Declining fertility rates in Japan: An ageing crisis ahead

Abstract

The two key impediments to addressing the ageing crisis of Japan are: electoral politics which avoid making hard decisions painful to voters (especially the hiking of the consumption tax), and even more insidious, the norms of Japanese corporations and patriarchal society which discourage women from marrying and producing babies while holding onto a career and aspirations of their own. If Japan's ageing problem were to persist in the long run, then a concomitant decline in its manufacturing capacity (which underpins its export-dependent economy) and a diminution of its political weight in its international affairs can be anticipated. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.