Japan

Introduction

Japan’s National Flag

The island country of Japan, 日本, is located in East Asia within the Pacific Ocean south of Taiwan. Japan’s capital is Tokyo and while Japan is known for being a technologically advanced country it is also famous for its beautiful sights like Mount Fuji and its cherry blossom season. Tokyo is the largest city in Japan for a couple of reasons. Tokyo is considered the political, economic, and cultural hub of Japan. There are many government offices, corporations, and commercial facilities. The transportation infrastructure for the airports and ports are bountiful, along with a high number of tourist attraction and entertainment facilities such as art galleries and museums.

Section 1: Country Introduction Japan Country Map 1

The 5 most populous urban areas/agglomerations in Japan

Fig. 1 outlines the number of persons per millions that reside in Japan’s most populous cities.

The number and percentage of Japan’s population living in urban areas, and in rural areas.

Fig. 2 depicts the number of the Japanese population living in rural and urban geographies. Please note the blue line represents the urban population, and the green line represents the rural population. As you can see, from 2000 onward rural populations have been decreasing while urban populations have increased.

Fig. 3 depicts the percentage of Japan’s population living in urban and rural areas.

The average population density in rural areas, and in urban areas in Japan.

Fig, 4 depicts the population density.

Climatic or geophysical features of the landscape that help explain the location of Japan’s largest city?

Japan Country Map 2 Japan Country Map 3

The geophysical and climatic features of Tokyo may also contribute to the city’s popularity. Tokyo is on a floodplain, meaning that it has a vast stretch of a landmass that is flat, distributed from the north to the south, and is close to rivers. Tokyo itself is positioned eastwards, away from the mountain ranges, boosting urban development opportunities. It has an altitude of 80 ft above sea level (24m) as seen in the image above. Meanwhile, the climate is labeled a “humid subtropical climate” characterized by warm and wet summers and mild winters. With the geophysical and climate areas, Tokyo is prone to common typhoons and flooding of rivers (Humstokyo 2013).

Section 2: Demography

Japan’s crude mortality rate and comparsion to neighboring countries.

Japan’s crude mortality rate is measured per 1,000 persons. Figure 5 shows that from 1960 to 1980 mortality was declining and since 1990 there has a been a steep increase in mortality following through to present day.

Figure 6 compares Japan to neighboring countries South Korea and China one observes that while Japan has seen a steep increase in mortality South Korea and China have experienced the opposite trend with deaths steeply declining from 1960-1970 followed by a more gentle decline to levels comparable to 1980 Japan.

Japan’s fertility rate is measured as births per woman. Figure 7 is compelling as there is an overall decline in fertility since about 1972 with a sharp decline followed by an immediate return to previous levels in the year 1966. This was due to the “Hinoe-Uma (Fire-Horse)” superstition. The superstition is based on the Chinese calendar and it says that women born on the 43rd combination will have a bad personality and kill their future husband. As such, women choose not to have children that year.

Figure 8 compare the fertility rate of Japan, South Korea, and China, aside from the 1966 fertility drop detailed above they generally follow the same declining pattern. However, Japan saw a rise in births per woman around 2005 while South Korea and China continued a slow decline.

Japan’s life expectancy at birth for males and females has always been relatively long. Looking at Figure 9, the combined graph the gap has been consistent with women living 5-8 years longer than men. Over the last 20 years the life expectancy for both men and women has plateaued.

Figure 10. Japan’s infant mortality rate overall has been declining with a steep decline from 1960 to 1980. A slow decline form 1980 to 2000. Similar to life expectancy for men and women, the infant morality rate has also plateaued over the last 20 years.

Japan’s Median age

The median age in Japan has been consistently increasing in the past decade, reaching an all-time high record at 48.4 years old!

Percent of Japan’s population that is ‘working age’ (either 18-64 or 20-64).

Figure 12 depicts the percentage of the working age population in Japan from 1960 to 2020.

Japan’s Age/Gender Pyramid

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The age/gender pyramid depicts ages of females and males per percentage of the population.

Japan’s Age Structures

Section 3: Cultural-Linguistic Information

Japan’s top three languages

While difficult to observe Figure 14 depicts the three major languages spoken in Japan, Japanese (99%.2), Korean(0.05%), and Chinese (0.02%).

