[gretch]

This is only loosely related to the article -

I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s.

I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like?

Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling.

I understand they have their problems as a country (so do we all), but if Japan is a future indicator, I’d say we don’t really have to worry about falling pop too much?

[jwells89]

I think the situation in Japan is a bit different, with how the overwhelming majority of its population is concentrated into just a few cities, with that concentration intensifying as the few remaining young people in rural areas move to the cities in search of opportunity. The effects of population decline aren’t that visible in Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, etc, but become evident as one travels further away from major metros.

The population of the US, while still weighted toward cities, is for now still considerably more diffused. Even so, I’ve already seen some of the effects in my tiny rural hometown which has seen its population cut in half in the past decade and change since I moved out. The only reason it’s hanging on at all is because of the major highway running through it and because it’s one of the only places to get essentials (grocery stores etc) in the larger area which pulls in residents of surrounding towns, which are even more depopulated.

[lemoncookiechip]

Did you visit the countryside, or the smaller cities?

A lot of Japan is getting abandoned, Akiya (abandoned buildings) are becoming more prevalent, small communities are dying out as the younger generations are forced to move to the larger cities like Tokyo to get a good living, which leads to death spirals.

And then there's the age groups skewing, as less people are born and more people reach the point where they're dying but not fast enough, who's left to take care of the older generations, or who pays taxes to maintain their quality of living?

In 2022 the population across 47 prefectures fell over 800k [1].

Sure, immigration can help combat the issue somewhat, but Japan is a homogeneous society, and at some point you'll end up having more "foreigners" than natives if you don't properly combat the internal decline in numbers.

You ask, is that what bad looks like? I gotta ask, what would constitute bad enough if not the death of all those communities that make the country. Tokyo isn't Japan, all the prefectures and the smaller towns are what make Japan Japan, and as they slowly die out, so does a big part of their culture that so many people love and brings in so much tourism and millions to consume their media, food, fashion and more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-populati...

[marssaxman]

> A lot of Japan is getting abandoned

That sounds like a good thing, from an ecological perspective.

[geodel]

I mean people, culture, societies, ecosystems have all come and gone. Some may feel sad about but thats just the nature of things.

[longdog]

Population in Japan has barely fallen (yet). So far it's only a ~2% decline from peak population, but there will be a 20% decline in the next 20 years.

There is a long lag between below-replacement fertility and actual population decline. Because of how compounding growth works and the length of human lifespans, sub-replacement fertility won't result in population decline (for a previously fast-growing country) until 40+ years after the fact. Japan is only just now seeing the effects of lowish fertility from the 70s and 80s.

Note that one of the other consequences of population math is that if a country has been previously declining in population for a while, it'll continue to decline for decades even if the current fertility rate is at or slightly above replacement rate. This means that population decline is essentially an inevitability for most East Asian and European countries for the next several generations.

None of us knows what will happen when populations are falling by 5%+ per decade which is now the inevitable future of many countries the next few decades..it's totally unprecedented in human history (excluding cases like war/disaster).

[oarla]

"Death spirals tend to be worse in America because of the remarkable level to which the government is decentralised." Difference between USA and Japan. Japan is far more centralized than USA. Not saying that is a better system, but it may be advantageous to handle declining population.

[solidsnack9000]

In Japan, they are in fact closing down public services, including schools, because many towns are depopulating. Even if taxation and administration are centralized, when the population of an area decreases, it is hard to spend the same amount of money on services there, since the other areas have relatively more people and more costs.

The article actually doesn't make much of a case for its claim about America being ill-suited to handling a declining population and it doesn't actually examine other countries and how they've coped.

[jwells89]

One obvious advantage of centralization, though, is that the government is much better equipped to enact programs to keep towns afloat (whatever that entails). Red tape and obstructionism on the local level is minimal and is unlikely to cause issues.

In the US, if the federal government wants to put similar programs in place, in many ways they’re at the mercy of the states. Certainly out of 50 states some will be cooperative, but even that is subject to rotations of state politicians. This means that any measures to counter depopulation are going to be spotty in the short term and unstable in the long term, greatly limiting efficacy.

[solidsnack9000]

I guess I would question the value of that, if the fundamentals are such that any such programs and choices have so little effect.

Japan is highly centralized and yet what is so different about the depopulation situation there? It has been widely reported and actually there have been many links posted on HN about it.

The article seems to be making a big deal out of a minor factor, in order to sell a narrative about state centralization saving countries that have adopted it (the Economist is a UK periodical, and the UK was one of the latecomers to centralization). The USA, which is more like the UK used to be, serves as a kind of foil or cautionary example. Note the final sentence, warning us that decentralization leads to Trumpism.

[aprilthird2021]

Visiting Japan and making your life work as a resident in Japan are two wholly different things. It's wonderful to visit Iran as well.

Japan's economy has stagnated and declined, so too have real wages. Many Japanese people can't afford to enjoy or even spend time seeing the things you saw on your vacation in their own country.

[Animats]

In Japan, infrastructure is centrally funded. So roads, water, sewers, schools, and police services continue even if the local population can't pay for them.

[ilamont]

There has been a lot of consolidation of village and town services as rural populations have declined. This started decades ago, when the national government announced plans to shrink from 3200 municipalities to 1000 by 2005:

Small towns can choose to go it alone, but a system of carrots and sticks crafted by the central government makes it a costly proposition. “This utter despotism will only kill off towns and villages,” groused one group of local officials.

Exactly how the decision to merge is made can be a bit murky. Some municipalities hold public referendums, but local officials are free to ignore the results. Other municipalities don’t even bother with a vote.

Among the factors towns use in choosing a mate are proximity, shared history, and whether the prospect’s job base, hospitals and shopping are desirable.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-aug-07-fg-merge...

[foogazi]

Does the central government just keep empty schools open and staffed ?

[Animats]

No, but they keep them open and staffed as long as the number of students is nonzero. Here's a junior high school with two students.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMcn2DSva2M

[3PS]

Adding to the other comments, one thing I have heard about projected population decline is that it tends to happen very _rapidly_. That is, even if birth rates are below replacement level, it takes a while for that number to get reflected in the bottom line population statistics, and by the time a crash in population has serious consequences, it's too late to stop it.

[vondur]

Japan has outsourced their manufacturing to other countries and take the profits back home. Seems to be working for them.

[mensetmanusman]

What you saw had little to do with decline.