On the other hand, Japan’s population pyramid is starting to look like an upside-down pyramid.
The population pyramids can help the government learn what types of recourse their people will need and how to help grow the economy. America has a fairly straight up and down pyramid, meaning that the economy won’t grow very much, but it also won’t get worse. Japan’s upside-down pyramid means that the economy will slow down and many of the young people will be busy taking care of the elderly.
For a country to keep the same number of citizens, the average number of children that a family needs to have is 2.1. However, Japan’s average number of children per family is only 1.4. This is because many women are deciding to go to college, get an education and work to achieve a good career before starting a family. Many are also finding it difficult to find well-paying jobs that can support a family. Because of these two major reasons, many of Japan’s 20-year-olds are putting off marriage and having children until they are more financially stable. Many families are only having one child in order to make sure they have financial stability and time to support their child and give that one child a good life.
The government is trying to pass new laws that will make early childcare more accessible to parents and provide tax incentives to encourage families to have more children. To help ease the burden of caring for the elderly and enable the Japanese to focus on building good careers and families, Japan is also trying to ease immigration and foreign worker laws to allow more foreigners to train and work in Japan.
