Can Japan Solve Its Population Problems with Robots?
Japan’s population is about to tank, and with it, will fall the world’s second largest economy. In roughly 100 years, the country’s population will decrease from 127 million to 44 million. The outlook is bleak, as birth rates are at an all-time low, and the country maintains the highest proportion of senior citizens in the world. By 2050, the Japanese workforce could decrease by as much as 70%. An entertaining segment on Current TV explored both the cause of, and a possible solution to, Japan’s population catastrophe.
Japanese couples are not having babies. As more and more Japanese women and men prioritized their career ambitions over starting families, the national birth rates plummeted. Inadequate child care and employer discrimination of working mothers further discouraged working couples from having children. Swallowed up in the “work hard, play hard” pace of big cities like Tokyo (not to mention all the pretty faces at the local Host/Hostess Clubs), the Japanese 30-somethings claim they’re now too set in their ways to consider having kids.
