13-02 Over and Under

To examine over-population and under-population two nations to put under the microscope would be China and Japan. I have travelled to both and can understand things you cannot grasp just by studying statistics.
Mary and I were in China for our 30th wedding anniversary and it was just a short few years after the Chinese government introduced its one child policy to control its population growth.
I did not see much deprivation anywhere in China, so you could only call China over-populated because on balance it imports large quantities of food to feed its people.
However, they are the most populated nation in the world, so they have the most challenges to face dealing with issues like scarcity of resources, environmental damage and that sort of thing.
I remember seeing people in Beijing walking about with face masks because of the air pollution. So many people burning coal in their homes created a layer of nasty smog over the city.
When you go on these extended visits to a foreign country your best sources of information come from your guides who understand your language and culture and the history of the country you are visiting.
And talking to our two guides, one speaking Cantonese and the other Mandarin, they were honest about the one-child policy and warned that there was already evidence that Chinese couples who could determine the sex of their unborn child were aborting girls.
Following up on this reality, the latest projections of the population in China show that by the year 2025 there will be four boys for every girl. That should make legalized prostitution an industry of the future. Apparently, India has the same problem.
Our Chinese guides told us that the problem started with Chairman Mao after the World War ll, encouraging couples to have large families. And the average couple had something like six children. Mao thought the large population would ensure a supply of cheap labour that would give the economy huge growth potential.
Now, to get some insight into the opposite problem. Under-population.
Several trips to Japan, helped me understand the issues associated with a population that is shrinking and all that means for the ability of young people to carry the burden of looking after the elderly. The Japanese boast about how they lead the world in centenarians.
Now that I am in my 80s, the issue of how so many Japanese make it to age 100 has got my attention. Must eat more fish.
During my visit to Japan that I began to understand the issue of a homogeneous culture compared to a heterogeneous culture.
Nations like Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand are heterogeneous because they are a product of massive immigration from many cultures over an extended period. So, immigration is not a threatening debate. Not so in Japan.
At a discussion group at the International Small Business Congress in Nagoya, I suggested that if Japan is facing a shrinking population and China is facing over-population then why not allow large numbers of Chinese to emigrate to Japan.
The translator started waving his hands to me to suggest this kind of discussion was a no-no. The group did not even discuss my suggestion.
It is just not within the Japanese culture to bring in large numbers of people of another race.
So, what is going on in Japan. Well if you wonder why Japan is a world leader in robotics, then you should understand that they will need robots to cope with their labour shortages.
And it was fun hearing them talk about companies encouraging couples to leave their place of work before the end of their shift so they could have sex and procreate. So many Japanese work long hours and come home exhausted.
So much promotion around having children with government child allowances being made more and more generous. And I love the photo of a Japanese child that was being used in a government promotional effort to remind couples what they are missing.
My Japanese visits exposed me to a culture with a powerful work ethic, that is a mix of ancient history and culture, but in harmony with modern electronic technologies. It is an extraordinary society. And the Japanese believe massive immigration would threaten their culture.
How nations like China, India and Nigeria deal with over-population and nations like Japan and Britain and Germany deal with under-population is everyone’s business. Demographics drive everything.