The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare this week released forecasts for the nation's population that are grim.

The number of Japanese will continue to shrink, falling by about 30% over the next half century. In fact, this isn’t news. This trajectory has been evident, remarked upon and complained about for some time. It is precisely the failure of successive governments to do more than complain about this trend that is most revealing and most worrisome.

According to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan’s population will fall from 126.15 million in 2020 to 87 million in 2070. This number includes foreign residents; they are projected to constitute a little over 10% of the total, up from just 2.2% in 2020.

The decline has been in place for 15 years; the country’s population peaked in 2008 at 128 million and the downward trend will continue. The pace of decline has slowed — total population decreased 0.43% last year while it was 0.65% the year before — mostly a result of increased life expectancy but also because a larger number of foreigners are taking up residence here. This has also pushed back milestones such as when Japan will hit the 100 million mark — now it is projected to occur in 2056, rather than 2053.

A smaller, older population is generally considered a liability. It is less dynamic, with less creativity and energy to devote to solving problems, either domestic or international. The society’s focus tends to be on health care and assistance for the expanding elderly cohort, which drains increasingly scarce resources. A “grayer” population generates less wealth and is a bigger burden on pension systems.

A shrinking population when the world is undergoing increasing strain could be a good thing. The country’s environmental footprint is reduced since a smaller population consumes less. Japan’s ability to successfully manage the transition to a smaller size could be a model for other countries; most developed economies are experiencing similar demographic shifts. Japan is merely leading in this evolution.

Thus far, Japan has addressed this phenomenon by focusing on the fertility rate. A country needs a total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, of 2.07 to maintain its population size. In 2021, Japan’s total fertility rate was 1.3; as a result, new births fell below 800,000 for the first time ever. The government’s goal is 1.8; the new projections project a rate of 1.36 in 2070.

That widening gap prompted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to warn in January that Japan was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions” as a result of a looming demographic crisis. His belief that “the next six to seven years are the last chance to reverse the trend of declining birthrate,” spurred his administration to draft a package of aid measures for children and child-rearing, which will culminate in a plan to double child-related spending in the annual basic economic and fiscal policy guidelines in June. This focus on the young conflicts with the demand by older citizens for attention and resources, and the elderly, unlike babies and children, can and do vote.

Child care is a piece of a larger puzzle. Young men and women are not getting married because of fear that they won’t be able to support themselves and their families. But even married couples have been rethinking family plans and not just for economic reasons. The traditional roles assigned to women discourage a significant number of them from getting married or having kids; they fear a loss of freedom and opportunities to live more complete lives.

One bulwark against even sharper population decline has been an inflow of foreign nationals into Japan. Japan has historically been less than accommodating — if not openly hostile — to a large foreign presence in the country, fearing that it would undermine social cohesion or create other problems.

This mentality is gradually changing. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research’s analysis assumes a net inflow of about 160,000 people a year, more than doubling the estimate of 70,000 a year in the last analysis in 2017. If this continues, the total number of foreign residents will reach 10% of the population in 2070, a quadrupling of the current share.

Japan has attracted foreign workers who have been eager to gain job skills. Increasingly, those workers are needed to fill labor shortages in Japan. They’re already omnipresent in restaurants and convenience stores. It is estimated that Japan’s health care and welfare sector will be short 960,000 employees in 2040.

The question of whether Japanese will accept these immigrants remains. The presence of foreign workers is different from that of long-term residents or the provision of citizenship. An unwillingness to greet them with open arms for extended periods of time will discourage many from making the initial foray to Japan, especially as the international competition for talent intensifies. A first order challenge is raising wages so that they will consider Japan a genuine opportunity; wages are increasing throughout Asia, which undermines the desire to come to Japan.

None of this is new. Policy makers have long known of this problem and the options the country had. Demographers were predicting this trajectory in the 1970s. The government’s failure to respond to this challenge is what should be most troubling. Inaction reflects the enduring tension in the mindset of Japan’s leadership.

Part of the problem may have been the reluctance to acknowledge a distant danger. It is difficult for politicians to think in time frames that extend beyond the next election cycle. That failure is difficult to credit when Japanese policy makers have devoted so much time and energy to creating and realizing visions of the future society.

A more likely explanation is that Japan’s leaders have considered another threat — upending prevailing norms about the proper structure of society — to be the greater danger. While this is a complex, multidimensional problem, experts agree that critical to any solution is the expansion of opportunities and options for women. This challenges conservative thinking about the role of women in Japan, who have long been considered the primary caregivers at home for three generations.

A similar reluctance to tinker with social norms and expectations has slowed changes that would make Japan more hospitable to long-term foreign residents. It is long past time to change that mindset.

The Japan Times Editorial Board