Japan population shrinks by record numers.

[kuainiri]

[Iraira]

More horny babas for Greji.

[Catoneinutica]

Let's keep this in perspective, though: at over 125 million, Japan's population is still, more or less one or two hundred thousand babas and jijis, at a record high. And migration from the inaka to Kanto and Kansai continues apace, so don't expect it to get any easier to find a seat on the Chuo Line any time soon.

[McTojo]

TOKYO –]<edit>[/color]

And this is why I hate international marriages. I teach my students to marry their own kind!

[Iraira]

And this is why I hate international marriages. I teach my students to marry their own kind!

Which, given the low birth rate among Japanese, would hasten their race to extinction....which will happen in about 1289 years.

[IkemenTommy]

...don't expect it to get any easier to find a seat on the Chuo Line any time soon.

True, unless they continue to jump in front of the oncoming commuter trains and cause delays.

[legion]

[Midwinter]

No doubt all those dead/missing centenarians helped contribute to 2010's record shattering effort.

[McTojo]

No doubt all those dead/missing centenarians helped contribute to 2010's record shattering effort.

It's disheartening really. And then you have brain drain and young Japanese women flight. And then they marry these hideaous white men and then breed these half whatchamacallits..

[Iraira]

Record Deaths in Japan Spurs New Businesses, Like Hotels for the Dead
People Are Dying to Get Into the Liss Center, a Hotel for the Dead
The Liss Center stands three stories high, sandwiched between large warehouses on the outskirts of Tokyo. A flickering sign greets visitors in the parking lot, and the hotel's "guests" are welcomed through large metal doors. The antiseptic white walls and smell of disinfectants don't exactly scream business hotel, but owner Nyokai Matsushima affectionately calls this "a business hotel for the dead."

The Liss Center in the Shinkiba neighborhood acts as a temporary morgue. On this day there are 37 guests, or bodies. Each corpse is tagged with a bar code to avoid mix-ups. The bodies are carefully placed in one large refrigerator, and the ceilings come with antibacterial lights attached to avoid any decay.

"Guests" stay for 7,350 yen a night – roughly $88, while bereaved families can opt to seek out advice on funeral services from hotel staff. The center is the first business venture for the longtime Buddhist monk and is intended to give Japanese families a place to hold bodies while dealing with the grief and pressure of a funeral.

More:http://abcnews.go.com/Business/record-number-deaths-spur-japanese-funeral-industry/story?id=12526337

[Ketou]

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: A lonely problem awaits Japan in 2030

For men, especially, life in Japan 20 years from now will be pretty grim for many. One in four men in their 50s and 60s will live alone, and one in three men will have never married by 50, according to Katsuhiko Fujimori, a senior researcher at the Mizuho Information & Research Institute. Japan is rapidly becoming a nation in which the number of single-member households exceeds that of typical family households...more...

[kuainiri]

...intended to give Japanese families a place to hold bodies while dealing with the grief and pressure of a funeral.

Hold?!.. Hell no!!

[IkemenTommy]

One in four men in their 50s and 60s will live alone, and one in three men will have never married by 50, according to Katsuhiko Fujimori, a senior researcher at the Mizuho Information & Research Institute.

Ever heard of social darwinism?

What Katsuhiko Fujimori failed to uncover in his "research" is the increase demand for the deriheru service 20 years from now..

[Samurai_Jerk]

Whether it happens in 50 years or 150 years, what do you guys think will be the ultimate outcome of this?

I figure there are two options: Japan becomes so poor that people start having babies again since that's what poor people do; or, Japan allows (becomes too politically weak to stop?) large-scale immigration and ends up looking like an Asian version of Brazil.

[Mulboyne]

Whether it happens in 50 years or 150 years, what do you guys think will be the ultimate outcome of this?

There's a bloke on the NBR Japan Forum called Todd Kreider who regularly rubbishes claims about Japan's demographic crisis. He maintains that medical and technological revolutions are poised to prolong lifetimes and create labour-saving innovations.

I don't know what's in the pipeline but tend to think that he underestimates how much population forecasters try to account for those possibilities anyway. There's also a limit to how much a reasonable forecast can anticipate such a revolution. You might just as easily assume war, natural disasters and virulent disease will have the opposite effect. Anyone using a population forecast ought to know its limitations but it seems a bit reckless to dismiss them completely on the basis of an unknowable.

There's also the issue of how adaptable a population is to new labour-saving technology. Japan's factories were certainly quick to deploy automation and robots in manufacturing. The closer you get to servicing the consumer, however, the slower Japan seems to be in using technology to cut out middle men or to embrace the digital world.

No developed world base population has yet bucked the trend and begun to increase its birth rate above the replacement rate. Indeed, the main global population trend is the way birth rates in the developing world are falling. As a general rule, when you improve education for women, you get fewer babies irrespective of culture, geography, religion and economic development.

It's not out of the question that populations might turn towards having more children. Disease could do it, especially if some severe epidemic sharply increased infant mortality. If you can't be sure your one child will survive to adulthood, you might choose to have more. I suppose it's also possible the reality of an unhappy future of lonely, sick elderly could encourage younger families to have more kids to make sure they had some family around to support them in their dotage. It would take longer for that change to come about.

[Ganma]