Geographic distribution of major language speakers.

In Japan there are two family of languages the Japonic and Ainu. The Japonic family is divided into Japanese and Ryukyuan languages. Japanese includes Tohoku (dialect), Eastern, Western,and Kyushu Japanese, and Ryukyuan includes Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama. The Ainu family includes dialects Hokkaido, Sakhalin (extinct), and Kuril (extinct). The number of Hokkaido speakers is unknown but it used among older people and is in danger of extinction.

While not depicted on the image above, Hokkaido is spoken in the northern island of Hokkaido and surrounding islands. It has been reported that 98.5-99% of people speak Japanese, the remainder of speakers are dispersed over the Ryukyuan languages. The national standard language that is taught in school is Japanese, the Tokyo dialect (Eastern Japanese/green). It is important to note that within each language there are several dialects.

Japan Language Distribution

Figure 15 outlines the number of Ryukyuan speakers, and their geographic distribution is noted in the map above.

Section 4: Economic Information

Japan’s five largest industries sector in Japan.

Figure 17 shows the most important export in terms of USD from Japan is vehicles at 40 billion, followed by machinery, electrical machinery,optical and medical instruments, and lastly pharmaceuticals (Office of the United States Trade Representative, 2020). Top products imported to the United States from Japan include machinery and electrical such as electronics from Mitsubishi, Nintendo, and Yamaha (Burke, 2021). The highest performing camera companies are also in Japan - Nikon, Olympus, and Canon (Burke, 2021).The second highest imported products from Japan to the United States are metals especially high-quality steels that are in items such as kitchen knives and hairdressing scissors (Burke, 2021).

Japan’s Median Income

As of March 2021, Japan’s median income in USD was $14,255 (World Bank, 2021). An average person in Japan consumes about 2,800 calories annually which leads to the estimate that Japan produces about 40% of their food internally and imports about 60% of their food each year (Roser, et al., 2013) . After the United States, China, and the European Union, Japan’s agricultural imports are currently the world’s fourth-largest importer. Fun fact - meats are the most significant component of Japan’s agricultural imports with an estimate of 20%, and this means that Japan is the largest meat-importing country in the world (Merlo Farming Group, 2021).

Figure 18 depicts the relationship between the amount of food imported (60%) and the amount of food produced internally (40%).

Rate of unemployment among 20-30 year olds

We couldn’t find the data set of age group of 20~30. So we use the unemployment rate of 15~24(which some of the people may still during their tertiary education) and 24~64 population.

In this chart, we have tow line of unemployment rate of two different age group, which is respectively 15 to 24 (Pink line) and 24-64 (Brown line). Former one will be higher than the later one because some of the youth may be considering go into tertiary education and some of them just graduate and still hasn’t found a job. However, there is a growing population of youth who not in education, unemployed and not even intend to find a job. This kind of youth live with their parents and depend on parents’ earns, and the issue recently become more serious, and they are called “NEET” people (Not in Education, Employment or Training, especially the youth who still live with their parents).

Section 5: Education

Average years of schooling among adults aged 25+

Figure 20 shows the average schooling year that Japanese adult (age 25+) has, which is 12.8 years. It means that most of the population has complete secondary education (up to high school). But in younger generation there even the big proportion of population has attain or complete tertiary education (University or junior college etc). The X-axis is the index of Human development Index (HDI), so we can compare Japan’s schooling year with other country that have similar development condition with it. We can see that Japan is quite close to the regression line in the scatter plot, but has a slightly higher schooling year than the prediction.

