Japan Lost 3M People in Five Years

5/29/2026 at 2:08:19 PM

Why is it a crisis for populations to decline to levels of the first half of the 20th century? The world worked just fine back then with that number of people.

There are problems that arise from a population that contains a lot of old people, but that's a problem that fixes itself in a few decades, and balance will be restored.

Pick one crisis: no jobs, or no people.

by Zigurd

5/29/2026 at 2:20:44 PM

The age distribution is most of the problem. It doesn't help to have a lot of people who need somebody else to be working at the hospital for them. If you skip straight past looking at the period if imbalance the situation looks a lot better.

by zamadatix

5/29/2026 at 5:43:45 PM

But what if those people at the hospital have a lot of money? I'd rather disperse it to healthcare workers than give more inheritance to their children.

by saulpw

5/30/2026 at 4:23:08 AM

I mean that's great in concept but it doesn't really help the core problem there will be more older people no longer working(or outputting as much if they do)/needing extra support than the other way around as it was when it was population growth times with the same total population. Not just the ultra wealthy are going to output less or need healthcare more either.

by zamadatix

5/29/2026 at 3:00:29 PM

The same number of people, but on the way up and growing, compared to on the way down and shrinking, is very different.

by simonsquiff

5/29/2026 at 5:15:36 PM

Because current economic policies and capitalism rely on a continuously expanding economy. If the population grows, the economy will continue to expand, if the population doesn't grow then much of the capital class starts to lose money on investments that never materialize.

It is not really a problem for the regular working class citizen, and historically population drops have improved wages and labor rights. See things like the black plague or wars with large casualties, which resulted in significant population drops which gives more power and leverage to the labor class.

by AngryData

5/29/2026 at 3:06:31 PM

stupid question: if by some magic 80% of the population of the planet disappeared tomorrow, what ll happen to the economy and stock market

by vivzkestrel

5/29/2026 at 3:22:25 PM

If nothing is done they will go extinct.

by _menelaus

5/29/2026 at 3:24:25 PM

Seems unlikely. Straight-line predictions almost never pan out.

by triceratops

5/29/2026 at 3:30:28 PM

Because the economy is un ponzi scheme and without young people to pay for old people and old debts, it fails.

by heisgone

5/29/2026 at 12:32:25 PM

Make life affordable and give time outside work, and the population crisis* will fix itself.

Keep insisting on Draconian hours for unlivable pay, and you get what you asked for.

* Falling population is a political problem, not a social one. It also feels like this is the system working as intended from the higher ups.

by tetris11

5/29/2026 at 1:38:54 PM

Why do you think that this is true? Look at the countries by hours worked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a... and there is basically no correlation between birth rates and hours worked. Countries with higher hours worked actually have higher birth rates!

[South Korea has a high birth rate for religious groups than non-religious](https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol44/23/44-23....) no religion, 1.13; Buddhist, 1.33; Catholic, 1.16; Protestant, 1.28; and “other religion,” 1.20. This is the same country with the same problems for all groups.

by ecshafer

5/29/2026 at 3:25:19 PM

There isn't a massive difference between those numbers tbh.

by triceratops

5/29/2026 at 4:00:58 PM

So far, no amount of pro-natal policies will get you replacement TFR, see wealthy MENA countries where people have make work jobs, extravagant support (nannies etc), and TFR still dropping below replacement 2.1. The reality >2.1 TFR is product of uneducated women without opportunities. As long as women are educated, have agency, body autonomy, in aggregate family formation stays below replacement, even when not resource constrained i.e. women in workforce with opportunity to assume fulltime homemaker rolls (rich family, ample social support) still stops short at replacement TFR. Unless policies regress, the only thing left untried is mixture of extremely pro-natal policies and punitive anti-natal policies, i.e. taxes, opportunities, travel bans to control brain drain, wealth transfers that heavily penalize people with <2 kids.

Or accept (mass) immigration, which LBH only black and brown countries have excess bodies. Countries will have to decide whether they hate slow decline more than they hate getting darker or hate their women's rights. Or maybe on long timeline, some scifi shenanigans like test tube babies, shifting sex ratio, i.e. 2:1 female to male ratio brings replacement TFR to 1.5 and all the family structure changes that entails (more single moms, institutional polygamy, functional state orphanages etc), i.e. state will have to be much more active in demographic management.

Ultimately, it seems cannot carrot to replacement TFR, maybe able to stick, but no politician in any system really wants to touch that stick.

by maxglute

5/29/2026 at 1:36:43 PM

> Make life affordable and give time outside work

> Keep insisting on Draconian hours for unlivable pay

Average hours worked in Japan are comparable to the UK and significantly lower than the US, Canada, Czechia, and Israel [0], yet they all have significantly higher birth rates than Japan.

