Japan’s 2025 census reflects steepest fall in population on record, data shows
Posted by F0urLeafCl0ver@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 26 comments
cambeiu@reddit
In 1995 Japan's GDP per capita (inflation adjusted) was $44K. In 2025, Japan's GDP per capita was $33K.
In 1995 Japan's debt to GDP ratio was 60%. Today it is 216%.
Yes, having an inverted demographic pyramid matters a lot. Shortage of young people does not mean that existing workers get better pay. It means that existing workers pay more for everything, including taxes.
slartybartfastard@reddit
Seriously? Get a grip - it's only a window into those countries that are anti-immigration. Like Japan
Reasonable-Ad4770@reddit
I find it really weird that some people think that developing countries is some kind of incubator for rich countries. Or that it helps even, Germany have like 30% of immigrants, yet declining birth rate still persists. Problem is that our way of life is really anti family
VladimiroPudding@reddit
The funny thing is that people didnt even updated their perceptions about developing countries and fertility. Colombia has lower fertility rate than Iceland, and Thailand has lower than Germany.
Besides, most immigrants adopt to local culture in one generation, including local fertility trends.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
Problem is immigration is a lot less controversial than changing your culture to push people to do things they don't want to do aka have kids.
angelolidae@reddit
Immigration will never fix this, stop pretending, you'll important ten million people and their sons will have the same birthrate as the natives, back to square one, and the countries you inported them from have also reduced their birthrates (since the shift is global)
Reyeux@reddit
I see so many politicians bitching about immigration and how they'd severely reduce it yet they all glaze over how the birth rate is below replacement rate and none of them make any suggestion on how they'd handle the looming demographic crisis they would cause.
KidOcelot@reddit
They just need to use socialist and communist policies, rather than stuffing their pockets with money like the capitalist scum that they are /s 🤷♀️
BioSemantics@reddit
I'm so tired of this alarmist bullshit. A short of workers should increase pay. When it does not, you should be asking where that money is going.
These articles about birthrate exist primarily because the 1% want cheap labor always and because media outlets like this exist primarily to worry the elderly (who vote at higher rates, generally have money, and are dependent on young people to take care of them).
Japan made a lot of very unwise decisions since 1995 and none of them are in your analysis. Not its work culture, its business practices, or its monetary policy. You also magically don't mention Japan's hostility toward immigrants and increasing hostility to even tourists.
Fundamentally, too, women just don't want to have 6+ babies any more and the financial benefits for doing so (free labor) simply don't exist any more.
We don't need to worry about endless expansion if we aren't dependent on capitalism's endless greed as motivation.
Moikanyoloko@reddit
The problem is not simply about a "shortage of workers", is that the worker-to-retired ratio is leaning increasingly more to the retired side, which means that there's less labor to sustain the same amount of people - ergo, living standards decline since wealth comes from labor.
It still shouldn't have been as destructive, because Japan fucked up in a myriad of ways due to its own issues, but considering the political classes of most countries, I'd hazard a guess that the aging population will fuck everyone over unless we see big changes to how our society is structured.
BioSemantics@reddit
Gosh, you mean the people who setup this system might have to suffer the consequences? If wages of care givers rise, you'll get more care givers. Part of why Japan's economy went to shit is that Korea, China, and Vietnam all entered the market in the 1990s and 2000s and flooded the world with cheap shit. Japan did not respond appropriately in many ways. It also is distinctly anti-immigration, which would help things at least in the short-term, if not the long-term.
They fucked themselves, and are taking all of us with them.
ThePromise110@reddit
There is a way out.
Give up fucking capitalism. Admit money is fake, and put the economy to work meeting people's needs rather than fueling profits and useless bullshit.
We have the productive capacity to meet the needs of every person on earth, and for all of those people to work less than they do today, but as long as we're all still balls deep in this capitalist death cult things will keep getting worse.
Japan is a glimpse into a capitalist future. It doesn't have to be this way.