Figure 22: The average percentage of the annually higher education tuition of the avenue adult income in japan. (The average avenue income in japan is 4.5 million yen)

Figure 23: The average tuition for an year in different type of higher education institutions in Japan, unit as 10,000 yen. Undergraduate: Local Public, University, Private, Private Special(Such as law or medical school) Graduate school:Local Public, University, Private, Private Special(Such as law or medical school) Junior College(Two year college): Local public, Private

Description of demographic and socio-economic trends in Japan

Income Inequality in Japan

Japan’s middle class makes up 40% of the pre-tax national income, first shown in the data around 1980, generally a steady incline has been observed since the mid-to-late 1980s (Fig. 24; Income inequality in Japan). Congruently, Huang (CNBC,2020) discusses how the middle class is slowly disappearing as poverty rises in Japan. The poverty in Japan is “defined as living with less than half of the median national disposable income” (Statista, 2021).Overall, poverty in Japan is higher than most of the OECD countries and is greatest in the 66 year and older group (Fig.25: Global Poverty Rate, OECD). The poverty gap is the ratio mean income of the poor that fall below the poverty line. In Japan 2018, the poverty rate was 0.364 (Fig. 26 Poverty Gap), for comparison the United States was 0.388 in 2017, and Denmark was 0.294 in 2017.

Fig. 24 Income Inequality in Japan

Fig. 25 Global Poverty Rates

Fig. 26 Global Poverty Gap

Yang and Greaney (2017) examined economic growth and income inequality comparing China, Japan, South Korea, and United States,framed through the “S-shaped hypothesis, and “inverted-U curve” or “Kuznets curve, which are known patterns for the relationship between inequality and economic development. Yang and Greaney (2017) concluded that Japan followed the S-shaped curve indicating that economic growth significantly impacted income inequality. However, fiscal redistribution measures to mitigate inequality did reduce it. But Japan was the only country examined that had an association between economic growth and income inequality (Yang and Greaney, 2017). Aizawa and Helble (2017) conducted a comparison study of Japan and the United States searching for the sources of income inequality. Japanese data was collected from the longitudinal Keio Household Panel Survey, for years 2009 to 2013 among heads of households aged 35 and 65 that were employed yielding 5858 observations (Aizawa and Helble 2017). The Panel Study of Income Dynamics was used for the United States repeating the same procedures, yielding 10,371 observations from 2009-2013 (Aizawa and Helble 2017). Aizawa and Helble (2017) concluded income inequality in Japan was accounted for by the number of years of education and marital status, and in the United States by years of education and working hours. Compellingly, the income inequality disappeared in Japan when using a linear model (time and income inequality) and in the United States wages increased more slowly after age 54 (Aizawa and Helble 2017). In spite of data showing that Japan has a decreasing middle class, a high poverty rate and gap, and higher GINI coefficient (Fig. 27 Income Inequality oecd) compared to most western countries, many people reported in the 1990s that all Japanese were middle class (Sakoda, 2020). Moreover, inequalities were reported as an objective change in social status that changed one’s self-evaluation, rather than a change in the income tax bracket (Sakoda, 2020). Sakoda (2020) was also interested gender differences of income unfairness. Utilizing the Unfairness Lorenz Curve Sakoda (2020) found that females faced more unfairness than males, with an increased difference between 2010 fair income and 2013 fair income was found for females in the bottom and middle class. This is consisted with the OECD (2017) which reported a gender wage gap of 22.5% in 2020. Moreover, this is one of the few metrics that Japan outperforms the United States (in a negative way), for example, the United States’ gender wage gap in 2020 was 17.7% (Fig.28 Gender Wage Gap).

Fig. 27 OECD Income Inequality

Fig. 28 Gender Wage Gap

Fertility

When speaking about fertility rates in Japan over the years there has been a lot of different research to explore why fertility rates declined and increased at different times. Some studies spoke about value change that affected fertility rates since 1950 (Retherford, 1996). It observed the forcing drive in fertility-related values, whether that was a social change, a family value change, or underlining economic changes. Researchers wanted to understand how women’s values were changing when it came to the idea of giving birth. Some studies understood this as women wanting to focus on their own career their own life outside of the family and more. The decline in fertility in Japan has fluctuated in different time periods (Ogawa, 1993). from 1950-57, where the decline rate totaled around two children per woman. This decline was very shocking due to the fact that the numbers declined from 4.54 to 2.04 births per woman (Retherford, 1996). Unfortunately, this wasn’t the lowest rate of fertility because in 1989 by using Japan’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) They were able to record the most shocking decline rates (Ogawa, 1993). The decline of 2 births per woman went down to 1.57 births per woman this sparked media’s attention and there was a phrase coined as the “1.57 shock” referring to the rate of children per woman (Ogawa, 1993). Multiple studies were released during that time to understand the declining fertility numbers and to understand the cause of it. They were able to identify policy, socioeconomic influence, and women’s roles and values as factors (Ogawa, 2003). The education cost and overall cost of children were unbearable for families to uphold. This brought on the “Angel Plan” that was released in 1994, In an effort to bring fertility rates back up (Ogawa, 2003). Japan release this plan to provide Financial support to lessen the load and encourage families to have children. Part of this plan was also to encourage fathers to be more involved with family planning allowing women to actively engage in their own careers or life outside of motherhood.

