JAPAN
Geriatric Island 1710
30/07/01
Now, nobody likes growing old, but most of us can at least look forward to retiring with a bit of superannuation, or a government pension.Not so in Japan, where theyre facing a demographic crisis.What crisis? Well, the most basic too many old people, not enough youngsters. More importantly, not enough taxpayers which spells a very grim future for the grey-heads. And dont think it couldnt happen here. In many ways Japan is an example for the rest of the west were just not having enough babies!
Mark Simkin on the islands of the aged.
00:00 Simkin: Outside, the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom. The people have gathered to celebrate the arrival of spring.
00:11 But many in Japan are now approaching -- not spring -- but a long winter. A demographic time bomb is ticking. Its shock waves will be felt around the world.
00:20 Courtis: Never has a country aged as quickly as Japan will do so over the next 15 and 20 years.
00:34 Simkin: Japan's population is caught in a demographic vice -- trapped between two irresistible forces.
00:42 Not only are Japanese living longer than in any other country, but the nation's birthrate is one of the lowest in the world. Within six years, the population will start to shrink. By the end of the century it will have halved.
00:49 Elderly People exercising, singing
01:06 Simkin: And as the population shrinks, the proportion that's elderly will get bigger and bigger. Before long, one in three Japanese will be 65 or older.
01:12 Fujiwara: We can foresee in the next 25 years the portion of the very aged -- in other words the people over 75 -- is even bigger than people between the ages of 65 and 75.
01:23 Mariko Fujiwara, Sociologist
So we are approaching an aged society today, that we will soon become a very aged society.
01:41 Simkin: The social implications of that will be enormous, but it's the economic effects that will be truly crippling.
01:52 Kenneth Courtis, Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Asia
Courtis: Twenty years from now Japan will find itself in a situation that for every person who's working, there will be 1.7 people in society who are not working. The financial and economic burden, the social and political consequences of those demographics are crushing.
02:00 Islands Of The Aged
02:22 Simkin: For a glimpse of Japan's destiny, we travelled south to the Inland Sea, to a group of islands known as the Islands of the Aged. It's one of the most beautiful places in the country, and the most geriatric place on the planet.
02:34 Taxi Driver: Did you come from America?
Simkin: Australia.
Taxi Driver: Australia? Thank you for coming!
02:49 Simkin: The local cab driver is 84 or 85. He can't quite remember which. He slowly navigates the regions narrow streets, taking care to avoid slow moving pedestrians.
03:01 Taxi Driver: People my age dont drive a car around here none. Theyre too scared.
03:15 Nishiguchi, Barber
Simkin: Even the barber is 84 and quite willing to admit a visit to him can be a hair-raising experience.
03:27 Nishiguchi: When we get older, our hands get shakey its not good.
03:33 Simkin: Mitsuyoshi Nishiguchi still enjoys his but, but he has one lament.
03:43 Nishiguchi: I only ever cut grey hair, like this mans. There are no young people on this island. Only old people live here.
03:49 Children mannequins
Simkin: It's a common complaint. Children are so scarce, the region's biggest nursing home has taken the remarkable step of installing mannequins to cheer the place up.
04:11 Simkin: Of all the Aged Islands, it's the smallest that has the biggest problem. On Okikamuro, the average age is 71. Three quarters of the population is over 60.
04:23
Toshiko Isobe runs Okikamuro's general store. She's done so since her husband died 20 years ago. Isobe says she's lucky if she gets ten customers a day.
04:41 Isobe: Business is not so good now.
04:53 Simkin: Most weeks she doesn't even make a profit -- but that isn't the point. Like many of the residents here, Isobe lives all alone. The only reason that she keeps the shop open is that it stops her getting too lonely.
04:56 Isobe: If I didnt run the business I would be sitting in the back room. No-one would visit me.
05:11 Simkin: There are plenty of residents who seems happy to oblige. Business may be slow, but conversation is brisk.
05:18
Woman: Tell your daughter when you see her next that I have her wheelchair and walking stick at my house. I want her to come and pick them up
05:26
Simkin: Everywhere on Okikamuro there are reminders of the past, and portents of Japan's future.
