Japan is ‘facing with shrinking population figures’ which is – according to the mainstream media – is a serious issue. Is it indeed? The expected lifetime in Japan is among the highest in the world. (Well in Greece, particularly in Crete it is even higher, sunshine, good red wine, fish meat, all help a lot for the Greek people there). Due to social and traditional reasons Japanese women think twice how to conduct their life, with or without a baby. Japan already enjoy the benefit of high quality health care. The pressure for their environment for sure has been lowered.
7 thoughts on “Decrease of Population Pressure”
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Cool. And a like button too 🙂
This changing demographic is probably a good thing, but actually amongst the wrong group of people. Japan is a fairly thoughtful society with good standards of awareness and the ability to think things through: those skills are absent or reduced in some other countries (rampant consumerism and pollution). Britain also has an aging population. There were still a few large families when I was a child, but after WW2 most families cut back to 1 or 2 children ~ even 3 was considered rare. Then in the 1950s women started to go out to work and everything changed, then the 1960s saw good birth-control methods & legalised abortions (before that it was back-street butchery). In purely practical terms all the waffle spouted by politicians about immigration is nonsense. Britain & other countries need younger immigrants so the state can pay old age pensions. Several other EU countries have same issue ~ Italy is one I think.
I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to advocate culling human populations, but perhaps reducing the replacement rate would be helpful, then population reduction occurs from natural wastage; the old ones dies and there are fewer births. Really though, if we were discussing any other species that was becoming a pest we would consider all measures at limiting the spread, including culling reproductive males. But because of the Judaeo-Christian mindset that removed humans from the natural world, we are in a fix. No solution yet. Mike
It is indeed a complex topic. Last month I had a good discussion with a friend of mine about the Demographic-Economic Paradox, and about whether or not the decrease in fertility rate in many countries are the result of the ability of couples (or women) to be more conscious in family planning due to higher education and/or income. In my friend’s view it is highly likely that especially in certain Western-European countries the drop of fertility rate is purely the consequence of the fact that couples are just ‘too tired’ for having sex with each other after the daily rush for money and to fulfill their jobs.
Another interesting writing about many aspects of this topic can be found in an article about the Population paradox at The Independent.
Yes Janos, same story in Japan, people are way to tired for sex. Recently some businesses were suggesting they had lunchtime sex breaks at work ~ just so they could some babies started.
Italy is curious too, the teens & 20s enjoy sex, but as there is so little work, many of them are at university studying really hard to try and gain a Doctorate ~ they are too tired (mostly) for sex too. And also they’ll go for long periods not in a relationship.
Britain has very cold weather at times, long commuting times, low wages, too much television ~ so again sex is an extra.
From an environmental perspective I’d not discount pollution: in food, water, air, plus all the drugs that people get prescribed, some of these things are awful. I see that more a US/EU problem than a Japanese one. What do you think on that? Mike
As far as pollution, prescribed drugs, alcohol and stress is concerned you are most probably right, Mike. At least in Central and Western Europe. In Germany and Switzerland the influx of immigrants is a key factor in keeping the population number at a ‘constant’ level. In Germany they had 200,000 immigrants last year, in Switzerland this number was perhaps between 40 to 60 thousand. It has it’s ‘side effects’ though, Germany now struggling with ‘Islamization’, the demonstration against it became weekly bringing over 15,000 people to the streets last week for example. Ms. Merkel and the business need this influx to have the cheap work force and to keep property prices high.
In Hungary the economical factor is also significant. During the current regime, having been in power since 5 years now, the economy, which was not in good condition even before, has been shrinking like a stone. So most of the couples think twice before deciding to ‘have a baby on board’. There is a significant Roma minority in the country who don’t really care, i.e. as always they trust in government funded subsidies and having 3-5 children in a family is not exceptional. I have seen a writing few weeks before in one of the Swiss papers ranking ‘the best’ 25 EU countries by their suitability for investment. Hungary was not listed.
Regarding US I need to educate myself. 🙂
Bit more more on the work ethic of Japanese ‘salary-men’ 🙁
http://rt.com/news/221467-japan-workers-law-vacation/
Interesting article and interesting discussion too. Decreased population pressure in some parts of the world and increased population pressures in others. An imbalanced world.
Interesting how Japan, rather than resorting to immigrant labour, prefers to transplant its industries (including the dirty polluting ones) into countries where labour is both cheap and available.
And whereas developed countries have systems in place to take care of the wellbeing of their aging populations, developing countries still rely on large extended families to do this.
garding sex and procreation, I suppose these two must fir into a 24-hour day. In developing countries the working day is long, and a number of hours are reserved for leisure and social commitments. Little time is left for sleep and rest, and obviously none left for intimate contacts.
Interesting world altogether.
I agree Ven. I’d also been thinking a great deal today about our imbalanced, or even unbalanced, world. As you say, in the developing world large familiies help ease the daily toil, even if they require more food per family. I also realised that it is mainly the industrialised nations doing most of the planetary destruction ~ that wasn’t new obviously, but it grabbed me forcefully today. Whereas the poorer nations want and need a peaceful abundant world. Clear evidence that the greedy few really care nothing for anyone else. So they are the ones that would most benefit from a cull??? We really need global altruism 🙂 Think of others before yourself.