ABSTRACT
Japan used to be a rising tiger in Asia, after World War II, and she provided the new development model to the world. However, Japan’s standing as an economic superpower started to fade: She has suffered from long-term economic recession for more than two decades since the early 1990s and, above all, she is the leading country in which the demographic transformation, represented by ageing, took place in a very short period of time. A fast change in the demographic structure was associated with a growth of economic inequality. An ageing population occurred alongside the increase in the extent of income inequality and, in fact, Ohtake, a Japanese economist, claims that the increase in income inequality is largely explained by the ageing population because income inequality among old people is much higher than among working-age people (2005). Why is the degree of economic inequality high among the elderly? What is the mechanism behind it? This is the main question to be addressed in this book.
