Semi-related, but I did recently wonder if China's real-estate bust might serve as a strong fertility support measure / incidental pronatalist policy.
Tier-3 and tier-4 cities supposedly saw 30-50% property value declines, setting them back more than two decades. If real estate was really holding back families, as is often stipulated, this might reverse that.
Otoh, rural Japan has lots of cheap or even free real estate but it doesn't seem to support fertility rates at all.
This article calls it a "quiet emergency" but even as a foreigner living in Japan there are alarm bells everywhere. And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.
I looked into becoming a care aid myself as I'm tired of office culture in Japan and have some experience in that field. I was shocked to see that they start at less than 10USD, and working your way up takes years, decades even.
Continuing to kick this can down the road is going to be an absolute disaster.
>And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.
I'm torn on this issue. I think the elderly should get a decent life, but on the opposite side we have Europe that's investing massively more in making its boomers richer and more comfortable than anyone in human history has ever been(average pension in France is higher now than the average salary), rather than investing that money in ensuring opportunities and prosperity of future generations, who are facing economic stagnation/degrowth and are forced to foot the bill for this elderly spending, with the guarantee the pyramid scheme they're funding will fail them when their turn comes.
So perhaps Japan sees the defense capability those 150 F-35's bring to its future national security more valuable than keeping the elderly alive for a few more years.
Yeah, it sounds harsh when you look at people like that, but taking care of people takes resources(money), and money is finite, so all these decisions are a game theory trolley problem, where you have to choose whose lives a country should prioritize the most: the past generations, or the future generations.
Historically in the history of nations would be willing to sacrifice the elderly to prioritize the survival and growth of its future generations, that is until the western boomers came and decided they deserve to fuck the future of their nation if they can get wealthier and feel good till the end.
I'm not saying there's one correct solution here, because I don't have it. I'm saying tough decisions have to be made from which there will be winners and losers, so a nation should choose the winners carefully, if it wishes to have a future.
I agree to some degree. There is also the case to be made that whereas in the past, young people would stay at home until they were married, and therefore assist their parents/grandparents, the rapid westernization (or "de-Japanization"?) of Japanese youth has them moving out asap into larger cities to be "free individuals" and those downstream effects on the elderly aren't anyone's fault, I guess.
“A government audit of family registries in Japan in 2010 uncovered more than 230,000 people listed as being aged 100 or older who were unaccounted for, some having died decades previously.
The miscounting was attributed to patchy record-keeping and suspicions that some families may have tried to hide the deaths of elderly relatives in order to claim their pensions“ Thus they need to redo the audit in 2026.
I head similar stories. Also from Italy. Another aspect is that many 100+ year old have questionable birth certificates, as in the record of the birthday might be guessed. Different times back then.
I was also thinking about that, but that miscounting story is so old, notable, and well-known by now, that it's basically popular knowledge around the world. So I hope that the BBC, but especially also the Japanese government that the BBC was reporting on, are aware of that issue and have, by now, accounted for it.
Unlikely, as the quote about >230k misattributed people comes from the article itself. So even without stating that I generally expect more from the BBC, the author of this article seems to be at least aware of the fact.
Being as it may, and even if it was AI-generated (which I don't think so), the point is that the article is reporting on the Japanese government:
Japanese authorities have called the trend an "existential crisis" with Prime Minister Sanae Takichi describing the decline as a "quiet emergency".
And my hope that they have taken that past mistake into account seems well-founded, given that the 100k number that the current figures cite are well below the old figure of 230k misattributions.
Yeah, I agree that the "Blue Zone" theory is mostly explained by bad record keeping. Okinawa is one of the poorest areas of Japan, but was deemed a Blue Zone, despite that wealth is nearly always positively correlated with longevity within similar cultures. Low and behold Okinawa had shitty record keeping and tons of incentives for relatives to commit pension fraud.
It's common enough that the Japanese government has been tracking down long dead "centenarians" to root it out. Also, according to Saul Newman [1], many of the centenarians claimed for Japan actually died 80+ years ago in the war and were never recorded as dead when everyone else in their family died.
We have travelled for about a month in Japan last year. They work under constant stress, lots of commute on public transit. I also did not feel their food was that healthy, lots of fried food and sweets. But the portion is small compared to what we would normally eat in a meal.
