I Think I'm Turning Japanese
You and I are going to die. That much is certain. And --hopefully not much-- before that, we will burden our society and our family with the responsibility of taking care of us. Historically, the burden was carried by the children. That is why many societies have instilled in their members (I can't think of one that doesn't) the value of respect towards their elders --a societal self-preservation mechanism that allows the ageing to finally collect a loan they originally extended to society in the form of productivity when they were young.
Be it directly (via familial care) or indirectly (via tax collection), that debt is paid for by the work and effort of those coming behind --kin or not. Younger generations are thus, by definition, cursed (or blessed) by the genealogical accident that assigned them cosmic responsibility of their older generation. Their collective agency with regards to their generational responsibility is stripped from them the same way it was also stripped with regards to the technological comforts they get to enjoy while they roam this earth.
I personally believe that the "benefit" of having been "blessed" to live in the time of Instagram and Googlemaps is not worth the burden to have a significant chunk of our productive years garnished to pay for the sustenance of the older generation, especially while at the same time they do whatever they can to extend their lives into geriatric limbo. But I'll save my thoughts on that matter for a different post.
The fact of the matter is that, thanks mainly to education, fertility rates have plummeted.
It is indeed quite an accomplishment, from our species' standpoint. One desperately needed so that we prevent the collapse of the planet's resources (if that is even preventable at this point) and we continue our existence as a species on earth. But from a generational standpoint, this is crushing. It means that we get to be the "lucky" first generation to bear the shock of the new planetary status quo, in which we get to adapt ourselves to live in a Japanized society for the first time in the history of humankind. One where we each get to sustain the lives of 0.76 retirees (1.3 workers per retiree). Why do I sound like whining, you may ask? Because those same retirees, when they were young and productive in 1965, got to sustain only 0.11 retirees each (there were 9 workers per retiree then).
I really wished I was just cherry-picking the most extreme demographic case to scare you into buying this horrific narrative. The truth is that it is not only Japan that is Japanizing. Every middle and high income county is bound for Japanification...
The obvious solution to this huge issue would be to import productive hands to help pay for the upcoming imbalance. Many developing countries are, after all, still far from Japanification. Demographic pyramids have not yet inverted there. They could theoretically send people to those Japanizing economies and help them with the demographic shock that's about to hit millennials around the globe.
Yet, it is those very same countries facing Japanification which reject immigration so adamantly. It's not only the U.S., whose own president is instigating congresswomen of color to go back where they came from (where that "place" is, he'd have to explain), but also other countries facing japanification which had opted to take immigrants to solve their demographic dilemmas. Sweden, where foreign born people has gone from 11% to 19% in the last 2 decades, is struggling with the integration or refugees. Merkel, at the forefront of the fight against intolerance in Europe towards refugees, almost lost power over this issue. Finland's anti-immigrant Finns Party is now the second political force there, catapulted by Fins' opposition to immigration. Japan itself has simply shut itself down to immigration. Only 1.9% of its population are immigrants, and they accept only 0.2% of refugees seeking asylum. And Brexit... well, I don't even have to bring that up.
Time is ticking, and these societies face demographic implosion. Which means the current working generation gets to bear the brunt of this generational re-alignment. They (we) will not only have to fix gaping fiscal deficits created by the absurdly moronic idea that tax cuts for the rich lead to less inequality (hint, they don't), but also contend with the planetary consequences of unleashing untold amounts of CO2 during our fore-bearers' quest to achieve modernity, delivering us an unstable planet.
This is where I am supposed to say that "all is not lost". That the younger generation's attitudes towards immigration do not reflect the rightward drift all around the world, and that this generation is really concerned about the planet and determined to do something about it. This is where I say that it's only a matter of time until they really take charge of the political arena and make their demographic weight really count and reverse ominous trajectory we're embarked in. I really, really wish I could say that. The reality, however, is different. This generation keeps getting out-voted, out-interest-grouped, out-super-Pac'd, out-resonated, out-get-out-to-voted, and out-registered by their older folks. And there is nothing I see that can change this.