Age Structures

Over the last decade, Japan’s population has aged more and more, to the point where more than a quarter of Japanese were 65 years and older in 2020. Japan boasts a high life expectancy rate and is considered the “oldest” country globally, with almost 30 percent of its population being elderly inhabitants. The median age has also consistently increased to a record high at 48.4 years old in the past decade. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic (World Health Organization, 2021), the age structures may change in 2021. Currently, more than a quarter of the Japanese were 65 years and older in 2020, taking up 28.4%. Most of the population still stands between 15-64 years, with 59.15%. The age distribution for 0-14 years old is 12.45% (O’Neill, 2021). Statistics also revealed that Japan’s current population has constantly shrunk within the past forty-year span with ever changing age structures. The IMF alludes that the accelerated speed of aging places Japan at the forefront of global demographic change (International Monetary Fund, 2020). Since the population in Japan has been aging more every year in the past decade, it could reaffirm that the increasing age is due to a couple of factors. First, the increase in age structures is very likely due to extraordinary healthcare standards, nutrition, and an overall high standard of living. For instance, Japan’s statutory health insurance system provides universal coverage by being funded through taxes and individual contributions (Matsuda, 2020). This coverage helps people get the necessary treatment. The nutrition standards in Japan also encourage people to eat healthily and exercise regularly. While the food model in the United States is based on a pyramid, in Japan, it is inverted with a person running on the top, modeled after a popular game (FAO, 2020). In that model, the importance of exercise, grains, and vegetables are emphasized. These factors must be why the age structures of older people have been increasing in the past decade.

Population Growth

Over the last decade, Japan’s population growth rate has constantly dropped. This correlates with the population of Japan dropping every year as well. Japan’s population currently stands at 125.8 million people, down by 500,000 from 2019 and down almost three million from 2010. The population growth percentage from 2019-20 is at -0.34% (O’Neill, 2021). The population growth rate has decreased every year since 2010, and 2020 was its steepest decline yet from the past decade. Japan used to be among the Top 10 most populous countries globally, but with the recent results, it now ranks at eleven. This is the lowest Japan has ever ranked since 1950 (Nikkei Asia, 2021). Japan’s welfare ministry shared that their country population shrunk over 500,000 within a year from 2018 to 2019, causing a decrease rate of 0.21%. However, they noted a concern among the government is the fact that the death rate has continued to increase every year even with the decrease in population growth. They estimate that the population could shrink by around 16 million people — or nearly 13 percent — over the next 25 years (Dooley, 2019). Two socio-economic factors could be affecting Japan’s population. They are the decreasing fertility rate and increasing life expectancy. Since the life expectancy and the age structures have been growing every year in the past decade, there may be fewer incentives to procreate and continue the population growth. In addition, with the COVID-19 pandemic (World Health Organization, 2021), population growth will likely continue to decrease in 2021. It remains to be seen if there will be population growth in the aftermath of the pandemic. Due to the consequences of the trend, it has caused the population in Japan to shrink, and if they wanted to improve the decreasing rates, they should take some health measures.

