Much has been made of Japan’s latest relapse into recession. For the most part, economists have focused on the efficacy of the once much-ballyhooed “Abenomics,” the stimulus and structural reform program that was seen as the key to turning around the island nation’s torpid economy.
While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition won a sweeping electoral victory this weekend, giving him a mandate to continue his economic policies, it is increasingly clear that the epicenter of Japan’s crisis is not its Parliament, or the factory floor, but in the bedroom. Japan has been on a procreation holiday for almost a generation now, with one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. The damage may prove impossible to overcome.
Japan’s working-age population (15-64) peaked in 1995, while the United States’ has grown 21% since then. The projections for Japan are alarming: its working-age population will drop from 79 million today to less than 52 million in 2050, according to the Stanford Institute on Longevity.
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