Since the first crisis in the Japanese economy, the population growth rate has been decreasing. Even though it is still positive (figure 1-4-4, 1-4-5), the rate is falling below 1%, and is expected to become negative by 2025. The falling growth rate is attributed to falling birth rates, which have fallen from 2.09 million in 1973 to 1.19 million in 2000. More families are now choosing to stay longer without children, or to have just one child. Young people in Japan nowadays are choosing to get married later, and often stop at one child. More women want to have a career 3), and they sacrifice their family life. Based on the traditional Japan, a woman has to choose either to work or to retire and become a housewife, looking after the children and her husband. If the woman had a life-time employment contract, she cannot return once she left to have children. Even when returning to the labor force as a temporary or part-time employee, the woman may experience difficulties in finding a job. According to the custom, once a woman has a family, it is her duty to stay at home, bring up the new generation and create a home for her husband.
However, the low population growth means shortages of labor in the economy. So, more women are choosing to have a career, filling the vacant places. Thus the labor force doesn’t have shortages, but this has an effect on the birth rate, which keeps falling.
Figure 1-4-5 |
Figure 1-4-4 |
C. Foreign workers
The Japanese have one more option in recovering their economy, except for drawing women into the labor force. They have already started to, and will probably increase to let foreigners into the Japanese labor market. Foreign workers can fill in the gaps in the economy, and like most Asian countries, Japan has been admitting only educated skilled workers. These are offered lower wages that Japanese workers and often work more and harder. However, this solution is just temporary. These workers themselves, once accepted into Japan, will become older and retire, and the country will have to care for them. Often they come with families or create a family in Japan, thus keeping the situation almost unchanged. The possibility Japan has been considering is sending the workers back to their home country after they reach their retirement age, thus not having to care for them, but this solution is unacceptable for most countries of the world.
Foreign workers as a whole now comprise over 2% of Japan's paid working population, they are most present in manufacturing. The distribution by sectors is as following:
73.2% in manufacturing
14.5% in services
5.2% in retail, wholesale and restaurants
4.2% in transportation and communications
2.9% in other industries
Movements have begun to make these foreigners equal with the Japanese. Until now, immigrants had no rights granted to them in their employment, and had close to no rights elsewhere. Unions are creating a swirl in the employment legislature, demanding not an improvement in the conditions for foreigners, but an across-the-board improvement for all workers.
