Japan has done the world a favour by paddling into the turbulent waters of demographic winter before the rest of us. After the second World War, Japan did not have the ‘baby boom’ the West experienced. As a result, they’re already deep into the problems of an aging population. Most of Japan’s population is over 50.
In our consumer economies, spending peaks at age 48. A little over a decade ago, when Japan’s average age passed that level, the Nikkei Stock Index tanked, losing almost 80% of its book value. A slow economic recovery has been engineered by government spending and investment policies; but the major factor in their modest recovery has been exports to the West, where the population hasn’t yet hit the spending peak.
The middle of our ‘baby boom’ is slated to hit that peak in 2009.
When North American consumers stop buying, the global economy will tank. With few children coming behind us, who will re-fuel the fires of the economy.
Answer: no one.
So how can we escape this boom-bust cycle? And more important: how can we protect our children from its ravages?
There is only one answer: have more children.
But that’s easier said than done. Québec is trying to bribe families into producing more children; but it isn’t working. Several European nations have tried bonus schemes as well. Russia-which is losing 700,000 people a year-has the most generous scheme, with a $9,000 bonus for each child, $4,500 per year per child, and deep tax exemptions for families with more than two children.
It’s not working there, either.
The only answer is a cultural change that values children, and recognizes the contribution made by the women who have children and make the home environment a place to transmit the culture from one generation to the next. These women are our most productive citizens.
But until the news and entertainment media start focusing on the value such women bring to society, instead of reporting avidly on the débacle of the pop-tart celebrity of the week, no change in social attitudes is going to take place.
The poison of “pleasure before responsibility”, and of mindless adulation of people who are “famous for being famous” is, more than anything else, what greases the slippery slope to demographic winter.
There are also ways that government policies can help:
- Promote adoption instead of abortion;
- Help make affordable home ownership available to single-income families;
- Design benefit programs that give special recognition to married, two-parent heterosexual families.
And I think we ought to award the Order of Canada every year to at least one exemplary stay-at-home Mom.