leaves, but if you take those you are considered lazy.
Source: trust me bro
@@trainv7612 In black companies, he's saying the truth. Come on, I know you know how to search up things.
@@flutterwind7686 Seriously, what are black companies?
@@forestreee thats just what the Japanese call their bad companies.
I am a Japanese supercentaurian who is 102 years old now. I speak English and I am still productive. There are a lot of centaurians in my town of Fujito Kaiyo. Life is still going strong and I am teaching young people at a primary school English.
Oh my
Karma will catch up with you people, you can't run away. Vanish 💥
102... Just thinking how many sunrises and sunsets that is...
@@jentle3734 Over 37,000!
@@worldsboss in a big picture, is that much?
Many countries around the world are facing similar demographics. The planet's population in general seems to be reducing for similar reasons. Japan is not alone.
Weirdly in the early 2000s the film Ghost in the Shell Solid State Society delt with this issue, along with its lackluster foster care system.
Just wanted to say. I've been watching your videos for a while now. I've always enjoyed your content. Thank you for your work and effort
The "Lets ask Shogo" channel has a very interesting take on this issue. Shogo is Japanese BTW. He points to the root cause as the ancient Bushido philosophy which is still very strong in the country. The individual is not valued and is sacrificed for the good of the country / company. Not working 60 - 80 hours per week is considered a failure on the individual's part for not supporting the company. This is slowly changing, but is strongly resisted in general. Shogo insightfully sees this as the downfall of Japan. Japanese have literally been taught that there is Japan and then there is the rest of the lesser world. They generally don't like foreigners and resist change. Another point, Japan is VERY expensive to live in. Apartments are by US standards not much more than a large bedroom. It is common for 3 - 4 generations to live together. Intense competition for the few good jobs means many young people just don't have the money or the resources to date much less get married.
Some things are expensive but I found most prices to be comparable to Canada, my apartment was cheaper than the one I'm living in now in Calgary, then again that was in a village, but even the apartments in the nearest city, Otaru, were similar to Canadian prices.
Well in some aspects they should resist change when I comes to attitudes toward foreigners (resisting colonization).
But their government for sure should subsidize and continue pursuing the four day work week.
@@krunkle5136 Just trying to limit work to 40 hours per week has been extremely difficult and met with a great deal of resistance.
Hai. I've seen that video too.
I highly doubt that "bushido" culture had any role in this population decline. If you see the graph, birth rate sky dived in 1974 and has been declining since. And since individualism has been in the rise and there wasn't a sudden fondness for "bushido code" in 1974 and on, I feel like declining birth rates can't be attributed to this.
5:16 I didn't know the year 3000 was 20 years after 2080
Don’t worry Japan. A entire generation of European weebs is about to move to Japan
Who here tbought this was about rising sea levels?
🙋
i was!
Maybe a thought, but what about ensuring the happiness of workers? The employers are overworking their workers and are essentially killing their own country just to make better profits.
Capitalism in a nutshell
not as bad as killing the whole planet and all countries for profit
But that’s how a country advances from undeveloped to developed. If it stop then it will reverse as well.
@@johnl.7754 🤡 take
It's not as easy as that. The idea that the suffering of the working and middle classes is caused by greedy employers forcibly overworking their employees is a very "western" one (for lack of a better term) because it's informed by the history of problems that Europe and North America have had like that. Japan is in a completely different situation.
Culturally Japan has much more of a collectivist mindset, with people so often disregarding their own needs because they feel they don't matter, and only the group matters, the groups being your family, your company, and your country. It doesn't just affect employment and working ours but all of society, and it's honestly a problem that might only be able to be dealt with by a cultural shift in the next generation.
Japan : and I took that personally
It hard living in Japan. Wages are low, taxes are high, and expectations are absurd. My wife's company is most comprised of old people. We have 2 that are almost 80 and retiring this year (finally). Also, down the road there was a crazy guy who uses to stalk my mother in law. He was just found dead on his toilet seat alone, and had been there a couple weeks (in regards to the elderly dying alone with noone checking in on them). This entire video is so relevant.
They are weird but highly lovable.
@@lioneldemun6033 No
Dying like that is much much BETTER than struggling for months and weeks and die a horrible death like from cancer, or slow excruciating death like from ALS.
The government could do more on the economics side to promote childbirth which is the third option. Mandatory vacation days and overtime checks. But this would be opposed by corporations and could potentially hurt the workers as they'd have less money coming in while costs remain the same.
And it would reduce productivity, leaving less money for the state to spend supporting the elderly and encouraging childbirth
@@EGFritz Money going to workers directly stimulates the economy through their purchases, and tax paid on those purchases. Money going to bosses usually just flows into the tax loopholes they have the money and connections to exploit.
I've read a number of hentai Mangas which envision some pretty radical solutions.
I'm living in a place with all those family benefits: gov. childcare, extended birth leaves, generous family allocations, etc... It has a very small effect in the next 5 years than the birthrate falls flat again while causing major headaches for other employees and employers.
