Robots & Women: Japan-Tech 2015

You know from recent blogs – if not from your own knowledge – that birthrates in many developed nations have dropped like a stone. If not for immigration, even the United States would be seeing a decline in overall population growth. The cost of living has become so expensive in several developed countries, especially Asian powerhouses like Singapore and Japan, or the future so depressing, like Italy, that the overall population is contracting.

Nowhere is this more evident that in Japan, which has exacerbated the contraction of overall population growth with its xenophobic intolerance of foreigners (it is unbelievably difficult to become a Japanese citizen if you are not born there). Understanding that a “replacement” – no growth – birthrate (assuming no immigration, which applies more to Japan than almost anywhere else) is 2 children per couple, the birthrate in Japan has fallen to its lowest in recorded history, about 1.3 live births per couple.

“Japan's birth rate slumped to a record low in 2014, health ministry figures show, dropping to 1,001,000 newborns in 2014 - 9,000 fewer than in 2013. The fall is the fourth in consecutive years and comes as the estimated number of deaths continues to rise, at just under 1.3 million last year… Some estimates say that by 2050 the population could be as low as 97 million - 30 million lower than now.” BBC.com, January 1^st.

Further, The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates this declining birthrate is also resulting in a swelling of older citizens and retirees. By 2060, their estimates suggest that 40% of Japanese will be over 65 (it’s 20% today), putting a huge strain on pension and retirement systems, with fewer younger workers supporting a huge increase in retired workers.

If you are xenophobic, the immigration solution is simply off the table. So what to do? Japan has increased its efforts to design and upgrade its manufacture of increasingly sophisticated robots, from those that are used in car manufacturing plants to robots simply designed to care for the elderly. Some can flip pancakes or even paint fancy designs on nails (see above picture). OK, more robots, but is that remotely enough?

Recently reelected Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, the architect of a not-so-well-defined new theory of economics for Japan (“Abenomics”), has an additional solution, not so easily implemented in a male-dominated society where women are seen primarily as domestic homemakers and caretakers: move massive cadres of women into the Japanese workforce.

“Japan has one of the most highly educated female populations in the world. And yet much of that talent is going to waste… Compared to their counterparts in North America and Europe, far more Japanese women give up full-time employment after they have their first child, and fewer go back to full-time work once their child is in school.

“According to a research paper by Kathy Matsui, at Goldman Sachs in Japan, getting full-time female employment up to the level of Italy could add 15% to Japan's GDP… Prime Minister Abe has declared himself a fan of what has become known as ‘Womenomics.’

He has set an extremely ambitious target that by the end of this decade, 30% of all managers in Japanese companies should be women.

“There are lots of reasons why this won't happen… Primary among them is Japan's work culture. Talk to any professional Japanese woman about her experience in the corporate world and you are likely to hear a similar story… Work hours are extremely long, routinely extending far into the evening. Male-dominated social drinking is a part of corporate life… Taking time off to have children destroys promotion prospects - as does leaving the office ‘early’ to make dinner for your children.

“In short, trying to balance family life and a full-time job is almost impossible… Despite a 1986 law banning it, endemic discrimination against women in the workplace is still rife.” BBC.com, December 11^th. But if Japan doesn’t figure out how to invigorate its work force, to offset the declines inherent in a graying population with fewer productive members of the labor pool, Japan’s economic future – which is currently in a mild recession – is nothing but bleak. And Japan hasn’t really had a good economic year since 1991.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when tradition and cultural values come up against the unyielding rules of economics, something has to change in a very big way.