Author: Kaifeng
Source: Guominjinglve (ID: guominjinglve)
The article is authorized
How serious is the demographic crisis?
"Unless there is a change that causes the birth rate to exceed the mortality rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist."
It's Musk who says this, yes, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter.
In fact, Musk is talking about this:
Recently, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released statistics showing that as of October 1, 2021, Japan's total population was 125.5 million, a decrease of 644,000 compared with October 2020.
This is not only the 12th consecutive year of decline in Japan's population, but also the largest population decline on record in 1950.
Source: United Nations World Population Prospects
Since 2008, Japan's population has begun to "negative growth": in 12 years, Japan's total population has fallen from a peak of 128 million to 125 million today.
As the population continues to decline, Japan's total population has been overtaken by Guangdong Province, which currently has a permanent population of nearly 127 million, a full 3.3 million more than the whole of Japan.
In fact, it is not only Musk who warns of the crisis in Japan's demographic situation, but even Japanese officials call it "the head of national difficulties."
You know, in the past few decades, Japan has not only not introduced any restrictive birth policies, but has tried every means to "spawn".
In Japan, newlyweds receive up to 600,000 yen in subsidies, men with 30.4 weeks of paternity leave is the highest in the world, and children aged 0-3 can receive 15,000 yen per month per person...
More critically, in the past 30 years, Japanese house prices have not risen significantly, house prices in many cities have not returned to the level of the 1990s, and the obstacles to fertility caused by high house prices are basically non-existent.
However, all this did not help, and after falling into the trap of low fertility, Japan's population was gone.
The decline in birthrates and the aging of the population are the root causes of Japan's continued decline.
Although Japan is a small country in the geographical sense, it is a large country in terms of economy and population.
At present, Japan is the third largest economy in the world, and its GDP is second only to China and the United States, higher than That of Germany and the United Kingdom.
At the same time, Japan is also the world's 11th most populous country, after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and other countries.
However, japan, with a population of more than 100 million, has only 800,000 births and more than 1.4 million deaths each year.
The latest statistics show that the number of people born in Japan in 2021 was 842,000, a decrease of 30,000 from the previous year, and a record low for six consecutive years. At the same time, the death toll reached 1.452 million, a record high in more than 70 years.
This can be compared with Guangdong, which has a comparable population. In 2021, the number of people born in Guangdong is 1.183 million, which is a full 40% higher than that of Japan.
In addition to the decline in birthrates, Japan has the highest aging rate in the world.
In 2021, 29.1% of Japan's population over the age of 65 reached a record high.
This means that in Japan, there is one in every 3 people who are elderly.
This figure far exceeds that of European and American countries, which are known for their high aging rates, and also far exceeds other countries in Asia. By 20 percent, Japan has long since entered a "super-aging society."
In contrast, the mainland's aging rate in 2021 is 14.2%, although it is less than half the level of Japan, but it should also be taken seriously.
Japan, why can't it be born?
Behind the immovability of life is not the question of whether to dare to be born, but whether to be born or not.
After all, there is no birth restriction, there is no intimidating high housing prices, but there are continuous subsidies, birth or non-birth, more or more of a matter of willingness.
Of course, almost all developed countries do not have high fertility rates, which is due to economic laws. The more developed the economy, the higher the level of education, the more developed the social security system, the less necessary it is to raise children and prevent old age.
At the same time, the cost of childbearing in developed areas is too high, so parents tend to have fewer children and invest more in existing children.
However, the grim demographic situation in Japan has long exceeded the scope of the general developed countries, and there are many reasons behind it.
Behind this, the concept of "low-desire society" is inextricably linked.
Economic development, sound social security, conceptual progress, and the prevalence of personal independent thinking are external factors, while the problems of 30 years of stagnation, income growth expectations no longer exist, and class solidification are deeper.
Japan's low-desire society can be summed up in 9 words: do not buy a house, do not marry, and do not have children.
According to the data, in 2021, the number of marriage registrations in Japan was 514,000, a record low since 1945.