Did you actually visit Japanese families, or is that assessment based on what you saw in convenience stores and similar? "Convenience" food and western style food has somewhat increased, but on average Japanese cuisine is very healthy.
I also agree on the stressful work part, but don't quite understand what you mean with "lots of commute on public transit". If you mean the Tokyo-style rush hour traffic where people are literally shoved into the train car, of course that's stressful. But at any other time apart from that, Japan's public transit is enormously soothing and stress-free, both because of culture and transit technology.
Day in day out, everyday in public transit, just sheer noise would not add any lifetime. We stayed at our Japanese friend’s house so we did have exposure to their everyday life. The point I want to make is that many things contribute to a long life, and of course Japanese people are doing most of those things right, regardless of what that might be. I remember watching a documentary about Okinawa people. One thing they mentioned was laughter.
I grew up in Germany. For the past 13 years, I've lived in the US. Oh, how I wish I could go back to the "day in day out, everyday in public transit" instead of this car hell. In Germany, just like in Japan, I didn't feel that it was noisy at all. It was clean and quiet and soothing, I could just sit there and relax.
Everyone takes public transport, across all income ranges.
As a result, public life itself is more quiet and soothing, because you are not constantly surrounded by cars, even if just sitting outside a café.
Might I personally add, it is so hard to eat healthy here in the US, compared to Germany and my experience in Japan. (And German food is not necessarily healthy. But it's much easier and cheaper to eat healthy.)
Surely the exercise that comes with using public transport outweighs that. I feel like being able to zone out and not having to focus on driving, is more relaxing to me.
Semi-related, but I did recently wonder if China's real-estate bust might serve as a strong fertility support measure / incidental pronatalist policy.
Tier-3 and tier-4 cities supposedly saw 30-50% property value declines, setting them back more than two decades. If real estate was really holding back families, as is often stipulated, this might reverse that.
Otoh, rural Japan has lots of cheap or even free real estate but it doesn't seem to support fertility rates at all.
This article calls it a "quiet emergency" but even as a foreigner living in Japan there are alarm bells everywhere. And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.
I looked into becoming a care aid myself as I'm tired of office culture in Japan and have some experience in that field. I was shocked to see that they start at less than 10USD, and working your way up takes years, decades even.
Continuing to kick this can down the road is going to be an absolute disaster.
What does buying one hundred and fifty F35 aircraft have to do with not being able care for your parents / grandparents?
Why do people think The Government™ is able to, should, or can, solve everyone’s problems?
The Government™ probably can solve defence.
It probably can’t solve your lack of desire to do the right thing and look after your aging parents.
>And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.
I'm torn on this issue. I think the elderly should get a decent life, but on the opposite side we have Europe that's investing massively more in making its boomers richer and more comfortable than anyone in human history has ever been(average pension in France is higher now than the average salary), rather than investing that money in ensuring opportunities and prosperity of future generations, who are facing economic stagnation/degrowth and are forced to foot the bill for this elderly spending, with the guarantee the pyramid scheme they're funding will fail them when their turn comes.
So perhaps Japan sees the defense capability those 150 F-35's bring to its future national security more valuable than keeping the elderly alive for a few more years.
Yeah, it sounds harsh when you look at people like that, but taking care of people takes resources(money), and money is finite, so all these decisions are a game theory trolley problem, where you have to choose whose lives a country should prioritize the most: the past generations, or the future generations.
Historically in the history of nations would be willing to sacrifice the elderly to prioritize the survival and growth of its future generations, that is until the western boomers came and decided they deserve to fuck the future of their nation if they can get wealthier and feel good till the end.
I'm not saying there's one correct solution here, because I don't have it. I'm saying tough decisions have to be made from which there will be winners and losers, so a nation should choose the winners carefully, if it wishes to have a future.
I agree to some degree. There is also the case to be made that whereas in the past, young people would stay at home until they were married, and therefore assist their parents/grandparents, the rapid westernization (or "de-Japanization"?) of Japanese youth has them moving out asap into larger cities to be "free individuals" and those downstream effects on the elderly aren't anyone's fault, I guess.
When those boomers die where does the money go?
Tax man, funeral industry, late life casino runs, o o o o o o an investment in GVC gold
The single biggest generational transfer of wealth in human history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wealth_Transfer
Musk, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos.