VladimiroPudding@reddit
Don't worry. Either AI is going to make the record TFP increase in history, compensating for the lack of workforce (that would otherwise be displaced anyway) and make great GDP gains, or tech billionaires are lying and half of the population hyping with this were duped. In the second case, effective benefits (real income redistribution) will pop up and people will have babies again because it would become economically profitable.
Or we go extinct. Happens. Animals go extinct everyday.
moderngamer327@reddit
Before anyone says it.
No this is not because of working conditions
No this is not because of low wages
No this is not exclusive to Japan and South Korea, this is happening everywhere
No this is not because people don’t have time
angelolidae@reddit
That's the weird thing though, the decrease in birthrates is remarkably fast and global it seems so weird
SyriseUnseen@reddit
The effects of societal and technological "progress" are global, now.
NewsFromHell@reddit
its all of the above combined
moderngamer327@reddit
Completely wrong. All the data says otherwise
NewsFromHell@reddit
what data? provide sources
moderngamer327@reddit
This is a good place to start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
NewsFromHell@reddit
you are mixing global macro trends with Japans internal reality. your Wikipedia link shows wealthier countries have fewer kids, but within Japan, the empirical data proves the exact opposite. there is a strict positive correlation between a man's income and his fertility. data from the Keio Household Panel Survey and the Japanese Cabinet Office demonstrates that low-income and non-regular male workers are systematically priced out of the marriage market because only 2% of births in Japan occur out of wedlock, being priced out of marriage guarantees zero fertility.
The IMF's 2024 report on Japan's Fertility explicitly links the country's demographic collapse to the rise in non-regular employment, severe time constraints and the resulting extreme imbalance in unpaid domestic labor.
ALso data confirms that financial insecurity and toxic working conditions are the core drivers of the collapse.
Do your research before spreading misinformation.
moderngamer327@reddit
And yet even the richest in Japan still show a greatly reduced fertility rate. This is not a Japan specific issue, everywhere is having this problem, Japan is just ahead of the curve.
The three reason are almost completely universal. Women’s education and subsequently financial independence, easy access to birth control, kids being an economic net negative.
Finland despite having better median wages adjusted for PPP, generous family benefits, better equality, and the lowest working hours in the world have a fertility rate barely above Japan
NewsFromHell@reddit
Your premise is factually incorrect and your Finland example proves the exact opposite of your point.
Wealthier Japanese men are still marrying and having children. A 2024 analysis of Japanese administrative tax records by the University of Tokyo for example demonstrates a strict positive relationship between a mans income and his fertility. the massive spike in childlessness is concentrated almost entirely among lowerincome and non regular workers who are systematically priced out of the marriage market.
You cited Finland to argue that economics don't matter but ignored why their birth rate crashed. 2024 demographic studies from the Max Planck Institute and the University of Helsinki confirmed that objective economic uncertainty drove Finland's fertility collapse in the 2010s. the sharpest drops occurred exactly in fields and demographics with higher unemployment, lower income and weaker job security.
You claim this isn't about wages, but then argue that kids are an "economic net negative." if children are a financial burden, stagnant real wages and precarious employment are exactly what prevent average people from affording them. the empirical data across both nations shows the same reality financial insecurity drives the demographic collapse
moderngamer327@reddit
It does not. This is the leading data that sociologists agree with.
Yes but even their fertility rate decreased even though according to you it shouldn’t have. Fertility rates are down across all incomes
Bad markets may have cause it to spike down but it was already on the decline. Low incomes can make fertility rates worse than they already are but it is not the cause of the decline in general. If it was poorer countries should have almost no fertility but the exact opposite is true
It’s not about how much money it’s about incentive. In lower income countries kids are a net positive even though that with the kids they would still be poorer than someone from a rich country with no kids. The average person is Japan has FAR more resources to take care of kids than poor countries where the fertility rate is higher. The difference is that having a kid in Japan will make you poorer(even if in the end you still have plenty of money). So people are far less incentivized to have kids
NewsFromHell@reddit
Pointless to argue with a fellow redditor. Have a good day sir
timbomcchoi@reddit
Yes, and this pain won't be first felt in Japan or South Korea, it will be countries like Thailand whose birth rates fell before it even managed to become wealthy.