Japan – The demographic demographic problem in one chart

Japan has a major demographic problem: 26 percent of its population is elderly, the largest percent of any country in the world. That’s because Japan’s birthrate is declining, as is its overall population. In other words, a huge chunk of its population is getting old and leaving the workforce, and not enough people are being born to take their place.

It’s hard to appreciate the scale of this crisis — and it is a crisis — abstractly. Which is why this eye-popping chart, from a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is so helpful. It shows the percentage of Japan’s population that’s elderly (green), working-age (blue), and too young to work (red), estimated all the way out to 2050. What you see is a massive rise in the percentage of elderly in Japan at the expense of the other two categories:

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  Japan’s demographic time bomb, in one chart – Vox

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