The most recent issue of The Economist features an interesting article about Japan’s struggles in adapting to a population that is both aging and shrinking (average lifespan is now 82 years, fertility rate is 1.32). Firms are scraping to find young workers, farm towns are disappearing, and policy analysts are fretting about the government’s long-term ability to support the increasingly top-heavy pension system. Japan has looked in the mirror and all the gray hair is starting to freak it out a little bit.
The Japanese aren’t alone in facing the prospect of a graying population. Countries all across the developed world currently have below-replacement-level fertility rates and life expectancies that approach, and even exceed, 80 years. For the moment, the populations in many of these countries are still growing thanks to immigration and those stretching lifespans. But the situation in Japan may be a preview of what’s to come.
It’s interesting that the population drama in these countries doesn’t look like what we’d been promised by sci-fi or Malthus. It’s not an action movie plot, propelled by a virus or ecological disaster. Rather, it’s one of those limited-release pictures where people sit around the whole time talking. We’re actually making the conscious choice to have fewer children — whether it’s to focus on a career, stay solvent, or just because having kids kind of sounds like a drag. That’s the plot twist we didn’t see coming — that an affluent society usually equals fewer children.
Maybe technology and prosperity will eventually send the narrative in another direction. Egg freezing and other reproductive technology could make the career-and-kids combo more attractive, as could family-friendly policies (for mothers and fathers) at successful information-age corporations. (Interesting nugget from that Economist article: the Japanese language doesn’t have a phrase for “work-life balance.”) Or maybe not. France is supposed to be some kind of parents paradise (and its fertility rate is increasing), but even among the French there’s discontent.
So maybe it’s time to for a different kind of blockbuster. Here’s the pitch: Bruce Willis finds a successful young married couple, takes them out to dinner… and tries to convince them what a joy is to be a parent. Can he win them over before dessert?
-Greg Dahlmann