irst, recognizing population aging as a critical societal issue for the past two decades, Japan has implemented a number of policies. For example, to contain skyrocketing long-term care costs, Japan incorporated disability prevention services into long-term care benefits in 2005 (Tsutsui & Muramatsu, 2007) and is exploring effective ways to maintain older adults’ functional abilities and promote independent living. Such social experiments could inform other countries, especially the Asian countries that are undergoing even faster population aging than Japan (e.g., South Korea). Second, Japan’s new community-building efforts present examples for other countries that seek to strengthen social relationships. For example, proposed postearthquake rebuilding plans include temporary housing for evacuees that incorporates elements of “engawa,” an inviting space for social interactions with neighbors or a long veranda that is partly inside traditional Japanese buildings with sliding doors protecting it from rain.

(7.9% of its gross national product spent on health care compared with 16% in the United States).

(7.9% of its gross national product spent on health care compared with 16% in the United States).

The earthquake also revealed strengths of traditional social relationships rooted in close family and neighborhood networks. Social networks that encompass multiple generations within families and communities are sources of instrumental support as well as happiness and stress in Japan (Akiyama, Antonucci, & Campbell, 1997).

Japan is experiencing population aging that is unprecedented in the world. The proportion of people aged 65+ years in the total population is highest in the world: 23% in 2009 (Statistics Bureau, 2010). By 2030, one in every three people will be 65+ years and one in five people 75+ years. Rapid declines in mortality and fertility after World War II accelerated population aging in Japan. Reflecting improvements in health and longevity, life expectancy at birth is highest in the world: 86 for women and 80 for men (2009; World Health Organization, 2011). The critical contributor to population aging, however, is rapidly declining fertility. The relatively brief post-World War II baby boom (1947–1949) ended when the government loosened abortion laws and encouraged family planning and birth control to prevent overpopulation. The total fertility rate declined from 4.54 births per woman in 1947 rather quickly to 2.04 in 1957 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 2010b). When the first baby boomers reached child-bearing ages, the second baby boom (1971–1974) occurred but without changing the number of births per woman. As labor participation increased among women, they delayed marriages or stayed single. Even among the married, fertility rates declined because of the lack of societal support for working women to have children as well as increased financial burdens of raising children. Since the late 1990s, the total fertility rate has been consistently low (1.37 in 2009), much below the replacement level for a population. The total population of Japan in 2004 peaked at 128 million and projects to shrink to 75% of its peak size by 2050. The results are reflected in the top-heavy population pyramid. Figure 1 illustrates that the 75 years and older population is growing rapidly as the younger age population is declining between 2005 and 2030. The ratio of 65 years and older population to the working-age (15–64) population is rising rapidly: In 2030, one person aged 65+ years will be supported by two working-age persons compared with 11.2 and 2.9 persons in 1960 and 2009, respectively (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 2010a; Statistics Bureau, 2003). Japan’s population is aging and declining in size simultaneously. Remarkably, population aging is no longer limited to rural areas that suffer from outmigration of younger people; it is an urban phenomenon. Japan precedes other countries in embracing population aging as an urban issue.

Thus, our goal here is to provide a broad overview of Japan’s societal and gerontological research contexts. After a brief review of Japan’s demography of aging and gerontological research, we highlight on-going and emerging public policy issues faced by the super-aging society. Historic events, like the recent disaster, add critical layers to societal contexts of aging individuals. We argue that disasters, while tragic, can provide opportunities to rebuild communities to prepare for the 2030 Japan, a super-aged society

Apart from all arguments above, political and sociological issues may alone make the replacement migration concept purely academic. From today’s perspective the political approach to migration inflow in Europe doesn’t herald any radical shift to welcome immigrants. Few countries have undertaken policies to attract potential workers with higher education, but the enforced selection schemes are too strict/selective for most of the potential immigrants. Little indicates it is going to change soon. Sociological issues are not so evident yet, but the increasing social tensions and official or/and unofficial negative phenomena concerning migrants may suggest that they may become more serious problems if the migration were to grow to bigger scale

Many of the papers exploring the concept of replacement migration, although add something to the discussion, repeat the United Nations’ mistakes.

Current demographic trends in the developed countries are an issue of growing importance. Below replacement fertility rates and increasing life expectancies resulting in the structure of population never faced before endangered the performance of the institutions (mostly economic) based on old population parameters. Increased ratio of the older to the younger (working) population changes the settings for pension system, and possibility of population, and also labour force, decline raises questions about the future of the labour market and economic growth

Feld’s (2000) conclusions are generally consistent with Coleman’s. He analyses closer various aspects of immigrant’s performance on the labour market due to its ongoing changes, emphasizing also potential mistake of those fearing labour shortages due to trends in labour force development and possible/likely productivity gains that can more than compensate for the contraction in the working population. Also the structural changes on the markets (concerning both labour and technology) make it possible, that the developed countries may not suffer labour shortages, even in their work force was to diminish. He puts more stress on the need for structural changes in social security system. Neither Colleman (1992) nor Feld (2000) consider the reluctance of citizens of the EC to take up certain jobs, also temporary, for example in agriculture, construction, industry, tourism, elderly care, cleaning etc. A critique of some aspects of the concept from technical/practical point of view can be found in Blanchet (1992). He shows that any attempts of regulating the age structure of a population through migration motivated only by short term considerations can postpone the experienced problems which will come back, aggravated, anyway.

three main factors: need for care of ageing population (directly by services and indirectly by income tax revenues to provide appropriate pensions), mismatch between demand and supply of labour on the domestic labour markets and need to rejuvenate population of working (which is beneficial for productivity)

The comprehensive studies on various aspects and evaluation of this solution in reference to Europe are presented by Coleman (1992) and Feld (2000)

One of them is the concept of replacement migration – the idea implying that international migration might be a tool to offset population ageing and its negative effects. This article outlines the concept and its development, and evaluates its usefulness from the point of view of different scientific disciplines, other then demographic. The evaluation leads to the conclusion that for the time being the concept is a purely scientific exercise that may help realize the scale and potential threats of the ongoing population changes. Before it can offer feasible solutions to population decline and ageing as well as their consequences, it needs to be expanded. In such case, the so far ignored economic, social and political aspects of population development would have to be given proper attention.

