日本要如何解決人口下降的問題?_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

Phillip Hartman

D0 Nothing

The assumption here is that it is a problem, but why is it a problem and for whom? The common argument is that there will be less people working to support an aging population. So either the old will get less resources or the workers will. A trade-off is being made here. Less tax money for consumption in exchange for more living space and more time for work. 

There’s also the third option: redistribute more resources from the wealthy to the old. Japan is a very wealthy country. There is no lack of wealth.

什麼也不用做。

這個問題的假設前提是，人口下降是一個問題，但為什麼它是一個問題，對誰來説是一個問題?普遍的觀點是，人口下降將使得有更少的人工作來支持老齡化的人口。所以要麼老年人得到的資源會減少，要麼工人會。這裏要進行權衡。減少消費方面的税收，以換取更多的生活空間和更多的工作時間。

還有第三種選擇:將更多的資源從富人手中重新分配給老年人。日本是一個非常富有的國家。財富並不缺乏。 0

That was the non-answer answer, but here’s the more straight-forward answer. The birth rate is being suppressed because the economics currently in Japan make it too costly to have children. However, as the population declines the cost of children will also decline until it reaches a point where the birth rate begins to stabilize. The principal cause of low birth rate is tight living quarters. If you live in a two bedroom apartment and can only afford a two bedroom apartment, where are you going to put more children? That’s why birth rate is around 1.1 in Tokyo and 1.4 for the country as a whole.

Less people means more space. More space means bigger homes. Bigger homes means bigger families. Eventually Japan will find a balance between population and space. It’s population will NOT disappear. It’s pure stupid to think a declining population won’t influence the birth rate in the future.

Some commonly mentioned solutions that are total BS.

這是一個沒有答案的答案，但這裏有一個更直接的答案。出生率之所以受到抑制，是因為日本目前的經濟狀況使得生育孩子的成本過高。然而，隨着人口的減少，養育孩子的費用也會下降，直到出生率開始穩定為止。低出生率的主要原因是狹小的居住空間。如果你住在兩個卧室的公寓，但只能負擔得起一個兩個卧室的公寓，你打算在哪裏安置更多的孩子?這就是為什麼東京的出生率是1.1左右，而整個日本的出生率是1.4左右。

更少的人意味着更多的空間。更大的空間意味着更大的房子。大房子意味着大家庭。最終，日本將在人口和空間之間找到平衡。日本的人口不會消失。認為人口減少不會影響未來的出生率的觀點是非常愚蠢的。

一些通常提到的解決方案都是扯淡。 0

Various pro-women policies. (Doesn’t work. Canada has the most pro-women government in the world yet still has an super-low birth rate. We actually had very high birth rates when women were supposedly oppressed so it head-scratching that people think the opposite would work)

Immigration. (The low birth rate is being driven by Japan’s high population density. Bringing in more people will slow the decent, but the incentive to shrink won’t go away, so in a few decades you’ll have a country that still has a low birth rate but now isn’t so Japanese anymore).

Childcare. (It’s seems hard for policy makers to understand that people don’t want to give birth to a child just to have somebody else raise it).

各種支持女性的政策。(不工作。加拿大擁有世界上最支持女性的政府，但出生率仍然很低。當人們認為婦女受到壓迫的時候，我們的出生率非常高，所以人們認為相反的方法才會起作用，真是令人撓頭)

移民。(日本的低出生率是由人口密度高造成的。引進更多的人口會減緩體面人口的增長，但人口萎縮的動力不會消失，所以在幾十年裏，你會看到一個出生率仍然很低的國家，但日本將變得不那麼像日本了)。

照顧孩子。(政策制定者似乎很難理解人們並不想為了讓別人撫養自己的孩子而生孩子)。 0

Shingo Obata, lives in Georgia. United States (2016-present)

If solving declining population problem means maintaining the population at 120 million over several decades, only one solution is to accept nearly 1 million immigrants per year. I do not think that 1M/year is realistic target. first, Japan is not a good country for immigrants. To liven in Japan, mastering Japanese language is must. Japanese society does not have experience of accepting mass immigrants. Many people still believe that Japan is racially homogeneous country that the concept of cultural diversity is not as widespread as major destination for immigrants such as U.S. and Australia. Although Japan has started the great effort to transform the society so that they can assimilate the people overseas, we cannot win the competition among immigrants seekers so far. We cannot attract enough number of immigrants, unfortunately.

