Japan's Silver Democracy

Interview

Japan's prime minister speaks openly about the mistakes he made in his first term, Abenomics, Japan's wartime record (and his own controversial statements on that history), and the bitter Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute with China.

An elderly woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Tokyo December 16, 2012. (Yuriko Nakao / Courtesy Reuters)

The results of this weekend?s upper house election in Japan?s Diet will hinge on voters' assessment of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic stimulus plan, his proposals to revise the constitution, and his relations with neighboring countries. In other words, yet another election will pass with hardly a mention of the single-most important factor for the country?s prospects: demographics.

No country is aging faster than Japan. Between 1985 and today, the percentage of the Japanese population over 65 rose from a tenth to nearly a quarter. By 2060, that figure will rise to nearly 40 percent. And by that point, Japan?s population will have shrunk from around 128 million to less than 100 million people.

Although this transformation has only just begun, it is already weighing heavily on Japan?s national finances. It is widely known that the country?s public debt levels are expected to hit 240 percent of GDP next year -- higher than in Greece. But it is less well understood that a portion of Japan?s debt comes from funding the national pension program. Indeed, total spending on social benefits, including health care, pensions, and nursing for the elderly, now exceeds spending in all other categories combined, including education, defense, and Japan?s beloved bridge and tunnel building programs. Much of those expenses are directly related to the rising costs of caring for the elderly. Japan's total expenditures on those 65 and older tripled in the two decades before 2004 and have only continued to increase since then. Spending on families and the young, by comparison, has not increased nearly as much.

In Japan, these vital issues are subjected to very little public discussion. Particularly ahead of elections, politicians avoid addressing subjects that are sensitive for the elderly, such as the over-generosity of the pension system, the excesses and inefficiencies in the health-care system, and the economic difficulties facing young people, which dampen already low fertility rates. The reason: voter demographics. Over the last three decades, as Japan?s population has aged, the percentage of Japanese voters over 60 has more than doubled, to 44 percent. By comparison, as of November 2012, only 21 percent of registered U.S. voters were over 65. Meanwhile, the share of Japanese voters in their twenties has fallen, from 20 percent in 1980 to 13 percent today.

In other words, Japan has two problems: It is rapidly aging, and its old folks will not let politicians do anything about it. The longer Japan waits to confront its aging society, the higher the cost to the economy. The country must start thinking less about elderly voters and more about young families, or its economic prospects will remain assuredly grim.

WORKING IT

Japan?s elderly do not need to throw their weight around through interest groups like the AARP, as senior citizens do in the United States. The structure of the political system does the work for them.

For one, the overrepresentation of rural areas in the legislature gives older people greater influence. The disparity is a legacy of the decades-long rule of the Liberal Democratic Party, which depended heavily on the farm vote, and a failure to keep up with the country's demographic change. Over the last few decades, most of Japan?s youth in the hinterlands has fled for the cities in search of jobs, leaving the countryside -- and all its votes -- ever grayer. Although there have been reforms to the system, the exodus of young people from rural areas has outpaced these changes.

Take Kochi Prefecture, one of Japan?s most rapidly aging areas. Today, its population stands at roughly 760,000, 29 percent of which is over 65. Kochi sends three members to the lower house. Compare this to the much younger Chiba (where 22 percent of the population is over 65), a bustling prefecture with more than six million people and 13 representatives in the lower house. Although it has far fewer members in the Diet in real terms, Kochi is still overrepresented: A vote cast in the third electoral district of young, populous Chiba Prefecture is worth just 0.41 votes in Kochi's third voting district.

Reforms of the electoral system have also increased politicians? incentives to court the elderly. Until 1994, when new electoral reforms were introduced, Japanese parties would run four or five candidates in each district. The party needed only 20 to 30 percent of the total vote to win the whole district. Each party?s candidates thus appealed to different geographic areas, interest groups, and industries. Now, parties run only one candidate, and that candidate needs a majority to win. So the elderly became a crucial demographic. By appealing to them, candidates can attract support from a cross section of industries and regions. Further, Japanese, like Americans, tend to vote more as they age, so they are a more reliable constituency.

Source: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139589/alexandra-harney/japans-silver-democracy?cid=rss-snapshots-japans_silver_democracy-000000

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