ABSTRACT
The global demographic crisis of the 20th century was supposed to be overpopulation, said to be the ultimate source of many of the world's woes. Japan's birth rate is so low and its life expectancy so long that soon enough, the entire nation will have the demographic profile of a large retirement community. Japanese politicians are well aware of the declining population but except for sponsoring a few surveys, the ruling party has not acted decisively to reverse the trends. An analysis of Total Fertility Rate and social expenditures for young families showed a fairly strong linear relationship across twenty-eight Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations–the more a society spends on supporting young families, the higher the birth rate. Falling birth rates coupled with increasing life expectancy have an obvious effect on the "dependency" ratio, or as Kato has it, the "aging ratio," the number of people age 65 and older divided by the total population.
