Population ‘death spiral’ in East Asia

In 2014, Japan experienced the lowest birthrate ever, the fourth-straight year of record low births. There were 9,000 fewer Japanese born last year than in 2013, according to Health Ministry statistics.

Japan is shrinking as it sets one unenviable demographic record after another. Last year, population fell by a biggest-ever 2,68,000. “2014’s population decrease was a ‘record’ but it’s a record that is going to be broken annually for the foreseeable future,” says Forbes. “...every January for at least the next 20 or 30 years there will be newspaper headlines stating that Japan’s population just suffered a new ‘record’ loss.”

Call it a “death spiral.” By 2050, Japan will be “the oldest society the world has ever known.” If the country’s fertility rate remains unchanged, the population will drop by almost a third by 2060... And the last Japanese child will be born in 3011.

Japan’s total fertility rate—essentially the number of children born to each woman—is 1.4, well below the 2.1 needed for replacement. Japan’s low rate, however, is not exceptional for its region. China’s TFR, despite state media claims, is probably 1.4 as well. South Korea’s rate is 1.3. Hong Kong’s is at 1.2 but falls to 1.0 or lower if mainland women are excluded. Taiwan’s is 1.1. And what is Macau’s? That’s 0.9.

Yes, Japan is a “nation on suicide watch,” but so is much of the rest of East Asia. Once demographic trends are baked into a society—as they are in Japan and the rest of its neighborhood—governments can do little to change patterns.

State incentives usually do no more than accelerate births that would have occurred anyway. So what is Japan’s destiny? Many are concerned that a shrinking population will not be able to support the extraordinarily heavy debt load that a succession of Japanese governments have incurred.

More worrisome is China, a poorer society where adverse demographic trends in recent years have been accelerating.

The workforce began to shrink in 2012 according to the official National Bureau of Statistics, or in 2010 according to the country’s leading demographers—in both cases well before the 2016 date that had been projected by the central government last decade.

The country as a whole will not peak in 2026, as estimated by the US Census Bureau five years ago, or after 2030, as Beijing’s official statistics indicate. A senior Chinese official in May 2012 admitted that population would top off in 2020, which means it will, in all probability, begin falling a year or two before then. The Chinese, who take great pride in their country ranking as the world’s most populous, will soon be dropped to second place. India will take the crown in no more than 10 years, probably fewer.

Japan is leading the pack downward, but others in its region are not far behind. They are headed to near-simultaneous demographic collapses, events without precedent in history.

By: Gordon G Chang