05:36
The sprawling cemetery is perhaps the biggest and busiest place on the island.
05:42
Mark Simkin The combination of old people dying, and young people either not having children or moving away in the search for work, has had a devastating effect on Okikamuro's population. After the Second World War, 4,000 people lived in the village. Now the figure is 240.
06:06
Simkin: Scores of houses lie empty -- deserted -- as a testament to the dwindling population.
06:16 But among those who are left, there is a strong sense of community. There needs to be -- government services for the elderly are virtually non-existent.
06:27 In an old fashioned rural community like this, people tend to look after one another.
06:38 Some locals even catch and cook fish for their less mobile neighbours. Seventy-eight year old Haruhisha Matsumoto has been fishing these waters for 50 years.
06:48 He says the notion of the old caring for the even older is an important -- perhaps vital part -- of Okikamuro's social fabric.
07:02 Matsumoto: We look after each other in daily life we are united in helping each other here.
07:09 Simkin: But coastal life in Japan is a thing of the past. Most people in Japan will grow old not in slow moving villages, but in the more forbidding cities of the 21st century.
07:28 Tokyo's homeless queue for a free meal
Simkin: Traditionally, Japan didn't need a welfare state. The company or the family provided the safety net. But tradition in Japan is changing.
07:40 Literally in the shadows of the world's most expensive hotels, hundreds of Tokyo's homeless queue for a free meal. The companies they worked for have turned their back on them. Those who have families are too ashamed to seek help.
07:52 Homeless Man: My children have grown up. Theyre all married. I have grandchildren, too. I would be too hurt to go back to them now.
08:10 Simkin: This man predicts that this will be the future for more and more elderly people.
08:19 Second Homeless Man: I feel sad every day. I want to die as quickly as possible. It will get worse. There are no jobs and the old people are increasing. We cannot help it.
08:23 Simkin: They're volunteers who provide the food. They say the number of homeless here has tripled in just three years.
08:42 Masaki: Always the government say do something about making some shelters, or some programs. They have a plan, but no action, you know, nothing. Nothing happened. Always just do this, do that -- but nothing happens.
08:50 Simkin: Even now, the system of care for the very aged is in trouble.
09:11 Already there is a drastic shortage of nurses, and many doubt the system will be able to cope as the demographics change.
09:16 Nurse: I think it will be a major problem. The number of aged will increase more and more and the number of people that look after them will not be enough.
09:25 Simkin: Kyoko Kawashima is attending this aged centre, but as a day patient. She is one of the fortunate, for Kyoko still lives traditionally with her son's family.
09:41 Thirty years ago 80 percent of Japan's elderly lived with their children. It's now down to 50 percent -- and falling rapidly.
09:56 Kyoko's son, Toshihide, does not expect to live with his children when he gets older.
10:07 Toshihide: We still feel that we have to take care of our parents. But, our kids would probably never expect to take care of us, so we are squeezed between two generations.
10:13 Simkin: Sociologists believe that this change in the traditional oriental family is part of a wider cultural shift.
10:33 Fumie Kumagai, Professor, Sociology, Kyorin Uni
Kumagai: Among the oriental countries, based on the Confucian ideology, filial piety, respect for the seniors and elders is a quite important concept. But on of the indications is when we think of the elderly, we use 'silver', colour of silver, like silver hair. Silver stands for a very precious metal, but that meaning is no longer appreciated or understood properly.
10:40 Simkin: If there is a lack of respect for the elderly now, the situation can only get worse when young people realise the financial cost of looking after the aged. The economic burden will get bigger and bigger, just as there are fewer and fewer taxpayers to shoulder it.
11:16 Kenneth Courtis, Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Asia
Courtis: The tax burden on young people who are working is going to become humungous. In a recent reform the government has put in place a policy that by 2007 will mean that people in the labour force are paying 25 percent of their salary just to cover the pension obligations. On top of that will go the taxes. On top of that will go the sales tax, and on top of that will go your other health care benefits. So you could well see the fiscal burden, if you like, on the taxpayer climb to 60, 70, 75, 80 percent.