@@nekkowe Wealth is created by the labor of the workers, if the workers work less, there's less wealth, no matter how much the government invests in social spending
Japan has three choices not two - 1) Continue on without any change and deal with the issue as it comes 2) Open its borders for large scale immigration 3) Improve its employment and govt policies that allow people the free time and resources required to encourage having more children - essentially change those elements of their current social and cultural practices that hinder people from having children or taking on heterosexual partners. I think the third option is the best and the Japanese must take active steps to prevent their societal decline. Japan is a wonderfully unique country with aesthetically advanced culture - even for an outsider like me it will be hard to watch that country go in decline.
here’s the thing even if they do the first option people don’t even want to have kids you see this problem in most western countries like in Scandinavia . they have a similar birth rate to japan and ethnically homogeneous as japan with Norway and Sweden being even less diverse than Japan. Both countries do amazing in quality of life and work life balance but people still don’t wanna have kids actually it makes there birth rate decrease even more as people focus on traveling and going instead of having children . It’s why more recently both countries have thought of allowing more immigrants because encouraging birth rate in a country that’s already well educated isn’t the best as you can’t spread propaganda and people could care less about what there governments wants. Now i understand the down sides of immigration but they simply outweigh the benefit’s. Ik a lot of europeans like to point out how bad it is doing but it is a fact that European countries with more liberal immigration policies do better and countries that don’t that Continue to have decreasing birth rate and population do worst. you can’t tell me the balkans and eastern Europe is a better off than Western and Northern Europe.
@@shaddythewiz3836 Japan's case is unique. In addition to the issues you mention with Scandinavian countries Japan has an unforgiving work culture in addition to being a very expensive place to live. The reason most of these places are so advanced and peaceful is because of a homogeneous population - there is a lot of benefit to having a homogeneous population too but that idea is not very popular today.
Seems like you will need both. Even if Japan implemented wildly successful policies to increase its birthrate today, those babies would not enter the workforce until 2040. Immigration adds new people now.
Option 3, but will need immigration (possibly short term Visas, so not large scale, long term mass immigration) but having option 3 simultaneously, means that education system should encourage citizens to fill those shortages in industry.
Again, giving benefits to people who look after their elderly relatives would overall reduce the expenditure on social care, whilst reducing the amount of lonely deaths. Elderly people love to spend time with grandchildren.
2nd option would be great for mexican
Or, they could adjust to a smaller population while engineering social change to bump up birth rates back to 2.2. A smaller population probably allows them to enjoy life more on the islands (among which, house prices on islands with limited space), if they manage to bridge a temporary overhang of older people (which is probably a feature of the future anyway with further increases in life expectancy)
I'd love to be a dual citizen in Japan & work there.
Though not in the bad work environments that exist there.
However, I love the culture and how it last dispite the urbanization and influence from other nations when it opened.
Graph at 5:30 has the timeline reaching to the year 3000
2097, 2098, 2099, 3000
Math checks out lol
Quick maths
When you consider the potential foreigners are like Jake Paul, it is pretty reasonable that they don't want foreigners.
Japan has taken 1 million immigrants in the past 5 years, wym?
What? Japan was always against foreigners, and I don't anyone in Japan actually cared about Jake Paul
I read about this in English class a few months ago
thanks for the aoe2 reference
Japan: Shrinks
It’s neighbors: * chuckles* I’m in danger!
Hopefully they teach communist china a lesson
@@miliba do you mean west Taiwan?
@@miliba Yeah, like the last time! A little bit a mass murder, rape and torture should teach those pesky commies a lesson.
@@dulcettones5536 Ram them down with tanks
@@miliba China Hongkong Macao Taiwan north Korea and south Korea are expected to decrease their population almost all of east Asia is having that problem
Always looking forward to your videos.
Well, by the graph at 5:30 the population seems to be predicted to be steady at 80million for 900 years so I would not worry
Japan, S. Korea, Singapore and Philippines should make a club that is only about small islands
Japan is not alone. Every major power in the northern hemisphere right now is feeling a demographic shrink. It's partially why Russia and China have been so aggressive towards expansion into other territories lately.
Yep that’s good to mention as well, it has been stated multiple times countries like US are having birth declines, for reasons too many to list child care is basically very expensive here in US etc.
China suffers even more with the introduction of one-child policy and terrible welfare. It is gonna face the same problem as Japan did in 2000s, but even worse.
@@GlaciaDay Also worth mentioning the world population as a whole is slowing down, in fact before this century ends the growth is gonna reach it’s peak before eventually declining
@@denistyrant US is actually one of the most stable in birth rates when talking about the west
@@CatholicismAppreciator And what about it? Sounds like they've found a solution
*Japan, Italy and Germany having the highest percentage of people over 65*
Me: I am seeing a pattern here
Hahaha yes
Korea is also in a similar situation. As life gets better, people actually prefer to stay that way without risking of raising a child.
realivelore: Japan has the worlds oldest population
Hong Kong: am I a joke to you?