“A government audit of family registries in Japan in 2010 uncovered more than 230,000 people listed as being aged 100 or older who were unaccounted for, some having died decades previously. The miscounting was attributed to patchy record-keeping and suspicions that some families may have tried to hide the deaths of elderly relatives in order to claim their pensions“ Thus they need to redo the audit in 2026.
I head similar stories. Also from Italy. Another aspect is that many 100+ year old have questionable birth certificates, as in the record of the birthday might be guessed. Different times back then.
I was also thinking about that, but that miscounting story is so old, notable, and well-known by now, that it's basically popular knowledge around the world. So I hope that the BBC, but especially also the Japanese government that the BBC was reporting on, are aware of that issue and have, by now, accounted for it.
I would guess the BBC reporter is completely unaware as is the tradition for journalism.
Unlikely, as the quote about >230k misattributed people comes from the article itself. So even without stating that I generally expect more from the BBC, the author of this article seems to be at least aware of the fact.
Being as it may, and even if it was AI-generated (which I don't think so), the point is that the article is reporting on the Japanese government:
And my hope that they have taken that past mistake into account seems well-founded, given that the 100k number that the current figures cite are well below the old figure of 230k misattributions.The secret to extreme long life is bad record keeping.
Yeah, I agree that the "Blue Zone" theory is mostly explained by bad record keeping. Okinawa is one of the poorest areas of Japan, but was deemed a Blue Zone, despite that wealth is nearly always positively correlated with longevity within similar cultures. Low and behold Okinawa had shitty record keeping and tons of incentives for relatives to commit pension fraud.
How common is pension fraud in Japan?
It's common enough that the Japanese government has been tracking down long dead "centenarians" to root it out. Also, according to Saul Newman [1], many of the centenarians claimed for Japan actually died 80+ years ago in the war and were never recorded as dead when everyone else in their family died.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZE5ml7a6rE
We have travelled for about a month in Japan last year. They work under constant stress, lots of commute on public transit. I also did not feel their food was that healthy, lots of fried food and sweets. But the portion is small compared to what we would normally eat in a meal.
Did you actually visit Japanese families, or is that assessment based on what you saw in convenience stores and similar? "Convenience" food and western style food has somewhat increased, but on average Japanese cuisine is very healthy.
I also agree on the stressful work part, but don't quite understand what you mean with "lots of commute on public transit". If you mean the Tokyo-style rush hour traffic where people are literally shoved into the train car, of course that's stressful. But at any other time apart from that, Japan's public transit is enormously soothing and stress-free, both because of culture and transit technology.
Day in day out, everyday in public transit, just sheer noise would not add any lifetime. We stayed at our Japanese friend’s house so we did have exposure to their everyday life. The point I want to make is that many things contribute to a long life, and of course Japanese people are doing most of those things right, regardless of what that might be. I remember watching a documentary about Okinawa people. One thing they mentioned was laughter.
I grew up in Germany. For the past 13 years, I've lived in the US. Oh, how I wish I could go back to the "day in day out, everyday in public transit" instead of this car hell. In Germany, just like in Japan, I didn't feel that it was noisy at all. It was clean and quiet and soothing, I could just sit there and relax.
Everyone takes public transport, across all income ranges.
As a result, public life itself is more quiet and soothing, because you are not constantly surrounded by cars, even if just sitting outside a café.
As for the family you stayed at, they must eat differently from the Japanese families I know personally. Studies agree: https://www.livescience.com/54133-japanese-diet-longer-life.... https://chns.cpc.unc.edu/resources/publications/bib/2884/
Might I personally add, it is so hard to eat healthy here in the US, compared to Germany and my experience in Japan. (And German food is not necessarily healthy. But it's much easier and cheaper to eat healthy.)
I don’t get the bit about public transport. Do you mean it’s unhealthy because public transport is stressful?
Surely the exercise that comes with using public transport outweighs that. I feel like being able to zone out and not having to focus on driving, is more relaxing to me.
If we're talking about the extremely elderly, it seems better for them to be taking public transport than driving.
Obligatory note about most centenarians not having verifiable birth records.
Japan is quite a bit different in that regard since they have family registries. Their issue tends to be death records.
The blue zone.