Aged and Confused

Before returning a book I had checked out about Japanese society, I read a passage about the problem of an aging population. In case you haven't heard, this is a pretty big deal here. It's so big that they offer a course on the effects and are willing to give credit to sociology students like me. Okay, it's a lot bigger than that.

The thing that struck me about the passage, though, was that it was published probably in the early 1980's. The passage stated that approximately 10% of the population of this island nation was over 65, the official "old person" minimum age. It talked about how so many older people would live with their children due to a lack of sufficient pension pay. Their children who were in positions where they could still legally be employed were forced into supporting aging parents, along with their own families. (Forced retirement goes into effect at age 65 here.)

These three generation homes are becoming more and more rare as the years go on. The percentage of the population over 65 years old is now well over double that which was stated at the time of publishing of the book I was reading. They predict that it will be 40% before too much longer. Maybe another 20-30 years? Pretty much, the pyramid that once made up the ages of the Japanese population is on its way to being inverted. Those unable to work will no longer be the minority, supported by the younger generation. People are having fewer kids, so expected one's child to support one in older age, like The Japanese Today claims was the case nearly 30 years ago, is no longer a viable option. With the drop, pensions that were unable to support the aged when they only made up approximately 10% of the population have no hope of supporting the growing aging population. Add that to the economic situation that prevents so many young people from finding steady jobs, and I think it's safe to say that we have some problems on our hands.

Even without even mentioning all the phantoms collecting pension (who are probably dead and just not registered as such), there's a lot of things to think about when touching on this subject. There is nothing simple about it.