Tribune. The Japan-Korea-China triangle is at the heart of the Asian model of high-speed growth that has so inspired the rest of the world. Demographically, these three countries have benefited from a large, young and well-educated population entering the workforce. But those times are over. All are facing a sudden drop in the birth rate, the rapid aging of their populations and an urgent need to adapt their economic and social model.
In Japan, the fertility rate per woman has fluctuated between 1.3 and 1.4 since 1995; the population, estimated at 125.7 million people in 2021, has an average age of 49 and has already fallen by 3 million since its peak in 2011. South Korea’s population has not yet decreased, but the fertility rate has fallen since 2018 to 0.9, the lowest level in the world! As for China, it has already joined this club because of its one-child policy (1979 – 2016): fertility fell to 1.3 in 2020. Its population is close to its maximum at 1.415 billion and is going soon to decline, but the average age, 38, is still low. These fertility rates contrast with those, which are still high, in the rest of Asia, particularly in India (2.2 in 2018) and South-East Asia (Indonesia at 2.3).
Radical transformation
The population is aging very rapidly in all three countries. Those over 65 represent 28% of Japanese in 2018 (the highest rate in the world), 14% of Koreans and 11% of Chinese. For comparison, this rate is 20% in the European Union and in France. This generates a “dependency” ratio (between the elderly and the working population) of 50% in Japan in 2019; it should wait 80% in 2060. South Korea starts from lower (20% in 2019), but it is heading towards the highest ratio in the world in 2060 (85%). China is currently at 15%, but the rise will be rapid in the coming years, although it has abandoned the one-child policy, allowing two children in 2016, then three in 2021. But the effect of this late change will be very limited due to the exorbitant costs of living in cities and the modernization of lifestyles. How are the countries of Northeast Asia reacting to this radical transformation?
First, for cultural and political reasons, Japan, South Korea and China will rely very little on migration, despite the demands of their companies. Japan and Korea have opened the door to limited populations for limited periods of time and meeting specific economic and cultural criteria (with a maximum of 400,000 people in the case of Japan), but these small steps will have no impact. real.
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