11:34 Simkin: Just what percentage of their income these young workers of tomorrow. Will spend on caring for the aged is anyone's guess.
12:12 What is certain is that the Japan they know will be very different from that of their parents. The Japan of the future will no longer hold central power in Asia.
12:22 Courtis: Within this region, if Japan very quickly ages, must of the rest of Asia is going to continue to get young. Take Vietnam -- 1975 Vietnam was 40 million people. 2000, it was 80 million people, and today 86.1 percent of Vietnamese are under 40. By 2020, Vietnam will have a population larger than Japan.
12:31 Simkin: The government is even considering the previously unthinkable -- immigration.
12:56 Yuji Tsushima, Former Health Minister
Tsushima: More and more people are -- what shall I say -- can go along with the immigration, the labour force of higher quality coming from the rest of the world.
13:01 Simkin: Is that potentially a source of tension in Japan?
13:22 Tsushima: Well, naturally, because this is an island country and they are not well trained to get along with the people of different culture.
13:25 Simkin: Many of these changes may not affect Japanese society for years, but the economic impact is already being felt. One of the main reasons for Japan's inability to solve its current financial crisis is that people have recognised the dangers that lie ahead.
13:40 Courtis: Mr and Mrs Suzuki don't understand all of the financial details. In fact, aren't interested in them. But they sense in their intuition that there are big problems brewing. They see what's going on, they are not happy with what's going on. In fact they're extremely fearful of what's going on and they're even more fearful of the future.
14:00 They know that their life insurance is going to be stripped, and their pensions neutered. And their health care slimmed down. So what are they doing? They're doing the only rational thing they can do. Paradoxically, it's to increase their savings rate. Even if interest rates are almost at zero. They therefore dampen their spending, that great engine which is consumer spending, isn't there to drive the economy. And so already the failure of policy to address these issues for the future are having a massive impact on Japan today.
14:58 Simkin: Fear of the future has made Japanese the greatest savers on earth, but retail expenditure has fallen for seven straight years and deflation has set in. Almost every economic indicator -- from unemployment to corporate bankruptcies -- is at its worst level since the war.
15:03 Simkin: Japan is one of the world's richest countries, but one of the worst money managers. The stock market and house prices are now sixty percent lower than they were in the late 1980s. The life insurance industry, which hold one quarter of the country's savings, is in serious trouble. Seven big companies went bust last year alone. And all the while the government is pouring billions of dollars into useless infrastructure projects -- concreting river beds to make the water run better, in an attempt to stimulate an anaemic economy.
15:23 Courtis: Granny Suzuki still believes the numbers in her passbook. And we know they can't be true, simply by looking at what's going on in the life insurance industry. I guess we could say never in history has so much money been lost by so many people by the mismanagement of so few.
15:53 Simkin: Does that mean then that when this aging population retires, when we get to this point when they want to get the pension, they want to get the savings, the money isn't going to be there?
16:15 Courtis: The money is not there today.
16:28 Simkin: The one place the Japanese savings do still exist is in investments overseas, especially in America.
16:40 Simkin: If these funds were withdrawn to fund the aged, the impact on the global economy would be devastating.
16:44 Courtis: It wouldn't matter so much if Japan was a small country, but this is, after all, the second largest economy in the world. Its economy is today two times larger than the economy of the rest of Asia. So whatever happens to the Japanese savings, which over the last twenty, thirty years have been exported to the world and have financed much of the world economy, that's going to have a dramatic impact on how things are organised globally.
17:20 Simkin: It seems Japan's remarkable growth is now well and truly over. The system that transformed a country and funded the world is unravelling, economically and socially.
17:27 It is ironic that the strength and vigour of the new global economic order should depend so much on a nation growing frail.