Imagine being so rich that your population declines
My country Nigeria needs this lol
Same with my country Bangladesh
Just expand yall borders
@@electro6202 we’re not Americans or Europeans so that won’t be easy 😂
@sourav jaiswal no India has the best. It's below 2 children per woman now.
I absolutely love when you upload a new video!
Same here
Hey love the video's! This one got me thinking what are the richest countries in the world when debt is taken into account? Like after all income, outgoings and debts have been calculated who actually is the richest?
Let’s take the moment to appreciate how much effort RealLifeLore puts into his content for us. Great job
Plenty of videos are riddled with errors but the effort is bar-none
Nicely made propaganda
They did not completely explain why Japan is shrinking fast. They explained about advanced technology making the population ageing, but not why Fertility rate is so low -- maybe they are afraid to speak the truth.
who
can't even get the years on a graph right (5:37), yeah lots of "effort"
Great video! But I definitely disagree with the conclusion that the solution is a binary choice. A third option would be to address the cause, not the symptom. If the government or the people were to address the socioeconomic factors that are pushing young people to stay single and not have children, they can raise their birth rates back to normal levels.
Encourage and incentivize employers to hire full time workers to increase job security. Institute more workers rights around hours worked per week so young people have more free time to date and raise children. Provide tax incentives to couples who marry and/or have kids. Start social education programs to show your citizens why this is important. Include more sex ed in schools to de-stigmatize sex.
There's a lot that can be done to fix the problems in Japan's society that caused birth rates to drop in the first place. Though allowing and encouraging more immigration would be a faster solution that would absolutely work well as it has elsewhere, I still think addressing the root cause of the problem is a better long term solution, especially considering the nature of Japan's culture.
Such solutions have been tried in places like Singapore with no notable result on birth rates and marriages. I just think places like Japan have reached a point of no-return with regards population growth and ageing, and many other countries will follow down that road facing the same challenges. Once people start seeing marriage and having children as something that is neither affordable nor desirable, it's a very hard perception to reverse.
i dont think increasing flexibility in social life improves it since japan is a country that have virtually no resources and relies highly on service sector and manpower (manufacturing , tech industry, robotics etc) so, if they don't have enough population that is hard-working, they wont make that much gdp.
Not to mention another problem with immigration: no one wants to move and work at a place with such awful work practices. Even if they did, those people also would not want to have kids for the same reasons. They have to fix the root problem.
Basically, to successfully implement those laws. There needs to be a draconian and authoritarian politicians to execute those "solution" policies while simultaneously abolishing western imperialists' coercive domestic interference such as political subjugation of Japan's government and demolishing western imperialists' culturally terrorizing infrastructures such as the European buildings in Hokkaido that were built using military force of Commodore Matthew Perry's *"Treaty of Kanagawa"*
Imagine thinking you could allow immigration without demographic change
I think you failed to consider one thing in this video, that this is a black death scenario where the rapidly collapsing population of working age people grants the remaining workers far more leverage in negotiating things like wages and hours worked because of the labour shortage created. Most of the issues with birth rates in Japan are, as you said, economic ones, young workers get long hours, low wages and with the vast majority of the population living in cities with insane land prices little opportunity to own a home in which you even could raise more than 2 kids, there's always the possibility that this is a problem that solves itself.
The possibility does exist, but Japanese culture is an honorific one. It's rare to see strikes in Japan. But then again, who knows...
The problem is that in the Black Death probably more elderly died off then younger people thus less burden on society. Otherwise it won’t work like you said.
But I think China can take advantage of this disadvantage in WW3
@@peanutbutterman411 the united states is the one hoarding military arsenal, the only country in the world spending literally hundreds of billions on it. you dont have to go across the globe to find your war mongering nation.
@@Luizam55 Why does the US live rent free in your head? He never claimed the US was innocent, he said China was aggressive - which it historically is. Ask Vietnam, who was invaded by them less than 50 years ago. Ask Tibet - wait, they killed Tibet. Ask Putin, who is only friendly with China right now because of the US - but he knows that the moment the US is out of the picture, Russia will have to confront China to maintain its strength and status in regions like central Asia.
China isn't more virtuous than the US, they are less stupid and impulsive than the US. The US invades countries on a whim - China has shown it is fine with invading, blackmailing, and destroying countries (Cambodia, Vietnam, Darwin Port, Tibet, etc). The difference is they are smart about it, unlike the impulsive US. Which, in my opinion, makes them more dangerous than America.
It will good to provide caption
2:10 the top trio Is back
Comments summarized:
The situation in Japan is very complex with lots of factors contributing to it, and there's no perfect solution to it
Damn, looks like you were reading the good ones. Half of the comments I've seen is "Noooooo immigration is bad culture culture" racist stuff lol
I see a lot of good improvement in this video, very good work! Thank you
5:29 you made the last date 3000 lol
A better work-life balance would probably solve half of the problem.
Just hope that it will improve in the future