The issue in Japan and Asia in general is cultural. Women are still expected to both hold a career and do all household chores and have 2 kids. In a lot of cases, jobs will de facto fire women if they have kids because of the cultural expectation that they will leave to have kids and become a housewife.

Unsurprisingly, plenty of Japanese women have decided they don't want that life and have decided against marriage. On the other side of the coin, plenty of Japanese women hold off on marriage until they find a partner who can afford to be a primary earner. Unsurprisingly, this means higher educated households in Japan tend to have a higher birth rate than less educated ones [1] as they tend to be more economically stable.

The only developed country which has an above replacement TFR is Israel (even non-religious secular Israelis have a replacement TFR), and it's culturally one of the most pro-children societies I've ever been and much more gender egalitarian than other countries.

All conversations about TFR and birth rates on HN are from a male point of view and never actually as why women don't want kids or maybe don't want to date a number of HNers/Redditors. It's very incel-like in nature.

[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html

[1] - https://weekly-economist.mainichi.jp/articles/20250916/se1/0...

by alephnerd

5/29/2026 at 2:09:44 PM

> Average hours worked in Japan are comparable to the UK and significantly lower than the US, Canada, Czechia, and Israel

How trustworthy is that data? It claims to count only employed people, but for Japan it works out to 6.2 hours work per day, 5 days a week. Yet we all hear stories of workers in Japan having basically no life outside of work. And when people visit Japan, they report things like everything being spotless, and trash containers and trucks being washed daily - labor intensive things. Something doesn't add up.

by like_any_other

5/29/2026 at 2:12:01 PM

> How trustworthy is that data

Very. This is the OECD.

> Yet we all hear stories of workers in Japan having basically no life outside of work

These anecdotes tend to be decades old. After the labor code changes in 2018; the new generation of Japanese megacorps like SoftBank, Rakuten, Mercari, and LY normalizing Western work culture; and the worker shortage in the 2010s, work hours reduced.

> And when people visit Japan, they report things like everything being spotless, and trash containers and trucks being washed daily

This is done by guest workers brought in from ASEAN, China, and Nepal in exploitative Gulf-style labor programs that are de facto bonded labor and at least back in Vietnam have ties with organized crime.

The Japanese Ministry of Labor literally has a formal strategy around recruiting guestworkers for janatorial and cleaning work [0].

This is also why the new government is cracking down on such kinds of abuses [1].

[0] - https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11130500/001567071.pdf

[1] - https://www.nippon.com/ja/news/yjj2026052200262/

by alephnerd

5/29/2026 at 2:43:12 PM

> This is done by guest workers brought in from ASEAN, China, and Nepal..

Japan has only 3.3% immigrants. For comparison, Canada has 23%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada

by like_any_other

5/29/2026 at 2:46:24 PM

Yep, but foreign workers make up the overwhelming majority of janitorial and sanitation employees in Japan [0]. Same with agriculture [1][2][3] and textiles/garments [4].

Look, it may feel shocking to you as a Brit, but yes Japanese work life has become significantly chiller and QoL is better than the UK. They didn't have 15 years of austerity as well as Brexit, and were largely sheltered from the Great Recession and Eurozone crisis due to their trade ties in Asia and North America.

They also invested heavily in automation which meant less hands needed for menial work as well as disinvesting in rural and low population regions (most comments about cleanliness tend to be centered within the richer areas of Tokyo).

[0] - https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11130500/001567071.pdf

[1] - https://mainichi.jp/articles/20251121/k00/00m/040/139000c

[2] - https://mainichi.jp/articles/20251121/k00/00m/040/125000c

[3] - https://mainichi.jp/articles/20251121/k00/00m/040/132000c

[4] - https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/sankoshin/seizo_sangyo/text...

by alephnerd

5/29/2026 at 3:07:02 PM

That’s not it at all. The uncomfortable reality is if women work professional jobs you will have a low birth rate. That’s entirely what the data points at. Having kids is almost entirely cultural.

by dyauspitr

5/29/2026 at 3:23:40 PM

It's kinda both? If women work professional jobs too, the men have to work correspondingly fewer hours. Child-rearing is an exhausting battle when both parents work full-time.

We need to normalize working part-time for couples, even for professional jobs, even going so far as to make it a cultural non-negotiable. And/or compensate for the lost income.