17:41 Music
17:51 Credits:
Japan Aged
Reporter: Mark Simkin
Camera: Geoff Lye
Sound: Jun Matsuzono
Editor: Kate Wakeman
Research: Yayoi Eguchi
Producer: Andrew Clark
17:58
Geriatric Island 1710
30/07/01
Now, nobody likes growing old, but most of us can at least look forward to retiring with a bit of superannuation, or a government pension.Not so in Japan, where theyre facing a demographic crisis.What crisis? Well, the most basic too many old people, not enough youngsters. More importantly, not enough taxpayers which spells a very grim future for the grey-heads. And dont think it couldnt happen here. In many ways Japan is an example for the rest of the west were just not having enough babies!
Mark Simkin on the islands of the aged.
00:00 Simkin: Outside, the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom. The people have gathered to celebrate the arrival of spring.
00:11 But many in Japan are now approaching -- not spring -- but a long winter. A demographic time bomb is ticking. Its shock waves will be felt around the world.
00:20 Courtis: Never has a country aged as quickly as Japan will do so over the next 15 and 20 years.
00:34 Simkin: Japan's population is caught in a demographic vice -- trapped between two irresistible forces.
00:42 Not only are Japanese living longer than in any other country, but the nation's birthrate is one of the lowest in the world. Within six years, the population will start to shrink. By the end of the century it will have halved.
00:49 Elderly People exercising, singing
01:06 Simkin: And as the population shrinks, the proportion that's elderly will get bigger and bigger. Before long, one in three Japanese will be 65 or older.
01:12 Fujiwara: We can foresee in the next 25 years the portion of the very aged -- in other words the people over 75 -- is even bigger than people between the ages of 65 and 75.
01:23 Mariko Fujiwara, Sociologist
So we are approaching an aged society today, that we will soon become a very aged society.
01:41 Simkin: The social implications of that will be enormous, but it's the economic effects that will be truly crippling.
01:52 Kenneth Courtis, Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Asia
Courtis: Twenty years from now Japan will find itself in a situation that for every person who's working, there will be 1.7 people in society who are not working. The financial and economic burden, the social and political consequences of those demographics are crushing.
02:00 Islands Of The Aged
02:22 Simkin: For a glimpse of Japan's destiny, we travelled south to the Inland Sea, to a group of islands known as the Islands of the Aged. It's one of the most beautiful places in the country, and the most geriatric place on the planet.
02:34 Taxi Driver: Did you come from America?
Simkin: Australia.
Taxi Driver: Australia? Thank you for coming!
02:49 Simkin: The local cab driver is 84 or 85. He can't quite remember which. He slowly navigates the regions narrow streets, taking care to avoid slow moving pedestrians.
03:01 Taxi Driver: People my age dont drive a car around here none. Theyre too scared.
03:15 Nishiguchi, Barber
Simkin: Even the barber is 84 and quite willing to admit a visit to him can be a hair-raising experience.
03:27 Nishiguchi: When we get older, our hands get shakey its not good.
03:33 Simkin: Mitsuyoshi Nishiguchi still enjoys his but, but he has one lament.
03:43 Nishiguchi: I only ever cut grey hair, like this mans. There are no young people on this island. Only old people live here.
03:49 Children mannequins
Simkin: It's a common complaint. Children are so scarce, the region's biggest nursing home has taken the remarkable step of installing mannequins to cheer the place up.
04:11 Simkin: Of all the Aged Islands, it's the smallest that has the biggest problem. On Okikamuro, the average age is 71. Three quarters of the population is over 60.
04:23
Toshiko Isobe runs Okikamuro's general store. She's done so since her husband died 20 years ago. Isobe says she's lucky if she gets ten customers a day.
04:41 Isobe: Business is not so good now.
04:53 Simkin: Most weeks she doesn't even make a profit -- but that isn't the point. Like many of the residents here, Isobe lives all alone. The only reason that she keeps the shop open is that it stops her getting too lonely.
04:56 Isobe: If I didnt run the business I would be sitting in the back room. No-one would visit me.
05:11 Simkin: There are plenty of residents who seems happy to oblige. Business may be slow, but conversation is brisk.
05:18
Woman: Tell your daughter when you see her next that I have her wheelchair and walking stick at my house. I want her to come and pick them up
05:26
Simkin: Everywhere on Okikamuro there are reminders of the past, and portents of Japan's future.
