I think Japan is facing one of the most unique challenges of any well-developed nation: its shrinking population. A simple idea of economics is that with a larger working-age population, comes the possibility of economic growth, which it seems every developed nation is and has been striving for, for centuries. And yet, Japan, the nation with the third-largest economy in the world, is facing a rapidly declining work force, and the government has no plans in place to mitigate this economic danger.

The interactive population pyramid, moving into the future (to 2065), showed the severity of the problem for the nation’s economy. The workforce is going to drastically decrease, while the elderly (and therefore dependent) population will increase, as the currently middle-aged population bulge moves through the years. This poses the problem of who will take care of these elderly people, and how, with a severe labour shortage?

For most developed nations, I’d think the answer would be pretty simple: to find help from elsewhere. Opening the borders to more immigration would certainly be a quick and relatively easy solution to the problem. The increase in immigrants would not pose a problem of infrastructure or urban development, as Japan is already very well developed, with many large cities, already connected through one of the best transit systems in the world. So, what would be the problem?

Japan has a long history of xenophobia, with a strong stance on national pride. As I learned in the textbook, Japan has a relatively peaceful national culture, which the Japanese people believe is because of the homogeneity of the people themselves, being Japanese and nothing else. There is a general fear that opening its borders will allow the chaos of the world to disrupt the long-standing peaceful culture, and I don’t really blame them. However, this attitude does not help with the aging population problem.

In my opinion, I think if the Japanese consider easing up on their immigration policies (and more than the recent expansions in preparation for the 2020 Olympics – which I thought were weak expansions), they can find a balance between maintaining the national culture, and balancing their demographics in order to not completely lose their footing in the world economy.