Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge.
Japan is running out of people. It will get worse—and we’re next.
Last week, Japan’s government announced the country lost 861,000 people last year as the country’s fertility rate—the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime—fell to a record low of 1.2.
For perspective, if you start with 100 million people and have 1.2 babies each, after three generations, you’re down to just 20 million people.
On a related note, over 65s now account for 30% of Japan’s population, while a new study finds there are 9 million vacant houses in Japan—about 1 in 6 homes in Japan is vacant and falling down.
What’s driving it? As always, government.
Namely, we’re running out of kids because slow growth and inflation force