如果解決人口下降的問題意味着要在幾十年時間裏將人口保持在1.2億，那麼唯一的解決辦法就是每年接納近100萬移民。我不認為每年引進100萬移民是個可現實的目標。首先，日本不是一個適合移民的國家。要在日本生活，掌握日語是必須的。日本社會沒有接納大量移民的經歷。許多人仍然認為日本是一個種族同質的國家，文化多樣性的概念不像在美國和澳大利亞等移民的主要目的地那麼普遍。雖然日本已經開始努力改造社會以同化海外人口，但到目前為止，我們還不能在吸引移民的競爭中獲勝。不幸的是，我們無法吸引足夠數量的移民。 0

Improvement of birth rate is like a drop in the ocean as size of cohort in the birth age is too small. Even if the rate increase up to 2, general trend of the population loss won’t be changed. It’s too late.

But try to maintain the population at current level is nonsense considering the cost of accepting massive immigrants. Thus we need to accept the declining population over the decades and I hope it’s gonna be a sweet decline, not a hard crush.

As other people wrote, decline of the population itself is merely a problem as Japan is heavily overpopulated and suffering from the congestion here and there in our tiny islands. 100 years ago we had less than 60 million people. Now, it’s 120 million in the 378k km2 land area, which is 90% of State of California. Also, about 2/3 of land area is occupied by unlivable mountain region. Definitely too much.

提高的那點出生率只是滄海一粟，因為生育適齡年紀的國民規模太小。即使增長率上升到2，種羣減少的總趨勢也不會改變。已經太遲了。

但考慮到接受大量移民的成本，試圖將人口維持在目前的水平就是無稽之談。因此，我們需要接受未來幾十年人口的下降，我希望這是一個温和的下降，而不是嚴重的崩潰。

正如其他人所寫的那樣，人口的減少本身只是一個問題，因為日本人口嚴重過剩，我們生存的小島上到處都受到人口擁擠的困擾。100年前，我們的人口不到6000萬。現在，在37萬8千平方公里（相當於加利福尼亞州面積的90%）的土地上有1億2千萬人生活。此外，日本約2/3的土地面積是不適合居住的山區。人口確實太多了。 0

The real pain in the ass is the least desirable distribution of age groups. With small number of working generation (age 15–64) and large number of the rest of the generation (age under 15 and over 65), 1 person belongs to non working generation is supported by 1.4 person belong to working generation in 2045. Even now the figure is 2.0. To maintain the current national health insurance system and national pension system, payment for pension and health insurance is going to skyrocket. One research shows that national health insurance premium is estimated to increase by 57% between 2009 and 2025 in Fukui Prefecture (https://www.jbaudit.go.jp/koryu/study/mag/pdf/j46d03.pdf). Probably payment for pension will face the similar increase rate. So young people in Japan does not believe the sustainability of the current social welfare system. 

真正令人頭疼的是最不理想的人口年齡分佈。工作代(15 - 64歲)人數較少，其餘代(15歲以下和65歲以上)人數較多，到2045年，平均每1.4個工作代的人需要供養1個非工作代的國民。即使是現在，這個數字也是2.0：1。為了維持現行的國家健康保險制度和國家養老保險制度，養老金和醫療保險的支出將大幅增加。一項研究顯示，2009年至2025年，福井縣的國民健康保險費預計將增長57%。可能養老金的支付也將面臨類似的增長率。因此，日本的年輕人不相信當前社會福利體系的可持續性。