As much as I'd like to say "all is not lost", I can't.
Be it directly (via familial care) or indirectly (via tax collection), that debt is paid for by the work and effort of those coming behind --kin or not. Younger generations are thus, by definition, cursed (or blessed) by the genealogical accident that assigned them cosmic responsibility of their older generation. Their collective agency with regards to their generational responsibility is stripped from them the same way it was also stripped with regards to the technological comforts they get to enjoy while they roam this earth.
I personally believe that the "benefit" of having been "blessed" to live in the time of Instagram and Googlemaps is not worth the burden to have a significant chunk of our productive years garnished to pay for the sustenance of the older generation, especially while at the same time they do whatever they can to extend their lives into geriatric limbo. But I'll save my thoughts on that matter for a different post.
The fact of the matter is that, thanks mainly to education, fertility rates have plummeted.
 |
| Data from Gapminder.org |
It is indeed quite an accomplishment, from our species' standpoint. One desperately needed so that we prevent the collapse of the planet's resources (if that is even preventable at this point) and we continue our existence as a species on earth. But from a generational standpoint, this is crushing. It means that we get to be the "lucky" first generation to bear the shock of the new planetary status quo, in which we get to adapt ourselves to live in a Japanized society for the first time in the history of humankind. One where we each get to sustain the lives of 0.76 retirees (1.3 workers per retiree). Why do I sound like whining, you may ask? Because those same retirees, when they were young and productive in 1965, got to sustain only 0.11 retirees each (there were 9 workers per retiree then).
I really wished I was just cherry-picking the most extreme demographic case to scare you into buying this horrific narrative. The truth is that it is not only Japan that is Japanizing. Every middle and high income county is bound for Japanification...
The obvious solution to this huge issue would be to import productive hands to help pay for the upcoming imbalance. Many developing countries are, after all, still far from Japanification. Demographic pyramids have not yet inverted there. They could theoretically send people to those Japanizing economies and help them with the demographic shock that's about to hit millennials around the globe.
 |
| Countries in the lower cluster could export productive hands to countries in the higher one. Data from Gapminder.org |
Yet, it is those very same countries facing Japanification which reject immigration so adamantly. It's not only the U.S., whose own president is instigating congresswomen of color to go back where they came from (where that "place" is, he'd have to explain), but also other countries facing japanification which had opted to take immigrants to solve their demographic dilemmas. Sweden, where foreign born people has gone from 11% to 19% in the last 2 decades, is struggling with the integration or refugees. Merkel, at the forefront of the fight against intolerance in Europe towards refugees, almost lost power over this issue. Finland's anti-immigrant Finns Party is now the second political force there, catapulted by Fins' opposition to immigration. Japan itself has simply shut itself down to immigration. Only 1.9% of its population are immigrants, and they accept only 0.2% of refugees seeking asylum. And Brexit... well, I don't even have to bring that up.
Time is ticking, and these societies face demographic implosion. Which means the current working generation gets to bear the brunt of this generational re-alignment. They (we) will not only have to fix gaping fiscal deficits created by the absurdly moronic idea that tax cuts for the rich lead to less inequality (hint, they don't), but also contend with the planetary consequences of unleashing untold amounts of CO2 during our fore-bearers' quest to achieve modernity, delivering us an unstable planet.
This is where I am supposed to say that "all is not lost". That the younger generation's attitudes towards immigration do not reflect the rightward drift all around the world, and that this generation is really concerned about the planet and determined to do something about it. This is where I say that it's only a matter of time until they really take charge of the political arena and make their demographic weight really count and reverse ominous trajectory we're embarked in. I really, really wish I could say that. The reality, however, is different. This generation keeps getting out-voted, out-interest-grouped, out-super-Pac'd, out-resonated, out-get-out-to-voted, and out-registered by their older folks. And there is nothing I see that can change this.
As much as I'd like to say "all is not lost", I can't.
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