ABSTRACT
One thing i owe to this book is that it gave me an early lesson in the dangers of prediction. Discussing the population problems in the transitional period before the fall of the birth-rate began to have its effect, I wrote in 1957 in a gravely pessimistic tone (not, I see without certain intimations of punditry which I would like to think I have subsequently managed to nip in the bud). ‘In the immediate future’, I said, ‘the Japanese economy will find it difficult enough to prevent the rural population from increasing by ensuring a steady outflow simply of the younger sons’ (let alone, I implied, managing to improve the man-land ratio in agriculture by finding non-agricultural jobs for eldest sons who would otherwise stay to inherit their fathers’ farms).