05:36
The sprawling cemetery is perhaps the biggest and busiest place on the island.
05:42
Mark Simkin The combination of old people dying, and young people either not having children or moving away in the search for work, has had a devastating effect on Okikamuro's population. After the Second World War, 4,000 people lived in the village. Now the figure is 240.
06:06
Simkin: Scores of houses lie empty -- deserted -- as a testament to the dwindling population.
06:16 But among those who are left, there is a strong sense of community. There needs to be -- government services for the elderly are virtually non-existent.
06:27 In an old fashioned rural community like this, people tend to look after one another.
06:38 Some locals even catch and cook fish for their less mobile neighbours. Seventy-eight year old Haruhisha Matsumoto has been fishing these waters for 50 years.
06:48 He says the notion of the old caring for the even older is an important -- perhaps vital part -- of Okikamuro's social fabric.
07:02 Matsumoto: We look after each other in daily life we are united in helping each other here.
07:09 Simkin: But coastal life in Japan is a thing of the past. Most people in Japan will grow old not in slow moving villages, but in the more forbidding cities of the 21st century.
07:28 Tokyo's homeless queue for a free meal
Simkin: Traditionally, Japan didn't need a welfare state. The company or the family provided the safety net. But tradition in Japan is changing.
07:40 Literally in the shadows of the world's most expensive hotels, hundreds of Tokyo's homeless queue for a free meal. The companies they worked for have turned their back on them. Those who have families are too ashamed to seek help.
07:52 Homeless Man: My children have grown up. Theyre all married. I have grandchildren, too. I would be too hurt to go back to them now.
08:10 Simkin: This man predicts that this will be the future for more and more elderly people.
08:19 Second Homeless Man: I feel sad every day. I want to die as quickly as possible. It will get worse. There are no jobs and the old people are increasing. We cannot help it.
08:23 Simkin: They're volunteers who provide the food. They say the number of homeless here has tripled in just three years.
08:42 Masaki: Always the government say do something about making some shelters, or some programs. They have a plan, but no action, you know, nothing. Nothing happened. Always just do this, do that -- but nothing happens.
08:50 Simkin: Even now, the system of care for the very aged is in trouble.
09:11 Already there is a drastic shortage of nurses, and many doubt the system will be able to cope as the demographics change.
09:16 Nurse: I think it will be a major problem. The number of aged will increase more and more and the number of people that look after them will not be enough.
09:25 Simkin: Kyoko Kawashima is attending this aged centre, but as a day patient. She is one of the fortunate, for Kyoko still lives traditionally with her son's family.
09:41 Thirty years ago 80 percent of Japan's elderly lived with their children. It's now down to 50 percent -- and falling rapidly.
09:56 Kyoko's son, Toshihide, does not expect to live with his children when he gets older.
10:07 Toshihide: We still feel that we have to take care of our parents. But, our kids would probably never expect to take care of us, so we are squeezed between two generations.
10:13 Simkin: Sociologists believe that this change in the traditional oriental family is part of a wider cultural shift.
10:33 Fumie Kumagai, Professor, Sociology, Kyorin Uni
Kumagai: Among the oriental countries, based on the Confucian ideology, filial piety, respect for the seniors and elders is a quite important concept. But on of the indications is when we think of the elderly, we use 'silver', colour of silver, like silver hair. Silver stands for a very precious metal, but that meaning is no longer appreciated or understood properly.
10:40 Simkin: If there is a lack of respect for the elderly now, the situation can only get worse when young people realise the financial cost of looking after the aged. The economic burden will get bigger and bigger, just as there are fewer and fewer taxpayers to shoulder it.
11:16 Kenneth Courtis, Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman, Asia
Courtis: The tax burden on young people who are working is going to become humungous. In a recent reform the government has put in place a policy that by 2007 will mean that people in the labour force are paying 25 percent of their salary just to cover the pension obligations. On top of that will go the taxes. On top of that will go the sales tax, and on top of that will go your other health care benefits. So you could well see the fiscal burden, if you like, on the taxpayer climb to 60, 70, 75, 80 percent.
