Media Tip Sheet: Experts Respond to Japan's Population Crisis

Many are saying Japan will ‘disappear’ if there is no action on birthrates. Two Syracuse University faculty experts (listed below) can speak on this topic. If you’d like to schedule an interview with either of them, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.

Margarita Estevez-Abe, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, focuses her work on Japan and on demographic aging and its problems. She said what is happening in Japan is very interesting and there are multiple angles.

• • Focusing on the fertility rate drop, she says there are two stories here: One about gender issues in Japan, and the other is on the worsening economic conditions of ordinary people.
  • On broader concerns for Japan’s super population aging (and shrinking), she says the government has been pushing for a narrative that Japan’s fiscal problem is due to Japan’s exceptional generosity to old citizens.  A larger number of older people don’t have enough pension to live off and need to work in their 70s. There was a New York Times article about a Yale assistant professor preaching mass suicide of old people; but, she says the article misses the point on the afore-mentioned narrative that the government has been promoting it for about a decade.
  • There is a lot of interesting immigration and political economic angles, too, and that is why she is writing a book on the topic and can share more about it.

Leonard M. Lopoo, professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, has written two opinion pieces on the U.S. population crisis in the Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. He is also writing a book on this topic.

• • • His focus areas include child and family policy, behavioral economics, economic demography.
    • When it comes to Japan, he says “Japan is just the tip of the iceberg. Total fertility rates are dropping all over the world. We should prepare for similar headlines in the decades to come. While there is much to be concerned about with declining fertility there is also positive consequences as well.”