Without the cultural shift, it turns into a prisoner's dilemma. When both partners fight through the exhaustion and work full-time while also raising children, they can outbid everyone else for houses, schools, and cars.

by triceratops

5/29/2026 at 3:48:46 PM

> the men have to work correspondingly fewer hours.

This is categorically not true. The decreased labor cost makes the new norm that both of them have to work full time.

by dyauspitr

5/29/2026 at 4:28:08 PM

You're pointing out the effect of everyone working full-time. I told you what needs to happen if we want a society where women can work outside the home and there's no fertility crisis.

by triceratops

5/29/2026 at 4:34:17 PM

And what I’m saying is if you want a high birth rate you have to have a culture where women don’t work outside the home and are not empowered which is what the data shows. What you’re suggesting is hopeful conjecture that has many, many counterexamples in today’s world.

by dyauspitr

5/29/2026 at 4:37:49 PM

There's counterexamples of countries where enforced 50% time schedules for couples are the norm? I haven't seen any myself...it's about as realistic as "force women back into the kitchen". But much fairer.

I would love to see an example of a country where couples with children can each work 50% time but get paid like both are working full-time. Unrealistic, yes. But also arguably fair.

by triceratops

5/29/2026 at 3:20:33 PM

Well, related to women getting professional jobs, I've also been told that Japanese women don't want to sign up for life with Japanese men. Women get the coffee, etc.

by m463

5/29/2026 at 12:46:12 PM

Except there is the awkward fact that it is the third world which has higher population growth rates and the nordics have are leaders in low birth rates.

by Nasrudith

5/29/2026 at 1:05:48 PM

Africa has by far the highest rates, and the Nordics are far below replacement, but some of the lowest (and noticeably lower than the Nordics) are South Korea (0.7), Taiwan (0.9), and Singapore (0.9). Replacement would require ~2.1.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman?t...

by no-name-here

5/29/2026 at 12:49:46 PM

Why is this fact awkward?

by smackeyacky

5/29/2026 at 12:56:41 PM

They meant awkward in this context because it seemed contrary the theory of the comment above them.

by GroksBarnacles

5/29/2026 at 1:03:11 PM

Consider that the world is complex and there's more than one factor. Conservatives cultures have higher birth rates, as do families with lower educational levels. Both are common in the third world. In developed countries, there's constant conversation about how people are being priced out of feeling safe or able to hit traditional milestones like having children. I myself didnt have kids in a marriage only because we couldn't afford it, and I worked around the clock hoping to soon.

by GroksBarnacles

5/29/2026 at 2:45:02 PM

Had this assertion been true India wouldn't have been the most populous country on earth.

by dartharva

5/29/2026 at 12:44:19 PM

[dead]

by nine_zeros

5/29/2026 at 2:10:01 PM

While working in Japan, I once asked my Japanese supervisor what he was doing for his next vacation. He responded that he never took a vacation and had, in fact, accrued some ridiculous amount of PTO over many years that he never intended to use. がんばって!

by onlypassingthru

5/29/2026 at 3:18:02 PM

Americans do that too.

I think europe seems to be pretty balanced. Friends take 5 week vacation in the summer.

by m463

5/29/2026 at 5:56:25 PM

5 weeks in summer is outrageous? Once you add weekends that's like only working half of all days, not to mention if you add real value to your company your company has to wait weeks for you to return. I guess there's a reason Europe has become so poor

by guywithahat

5/29/2026 at 8:58:53 PM

> your company has to wait weeks for you to return

I mean that’s the very concept of a holiday to me ?

by schrijver

5/29/2026 at 3:14:58 PM

Japan's population is 123M, about what it was in 1990. It's a small, densely populated island. It's not a crisis.

by rayiner

5/29/2026 at 3:41:13 PM

It's a crisis in the sense that most Westerners don't know how Japan began building defensive mechanisms to alleviate some of the worst aspects of an aging society (eg. Building SWFs, creating strict guestworker programs, automating jobs where possible, disinvesting in lower population regions) years ago.

A lot of the policy conversation and worries about an aging Japan began all the way back in the 1960s and 1970s, and helped inform the Flying Geese paradigm Japan has leveraged.

Personally, I've noticed American newspapers using Japan the same way they would use the Nordics a decade ago - as an idealized image that was leveraged for domestic ideological battles.

by alephnerd

5/29/2026 at 11:31:48 AM

[dead]

by glass1122

5/29/2026 at 1:54:34 PM

Awfully careless if you ask me. They gotta keep better track, maybe put AirTags on some of these people. /s

(I'm making fun of the weird phrasing of the headline. It's obviously a serious issue for the nation of Japan).

by triceratops