11:34 Simkin: Just what percentage of their income these young workers of tomorrow. Will spend on caring for the aged is anyone's guess.
12:12 What is certain is that the Japan they know will be very different from that of their parents. The Japan of the future will no longer hold central power in Asia.
12:22 Courtis: Within this region, if Japan very quickly ages, must of the rest of Asia is going to continue to get young. Take Vietnam -- 1975 Vietnam was 40 million people. 2000, it was 80 million people, and today 86.1 percent of Vietnamese are under 40. By 2020, Vietnam will have a population larger than Japan.
12:31 Simkin: The government is even considering the previously unthinkable -- immigration.
12:56 Yuji Tsushima, Former Health Minister
Tsushima: More and more people are -- what shall I say -- can go along with the immigration, the labour force of higher quality coming from the rest of the world.
13:01 Simkin: Is that potentially a source of tension in Japan?
13:22 Tsushima: Well, naturally, because this is an island country and they are not well trained to get along with the people of different culture.
13:25 Simkin: Many of these changes may not affect Japanese society for years, but the economic impact is already being felt. One of the main reasons for Japan's inability to solve its current financial crisis is that people have recognised the dangers that lie ahead.
13:40 Courtis: Mr and Mrs Suzuki don't understand all of the financial details. In fact, aren't interested in them. But they sense in their intuition that there are big problems brewing. They see what's going on, they are not happy with what's going on. In fact they're extremely fearful of what's going on and they're even more fearful of the future.
14:00 They know that their life insurance is going to be stripped, and their pensions neutered. And their health care slimmed down. So what are they doing? They're doing the only rational thing they can do. Paradoxically, it's to increase their savings rate. Even if interest rates are almost at zero. They therefore dampen their spending, that great engine which is consumer spending, isn't there to drive the economy. And so already the failure of policy to address these issues for the future are having a massive impact on Japan today.
14:58 Simkin: Fear of the future has made Japanese the greatest savers on earth, but retail expenditure has fallen for seven straight years and deflation has set in. Almost every economic indicator -- from unemployment to corporate bankruptcies -- is at its worst level since the war.
15:03 Simkin: Japan is one of the world's richest countries, but one of the worst money managers. The stock market and house prices are now sixty percent lower than they were in the late 1980s. The life insurance industry, which hold one quarter of the country's savings, is in serious trouble. Seven big companies went bust last year alone. And all the while the government is pouring billions of dollars into useless infrastructure projects -- concreting river beds to make the water run better, in an attempt to stimulate an anaemic economy.
15:23 Courtis: Granny Suzuki still believes the numbers in her passbook. And we know they can't be true, simply by looking at what's going on in the life insurance industry. I guess we could say never in history has so much money been lost by so many people by the mismanagement of so few.
15:53 Simkin: Does that mean then that when this aging population retires, when we get to this point when they want to get the pension, they want to get the savings, the money isn't going to be there?
16:15 Courtis: The money is not there today.
16:28 Simkin: The one place the Japanese savings do still exist is in investments overseas, especially in America.
16:40 Simkin: If these funds were withdrawn to fund the aged, the impact on the global economy would be devastating.
16:44 Courtis: It wouldn't matter so much if Japan was a small country, but this is, after all, the second largest economy in the world. Its economy is today two times larger than the economy of the rest of Asia. So whatever happens to the Japanese savings, which over the last twenty, thirty years have been exported to the world and have financed much of the world economy, that's going to have a dramatic impact on how things are organised globally.
17:20 Simkin: It seems Japan's remarkable growth is now well and truly over. The system that transformed a country and funded the world is unravelling, economically and socially.
17:27 It is ironic that the strength and vigour of the new global economic order should depend so much on a nation growing frail.
17:41 Music
17:51 Credits:
Japan Aged
Reporter: Mark Simkin
Camera: Geoff Lye
Sound: Jun Matsuzono
Editor: Kate Wakeman
Research: Yayoi Eguchi
Producer: Andrew Clark
17:58