Japan: Land of the Disappearing Children

I already knew this -- and I am sure you did too -- but the Washington Post has a new report on Japan's demographic doom.

Blurb:

. . . this is the land of disappearing children and a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world.

The number of children has declined for 27 consecutive years, a government report said over the weekend. Japan now has fewer children who are 14 or younger than at any time since 1908.

The proportion of children in the population fell to an all-time low of 13.5 percent. That number has been falling for 34 straight years and is the lowest among 31 major countries, according to the report. In the United States, children account for about 20 percent of the population.

Japan also has a surfeit of the elderly. About 22 percent of the population is 65 or older, the highest proportion in the world. And that number is on the rise. By 2020, the elderly will outnumber children by nearly 3 to 1, the government report predicted. By 2040, they will outnumber them by nearly 4 to 1.

The economic and social consequences of these trends are difficult to overstate.

One wonders if the increasing advances in robotic technology isn't in some measure a response to the increasing dearth of real people. Hey, "birth dearth"! There's your wordplay of the day.

Are the Japanese an endangered species?