In Japan, there is a huge group of singles, which gives Japan the term "ultra-single society". The data shows that the proportion of "single-family families" in Japan reached 34.6%, becoming the most common family composition.
From concept to reality, it has led to a long-term downturn in the Japanese population, and once the low fertility trap is formed, it is difficult to get rid of it.
How big is the impact of negative population growth?
In the 1990s, the most notable phenomenon in Japan was the "bursting of the bubble economy."
At that time, house prices fell by more than 60% from their peak and have since collapsed, and the Japanese economy has fallen into a state of secular stagnation, no longer the glory of the past.
Behind the bursting of this bubble, there are both the factors of the times of the Plaza Accord and trade disputes, as well as the iron law of the speculative carnival that finally ended up in a chicken feather, not to mention the long-term impact of the demographic crisis.
In the 1980s, japan's economy soared, the call for "surpassing the United States" was endless, and house prices were also thousands of miles a day, under the blessing of the two myths of "land will not depreciate" and "Tokyo house prices will always rise", the enthusiasm for speculation has never been higher.
From the end of 1985 to the beginning of 1990, in just over four years, land prices in Japanese cities increased by 200 percent. In 1990, land prices in Tokyo alone were equivalent to the price of land in the United States, which was 15,000 times the size of Tokyo.
However, when the 1990s came, everything was turned upside down.
In 1990, the stock market took the lead in crashing. In just one or two years, the Nikkei fell from a peak of 38,915 points to 14,309 points, a drop of more than 50%.
Then, the property market crashed.
Due to the close relationship between the land market and the capital market, the capital market crash was immediately transmitted to the property market. In order to avoid losses, financial institutions require enterprises to repay loans, enterprises have to sell stocks and real estate, a large number of real estate dumped into the property market, land prices fell in response.
For more than 20 years, the price of residential land in Japan's six major cities has fallen by 65%. As housing prices plummeted, national wealth continued to shrink, losing as much as 1,500 trillion yen, equivalent to Japan's GDP in three years.
Today, housing prices in major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka in Japan are still not as deep as in the north.
Although housing prices in the Tokyo metropolitan area have recovered due to the influx of population and the influx of international capital, overall house prices have not yet returned to their all-time highs.
The collapse of the Japanese property market seems to have begun with the trade war, into the Plaza Agreement, and broke out in the over-issuance of currency, but in fact, it has long been hidden in the economic structure.
At that time, Japan's urbanization rate was close to 80%, at the end of urbanization, and in the 1990s, the proportion of Japan's population over 65 years old had exceeded 14%, entering a stage of deep aging, and the labor force population aged 15-64 declined all the way after reaching a high point of 70% in the 1990s.
Obviously, if it is only the problem caused by the Plaza Agreement and the over-issuance of currency, the Japanese economy will not stagnate for more than 20 years, and house prices will not return to historical highs for nearly 30 years.
The demographic changes behind this are probably the core reasons.
Japaneseization, the term does not go away.
The so-called Japaneseization has a twofold meaning.
The first meaning refers to the economic japaneseization.
Since the bursting of the "bubble economy", Japan has long followed the ultra-loose fiscal and monetary policy, stimulating the economy with zero interest rates and even negative interest rates, but the results have been minimal, and the economy has been stagnating for a long time.
This time, the epidemic has hit the global economy hard, and almost all countries have entered the "rescue" path of Japaneseization: negative interest rates, ultra-loose, and high debt, which is obviously difficult to maintain for a long time.
The second meaning of Japaneseization refers to the low birthrate + aging, and the heavy oppression of the population crisis is imminent.
Japan has the highest aging rate in the world and one of the countries with relatively low fertility rates in the world, and the negative population growth situation has lasted for 11 years, dragging down economic development for a long time.
According to the United Nations, if the fertility situation cannot be reversed, the total population of Japan may be reduced to about 105 million by 2050, and by 2100, the total population of Japan may be only about 75 million.
Obviously, Musk's prediction was not alarmist, but a warning of danger.
Source: Guominjinglve (ID: guominjinglve)