THE Japanese are disappearing. Not overnight, but it is predicted by 2050 the 126.9 million population will dwindle by 20 per cent, or 25 million.
That is a loss of more people than there are now in Australia.
The shrinking is caused by some of the factors responsible for shrinking Western nations such as Italy. Ageing populations and falling birth rates.
In Japan, however, where the life expectancy for men is nearly 79 and for women is nearly 86, one to three years higher than the average life expectancies of Australian men (about 78) and women (about 83), the next longest-living people on average, the approaching problems are becoming very obvious, very fast.
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By 2050, for example, the percentage of the Japanese population aged 65 and older will be in the order of 36 per cent, placing a huge burden on the infrastructure, particularly on health costs.
In something of a paradox, the healthy Japanese lifestyle has ensured there will be more elderly needing aged care than there will be in other nations where people succumb to lifestyle-related illnesses.
It is also somewhat ironic that the even healthier younger generation say they are less interested in sex than their parents were.
There are a number of reasons advanced for this, including sheer exhaustion. Japanese men are noted for their disciplined commitment to work and long hours, plus a tendency to hang with friends from the office and drink before commuting home, which, combined with the tendency to marry and have children later in life, narrows opportunities radically.
And there is a more worrying trend, according to a report in the Japan Times: a rise in the number of couples who do not have sex at all.
The survey of 936 couples aged 16 to 49 by the Japan Family Planning Association and Jichi Medical University in Tochigi Prefecture last year found that 31 per cent did not have any sexual contact over a month, for no particular reason.
An annual international sex survey conducted by a condom maker last October found the average Japanese has sexual intercourse 45 times a year, compared with the global average of 103, placing the Japanese at the bottom of the list behind Singaporeans, with an average of 73.
The university survey found that there was a major communication problem among those people it talked to, with 44 per cent of those not having much sex saying they felt having a relationship with a person of the opposite sex was ``very tiresome'' or ``somewhat tiresome'', 14 per cent higher than those who had sex more frequently.
Whether it is the lack of sex, or stress caused by work or a combination of both, Japanese men are also experiencing falling sperm counts.
If the sperm count of a Japanese male is set at 100, a Dane would have count of 104, a Frenchman would register 110, a Scot 128 and a Finn 147.
Perhaps there is an opportunity for Treasurer Peter Costello to market the efficacy of his ``one for the mum, one for the dad and one for the country'' approach to family planning, and encourage the Japanese Government to introduce a baby-bonus scheme as well.
There are those who see a falling fertility rate (it is now about 1.25) as a good thing, citing such supposed benefits as less crowded trains, easier access to holiday resorts and more spacious homes but they do not seem to take into account the need for train drivers to run the fewer trains, nor the need for more doctors and nurses, let alone the inability of the Japanese state pension program to meet the growing demands.
Immigration is unlikely to be of much assistance.
The diminishing population may lessen Japan's demand for resources -- and make it easier for it to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets -- but a smaller, older demographic will need more assistance to exist.
There are about two million foreign residents living legally in the country, and a growing number of illegal migrants from China, Korea and other Asian nations, but not enough to plug the gaps at the less skilled end of the workforce.
Certainly Japan's refugee program will not be of any help, with just nine asylum seekers and refugees accepted into Japan in 2004 -- or slightly less than one per cent of the number accepted by Australia.
Whatever lip service the Japanese may pay to feel-good fads like the disastrous multiculturalism which has eroded Western nations like the UK, the number of marriages between Japanese and foreigners is miniscule, with only 40,000 reported in 2004.
Nor are the local areas in which mixed couples living making it any easier. A number of education
authorities are already complaining about the additional expense involved in teaching the children from mixed marriages Japanese.
Given that Japan has a history of discrimination against its minority groups, the Ainu of Hokkaido, Okinawans and Burakumin, it will be some time before the Japanese accept immigrants as comparatively readily as nations like Australia and the US have done historically.
Though the black armband brigade endeavours to portray Anglophone nations like Australia, the UK and America as racist and neo-colonialist, they ignore the experiences and contributions of first and second-generation Australians such as General Sir John Monash, the most outstanding general of his generation, and even the makeup of the Australian World Cup soccer team which has thrilled the nation over the past month.
The Japanese are only now thinking of the lesson of migration.
Their national experience over the past century has taught them that they cannot close their doors to the new or rely on dynastic leadership if their country is to survive.
And no one in Japan wants to be the last samurai.
akermanp@dailytelegraph.com.au
* Piers Akerman is taking part in an Australia-Japan exchange as a guest of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry
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