The problem is already so bad that elderly people have been found dead in their homes, and rotting there for weeks, even months. They have a word for it, kodokushi.

The issue Japan has is similar to other countries in that they’re not replacing current people with enough people to keep the country operational. On top of this, and in no way am I saying this as to imply racism on my part (I used to live in Japan and love their country), but their immigration laws are extremely strict with a layer of xenophobia. The #1 way countries have alleviated demographic challenges in the past are through immigration. The US has done this and still does. For example, we import many farm workers, low-wage industrial workers, and scientists, too. When a country refuses to accept outside help, problems arise.

Currently there are over 100 million forcibly displaced people on the planet, 89.3 displaced globally and 53.2 displaced internally within their home country. That’s 1% of the population, or 1 in 78 people, roughly.

What a deficit of working-age people will do to a country we can already see some of the effects of now. Labor shortages, sometimes severe, which leads to increasingly higher demands put into current workers. Services and goods are less available because production decreases. The quality of things decrease, like maintenance getting done. It takes longer to get things. Some businesses shut down because it becomes impractical to keep enterprises going. That’s a brief explanation what demographic imbalance looks like.

An example of a country that has perfect demographics is actually Mexico. They have the right number of old, working age, and young people.