Population Decline

When speaking of the declining Population in japan, research has emphasized fertility rates, policies, food production, and imperialism as leading sources. Though fertility rates have been mentioned in conversations about population, at times, they have not seen a direct link to a declining population (Steiner, 1944). Japan’s policy and marketing around war resulted in a population increase due to the high demand for boys which led to a higher birth rate. This was surprising within research due to the fact that there was a declining fertility rate among Japanese women in 1920 and 1940 and on (Steiner, 1944). Throughout Japan’s history there became a direct link between population and imperialism this brought on an increase in population as well as a decrease (1943). We’ve also seen that with imperialism came industrialization, this brought on a higher emphasis on technology as well (1943). The wave of technology has also presented as a problem when speaking about the declining population (Doi 1958). Another limitation is food production in Japan. Japan lacked the natural resources that it needed to support a population which resulted in a declining population (Doi, 1958). This brought on a need to increase agriculture to meet the demands of the people. Resulting in trade expansion which directly relates to the economic development of Japan(Doi, 1958). Imports of different raw materials to supplement the lack of natural resources opened Japan’s gates to international trade. Japan’s population fluctuation has allowed for policy change and has implemented structural changes within Japan’s economy and land. In more recent times, the pandemic has created a declining population in Japan at high numbers. During the pandemic, death rates went up while birth rates went down (The Japan Times, 2021). Another factor was due to closed borders, the number of people leaving Japan was higher than the number of people coming into Japan, this has allowed for the lowest record numbers in the Japanese population.

Economic challenges and opportunies caused by demographic processes

One of the harshest demographic challenges to Japan government and the public policy maker is the ageing society and the low fertility, which lead to the lack of the young labor force to replace the already aging labor structure. Researchers pointed out that after 2010, Japan’s population accounted for 23% of the population is to be elderly. And after that, the population began to decline. As Japan experienced the decline in birth rate and lower mortality rate, its process of aging of population was much faster than the Western countries (Tsuya, 2014).

In terms of the labor force, researchers estimate that the labor force will shrink from 77 million to 41 million from 2010 to 2060, and the composition of the labor force will also have an aging problem. Policy responses may require opening the migrant population to substitute the labor force, as well as adjusting the labor market, long-term care system and pension system.

Fig. 34 Working Age population in Total

Fig. 35 Labor Force Participant Rate by Age Group and Gender

(Chart cited from: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/499/pdfs/the-labor-market-in-japan.pdf)

Aging labor forces is not the only trouble that Japan government has to deal with, the extremely uneven distribution of the aging society and the population has also brought serious challenge to the social and economic development of Japan. According to United Nations data, the population of rural areas has decreased by 17% in the past twelve years and is expected to decrease by 2% every year by 2030.

Fig. 36 Population composition by aggricuture region

Green: Under 15 years old, Orange: 15~65 year old, Light Blue: 65 year old or older. From top to the bottom: Urban Are, Plain Agriculture Area, Middle Agriculture Area, High Mountain Agriculture Area.

Fig. 37 Proportion of Population Above 65+ Distribution Green: Under 20% , Yellow: 20~25%, Orange: 25~30%, Red: Above 30%.

(Chart from: https://www.maff.go.jp/j/wpaper/w_maff/h24_h/trend/part1/chap4/c4_1_01.html)

The decline in population has also reduced or even eliminated services such as medical care and grocery in rural areas. According to a survey of willingness, the trend of young people migrant into urban areas will not slow down in a short time. This kind of “two Japan dimension” – wealthy cities and poor rural area have brought huge challenges to the government’s population and economic policies (Takeo and Dormido, 2019).

While rural area in japan are suffer from serious shortage of resident and labor (Picture from: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-japan-economy-aging-population/)

Changing family structures, sex ratios, or gender roles

When the traditional inequality gender structure clash into the modern society: one of the perceptions of why Japan is struggling with super low fertility Japan has been troubled with super low fertility for a long time, and the low fertility has also exacerbated the problems such like lack of labor forces and aging society. One of the perspectives of seeing this problem is that Japan gender inequality is still strong, especially when we view it as one of the most modern and well-developed country in the world. The gender inequality couldn’t be seen in a formal law or apparently way, but rather a strong traditional structure of value of the gender role still roots in the Japan society. Although there’s no limitation of female to participate in the labor market, political field and being a manager in Japan. When we overview it by overall data, we can still see a quiet big gap from equality that female has been blocked from these field by an invisible wall.

Some of the research using “dilemma” to describe that Japan woman could face as a very difficult situation (Niculina, 2018). In other words, there is always a problem of choosing to stay inside the labor market or quit it for getting a family. The traditional gender role in social structure, segregation and conservative attitude toward woman are forcing woman either choose to pursue their career success without marriage or having child, or they must quite their job or having a non-regular job.

