User:Mmkogure/Sociology in Japan

Ageing population
The population of Japan is expected to decrease by one-third during the next fifty years with about 40% of the remaining population being over 64 years old, a trend of the aging of Japan. Financial burden and caring responsibilities are increasing for the future working generations. At the same time, a crisis is faced by Japanese universities as the young population shrinks. The number of 18-year-old people was expected to decrease from 2,050,000 in 1992 to 1,200,000 in 2007 and continue downwards. In 2000, sixty percent of the colleges were already unable to recruit enough students. The ageing population situation has created various social problems. The author, Florian Coulmas, in their study titled "Population Decline and Ageing in Japan – the Social Consequences", estimated that in 2025, 60 percent of the Japanese population will be over the age of 75.

Depopulated area
In the study titled "Coping with Regional Vulnerability Preventing and Mitigating Damages from Environmental Disasters" by Kiyoko and Yoshimi Hagihara, they discovered that during Japan's rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, migration from rural villages to urban areas resulted in a population shortage. This made it difficult to maintain settlements in rural areas. The authors mentioned that rural areas play an important role "in supplying food, conserving national land, conserving the head sources of a stream and conserving the natural environment". As a result of depopulation in those areas, it is difficult for the community to fulfill their role of supplying food and water and conservation services.