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Japan Population Growth Declining Birth Rate and the Problems

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a) Study a country on how and why its population has aged rapidly during the last 40 or 50 years, and analyze its consequences.

Japan’s graying population: The reasons behind it, steps taken to curb it and the implications of an aging society

Introduction
Japan has seen rapid development from the times of Meiji Restoration (1868) up till today. In fact, it has grown more rapidly than any other countries from 1870 to 1994 (Nafziger,1995) because of the various economic policies its government had undertaken after the war ended. Thus, as a result of this economic growth, standard of living has gone up and along with technological advancements, Japan enjoys one of the highest life expectancy compared to any other countries in the world …show more content…

Another reason is the economic recession. The economy was bad for Japan throughout the 1990s. The unemployment rate rose sharply from 2% in 1990 to 5% in 2003(Suzuki, 2006). Youth was not given an opportunity to work and those who did obtain a stable job decreased from 77.8% in 1988 to 55.8% in 2004 and that those who obtained no job or a temporary job went up from 9.4% to 24.6% during the same period. The proportion proceeding to higher education increased from 6.5% to 11.8% meaning that starting a family will be delayed. .
Suzuki also mentioned that the low income of young men relative to their fathers discouraged marriage. Previously, the income of men in their 30s were more than that of their fathers and motivated women to marry them. Current trends, however, indicated that the relative income of young men to old men has declined substantially and young men are less appealing as marriage partners than before.

Problems with an aging society
One of the issues with an ageing society is that the dependency ratio of the country will increase. Dependency ratio refers to the number of persons under age 15 plus persons aged 65 or older per one hundred persons 15 to 64. It is the sum of the youth dependency ratio and the old-age dependency ratio. This means that as the society ages, more young people are tasked

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