Fig. 40 Employee composition ratio by employment status

(Chart cited from:Nae, Niculina. (2018). To work or not to work? The dilemma of Japanese women.)

Under this circumstance, the increasing of woman economic participation and the extremely low fertility rate seems to be an unstoppable trend. Because this dilemma leaves no choice to those women who has a carrier to pursue. The conservative traditional value which maintains that woman can’t take care both career and family well at the same time is one of the main reasons of this problem. In other word, with this kind of ideal, people will criticize that a woman must be a terrible mother or terrible wife if she has a formal job instead of being a housewife.

Fig. 41 Time spent on housework among married couples in Japan in 2016, by gender(in minutes)

(Chart cited from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/858352/japan-time-spent-housework-by-gender/)

However, some time is not only to require the people give up this kind of traditional concept in an equal modern industry society that everyone have equal right to pursue his/her/their career, but also require the partner to take over an equal share of the housework or child-caring job. Studies of the relationship between gender role attitude and fertility intention, study found out that higher willingness of sharing the responsibility of child-care could lead to a higher fertility intention (Tsuguhiko, 2018). In short, Changing the altitude toward a more equal domestic gender role and encourage male to take over more responsibility of housework and child-caring may improve the fertility rate in Japan.

How climate change is affecting Japan

Japan is not excluded from the effects of climate change as our world continues to warm to unprecedented and detrimental levels. Globally, there has been increasing frequency and severity of storms and fires with wider reaching consequences (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2021; Figure 42). For example, on March 11th, 2011, an 8.9- magnitude earthquake followed by hundreds of aftershocks registering a magnitude 6.0 and greater occurred in northeastern Japan (Pletcher, n.d.). This earthquake was the strongest since record keeping began in the late 19th century (Pletcher, n.d.) These earthquakes produced a tsunami with waves reaching approximately 33 feet high, inundating coastal areas, with one wave advancing approx. 6 miles inland (Pletcher, n.d.)

Fig. 42 Reported Global Disasters

In response to major disasters, such as the aforementioned 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan has rebuilt with solar power in the form of rooftop solar panels and solar farms (Fraser et al. 2021). Moreover, Fraser et al. (2021) learned that in Japan the more damage an area sustained, the more likely they were to rebuild using solar power. Figure 43 depicts the solar generation in Japan and the United States, for context, and figure 44 depicts the increasing amount of solar power installed.

Fig. 44 Japan and US Installed Solar, GW

Japan has experienced increasing temperatures since the 1950’s, and these temperatures are projected to continue trending upward through the next century. This is observed in Fig 45 (heart map, climate knowledge portal) and Fig.46 (mean annual temperature) where you can see the mean annual temperature for Japan while it varies, overall, it is in an upward trend. In response to increasing temperatures Japan has worked on downstream heat adaption solutions. Boeckmann (2016) examined the policies implemented in three urban and one rural area in Japan. The policies have targeted behavioral and structural levels for change. Behavioral change is targeted via television and news campaigns to promote air conditioning, fluid intake, and recognition of heat stroke (Boeckmann, 2016). The structural level addresses increasing green space in urban areas to reduce heat, however it’s fraught with funding problems (Boeckmann, 2016). A limitation of this study was Boeckmann’s (2016) inability to understand how well the programs worked as there was no official evaluation of the these measures.

Fig. 45 Heat Map

Flooding in Japan has economic impacts. For example, in 2019 alone flooding caused a total of approx. 18.5 million USD dollars (Statista, n.d.). Tezuka et al. (2013) set out to examine the relationship between extreme rainfall and increased potential for economic loss due to flooding from 2000 to 2050. Fig. 48 shows a flat association between time and the amount of rain. However, one can observe a possible rainfall cycle with high variation in the amount of rain from about 1973 to 2000, subsequently variation decreases and mimics the amount of variation as seen in the 1920’s to 1950s, although with more rain. This data is consistent with the projected models from Tezuka et al. (2013) whose models predict increase precipitation overtime.

Fig. 47 Mean Rain and Temperature Graph

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Japan

Miriam Adam, Ashley Johnston, Bo Kaplan, Austin Ting

Introduction