> Conservative policymakers and a cautious public mean Japan is much more likely to look for internal, rather than external, solutions to the demographic crunch, despite projections pointing to the inevitability of more immigration.<p>Suppose they choose to "solve" it with immigration - what will happen? It will enable their current fertility-destroying system to persist, shrinking their population indefinitely, while supplementing it with immigrants.<p>Social-economic systems that cause below-replacement fertility are in this way much like parasites, feeding off the host nation. Without immigration, eventually this will cause enough of a crisis, or a high enough fever, to continue the analogy, that will allow the nation to shake off the parasite and change their system to something sustainable.<p>But immigration functions as anesthetic and immunosuppressant - keeping the host population just comfortable enough that they go gentle into that good night, and giving the parasite economic system a new host to feed on.
Meanwhile per capita GDP and automation race forward, making it increasingly easier to look after an aging population.<p>I don't see the problem with population decline, especially in advanced economies. As a bonus, reduced population in such places has a disproportionate effect on emissions.
Maybe we shouldn't worry about the population, maybe we could change the way economy works? The model we are using basically count people as slaves, the output of a slave is a constant, hence in order to sustain economy, we need more slaves. I don't like it at all. I don't think the output is going to be dependent on population, it is going to be dependent on technology. We shouldn't worry about shrinking population at all.