As Japan prepares to host the Group of Seven summit this year, stasis, lethargy, and fatalism, along with a pleasant lifestyle, best describe the archipelago in 2016.
The Cabinet wants to stabilize the population from the current 125 million to 100 million. This entails accepting a loss of over 20 percent, a fate normally visited only on lands plagued by terrible wars or pandemics. Robotics may replace humans. Science could make 90 the new 60, keeping seniors on the job into their 80s. But unless these deus ex machina drop down on the stage now, the future is grim.
With the probably impossible aim of a 1.8 births/woman fertility rate, 100 million is but a waypoint on the road to oblivion. Requests by the finance ministry to cut down the number of schoolteachers as children disappear show where Japan is heading. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to empower women to better utilize half of the labor force but in fact his government has done very little to make this a reality. The Cabinet is not seriously thinking about Japan's need for massive immigration.