Posted on 03/07/2008 2:59:51 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
The Japanese population is believed to have peaked at about 127.5 million in 2005. Since then the figure has declined, with some estimates suggesting the population could shrink to 105 million by 2050. The drop is feared to have negative impacts on the nation's labor force and grave social and economic consequences. Recent reports seem to indicate that the sexual proclivities of Japanese men are contributing adversely to the situation.
More and more men, reports maintain, are turning to masturbation and sex toys rather than to their female counterparts. And further exacerbating an already declining birthrate of 1.29 children per women found in a 2004 survey by The Daily Yomiuri, is the fact that some men are increasingly turning their backs on sex.
"Sex is just way too much trouble," a 35-year-old Japanese man told Shukan Asahi this week, adding that ever since he used masturbation as a teenager, he's never desired a woman again. [snip]
Low birth rate coupled with the aforementioned sexual dysfunctions make the problems that Japan faces immediate and daunting.
"With Japan's labor force expected to decrease by 10% in the next 25 years, the economic outlook is far from bright. In all likelihood, the domestic market will shrink, production will fall, the government's revenue base will contract inexorably and it will struggle to meet welfare and medical payments for an increasing number of elderly as the dependency ratio (the number of workers supporting the elderly) will shift dramatically. In 1950, one elderly person was supported by 12 members of the working population, by 1990 it was 5.5 workers, and by 2020 it is estimated to be 2.3 workers. Naturally, the government is concerned about such a scenario," Julian Chapple wrote in a 2005 study titled "The Dilemma Posed by Japan's Population Decline".
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
You know, I’ve been reading the title to this thread all evening and ignoring it because it didn’t make any sense to me.
I thought it said: “six inch depth...”
It’s safe for work. Cherry 2000 was a futuristic movie about where you can purchase the PERFECT robot/housekeeper/sex toy and this dude has the processor in his unit die. He hires a woman to go out into the “badlands” ruled by bandits to get a processor from some place. The woman is Melanie Griffin.
I can join ya - but don’t take that too literally...
And housing becomes affordable?
that would be a great tagline!
She wasn’t the robot. She was the woman who tool the guy to find the processor for the robot.
I think they mean kids are too much trouble. I always though Japan would have enough sense of their own culture and history that they wouldn't follow Europe into the abyss.
But it looks like they are headed there.
i am not convinced that the dire predictions will prove out, in the long run
my point is not directly concerned with the ‘sex’ issue as much as it is the general issue of the survivability of the japanese society
if they have proved anything in the last century it is that they are masters at adapting
technologically and in the numbers and variety of applications, no nation has advanced as much as japan with robotics - they may yet make a lie out of america’s belief it cannot survive without immigration
all i am saying, in sum, is that the japanese already have been demonstrating some attributes that indicate that if any nation can adapt and continue to do well - economically well - with a shrinking population, it could be japan
hehe *grin* no....numbers series, 01, 02, 03...10..20...30...40...XX....I'll in the mood, fer luv (pant, pant :)
I really doubt that when the ratio of retirees to productive workers gets to 2:1, either party will think it’s a “better quality of life for those who remain.”
From my experience with the Japanese I have met [the company I work for is owned by a Japanese Corporation].The 1st thing any of the Japanese want to do when they get here is hit the topless bars and ogle the Babes. And they know where all the hot places are before they get here.
” Although we’ve got people, they’re not people born to the people who were here before.”
Very well put — the weakness of today’s social programs in a nutshell.
I used to say that social programs were a pact; whereby you agreed to help me look after my grandmother, if I agree to help look after you when you needed it. I like your way of putting it better.
The perfect storm of: urbanization, mass internal migration, massive immigration, “multiculturalism”, smaller family size, and the disintegration of the nuclear family (the disintegration of the extended family is almost ancient history); has almost completely eroded the “kith and kin” relationships necessary to hold a society together. The social compact is crumbling.
Kudos for you for planning to care for your father. It’s unfortunate that the long-term care insurance isn’t more flexible. FWIW, however, it is probably much more flexible than what our government monopoly health care system provides in Canada.
When you're a geeky mama's boy otaku (ultra-nerd) who won't put down the porno comics to get a real woman, yeah, it probably would be too much trouble.
日本＊ピング＊ (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
Yes. Substituting coerced "support" for voluntary commitments between people has proved to be a failure.
We’d been been putting my Father’s monthly Social Security check directly into our checking account for household expenses for the 15 years he was living with us, a very modest amount but enough to make it possible for me to stay home, care for him and also homeschool the boys.
When the Dr. at the regional medical center said that Father had an est. six months to live, he was signed into the med-center Home Hospice program, which meant he could come back from the hospital and do his final chapter surrounded by family.
The Hospice program (paid for by Medicare) supplied CNA’s who came fo 1/2 hour every morning to give him his sponge-bath, tooth-brushing (well, he as toothless: they call it Oral Cavity Care), shave, shampoo, get him dressed, provide the meds he needed, morphine, oxygen, nebulizer.
He ended up being 27 months in this “dying” process, which turns out to be just like living, after all. He enjoyed a laugh, a good word, a prayer, the Sacraments of the Church, a joke, a hug, an ice cream, almost to the very end.
Much to be thankful for here.
Thanks for the information. We’ll do what my parents want, of course, but it’s encouraging to see one way it can work out.
LOL.
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