As we saw in the previous section, the feasibility (or lack thereof ) of international migration as a possible policy response to counter Japan’s population aging and decline suggests that other types of policy efforts are needed to counter these demo-graphic changes. As we saw earlier in the paper, fertility decline to below-replacement levels since the mid-1970s has been one of the primary factors responsible for Japan’s rapid and extreme population aging as well as projected continuous population decline. As fertility continues to slide, the government has openly begun to voice its ‘concern’ toward extremely low fertility (Tsuya 2005).Looking at developed countries as a whole, however, we can see that countries in which fertility has recovered and/or stabi-lized at relatively high levels have also experienced improvements in women’s labor force participation (Brewster and Rindfuss 2000; Chesnais 1996; Tsuya 2007). That is, as far as the developed world today is concerned, fertility tends to be higher in countries where women’s employment rate is higher. This implies that Japan’s family and other public policies would need to focus on the well-being and welfare of couples and families, putting aside its macro concern about low fertility. Only when the society stops pressuring women to choose between work and family life will Japan’s fertility rate begin to recover, which will in turn lead to the slowing of population aging and the halting of population decline

Population Aging3Forum005 Specialreportthis dramatic decline, Japan’s fertility rate stabilized at a level of 2.0 to 2.2 children per woman—at around the replacement level—until 1974, when it began to de-cline again.2Since the mid-1970s, Japan’s fertil-ity level has been declining to well below replacement, reaching the TFR of ap-proximately 1.5 children per woman in the early 1990s. Since then, the TFR has never recovered the 1.50 level, decreasing further to 1.3 to 1.4 children per wom-an—the ‘lowest-low’ level according to Kohler, Billari and Ortega (2002)—in the 2000s. The TFR stood at 1.41 children per woman in 2012. Although the fertility rate decline to below-replacement levels since the mid-1970s was less dramatic and slower than that of the earlier postwar de-cline, its demographic and socioeconomic consequences are much more important and serious, because it has resulted in the rapid and extreme aging and decline of Ja-pan’s population discussed in the previous section.The second demographic factor of the country’s population aging and decline is declining mortality—especially decreas-ing mortality in old age. Put differently, prolonged life expectancy in old age is one of the chief causes for Japan’s rapid and extreme aging. As shown in Figure 2, for both sexes, life expectancy at birth has been improving rapidly and steadily through-out the postwar years, with the gender dif-ference widening over time. Likewise, life expectancy at age 65 has been improving for both sexes, with the tempo of improve-ment accelerating in recent years. As of 2010, life expectancy at age 65 for males was around 19 years and that for females stood at 24 years. This means that, if a fic-titious birth cohort of persons was to live and die according to the age schedule of male mortality in Japan in 2010, they are expected to live on the average 14 years if they managed to survive to age 65. The corresponding duration is 24 years if we base the estimate on the age profile of mortality to that of Japanese women in 2010. Altogether, these estimates show the clear prolonging of the life expectancy of Japanese men and women in old age, affecting the social security systems

Since the mid-1970s, Japan’s fertil-ity level has been declining to well below replacement, reaching the TFR of ap-proximately 1.5 children per woman in the early 1990s. Since then, the TFR has never recovered the 1.50 level, decreasing further to 1.3 to 1.4 children per wom-an—the ‘lowest-low’ level according to Kohler, Billari and Ortega (2002)—in the 2000s. The TFR stood at 1.41 children per woman in 2012. Although the fertility rate decline to below-replacement levels since the mid-1970s was less dramatic and slower than that of the earlier postwar de-cline, its demographic and socioeconomic consequences are much more important and serious, because it has resulted in the rapid and extreme aging and decline of Ja-pan’s population discussed in the previous

As shown in Figure 1, Japan experienced a sharp downturn in its fertility rate from shortly after World War II until the late 1950s. In a span of a little over one decade, the birth rate was cut by more than one-half from the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 4.5 children per woman in 1947 to 2.0 in 1957

That is, the population size of this youngest age segment shrank by 40 percent in 50 years from 1960 to 2010. Reflecting these changes in the absolute numbers, the proportion of children in Japan’s total population dropped from 30 percent in 1960 to 13 percent in 2010.

we can see that the number of persons under age 15 began to decline in 1980 and continued to decrease rapidly thereafter, reaching

With the proportion of the elderly (those aged 65 and above) in the total population being 23 percent in 2010 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2014: 30–38), Japan is currently the most aged society in the world

Third, providing that the major characteristics of Japan’s population aging are rapidity and magnitude, I look at the prospects for aging within the elderly population itself

Second, I examine the prospects for population aging and decline in Japan from 2010–2060, based on the most recent official population projections.

I first examine changes in the size and age composition of Japan’s population from 1960–2010 and their direct contributors, namely mortality and fertility.

Internet has affected international politics in many ways; however, it is seemingly overlooked by most scholars, and in particular, realists who view the Internet as low-politics. This article argues that the impact of the Internet on international politics should not be underestimated. By focusing on the capabilities of the Internet in general and P2P net-works in particular, this paper shows how the Internet is able to disseminate soft power re-sources. This is demonstrated by an exami