Policy experts and social scientists heavily rely on the data presented by population statistics. For instance, population statistics show that the population of Russia, which has the largest territory in the world, is roughly the same as that of Nigeria, whose size is about a sixteenth that of Russia. However, the population of Nigeria is rapidly increasing while that of Russia is slowly declining. Such information as this is very essential when creating policies and planning for the people. However, it is not just a matter of knowing the size of a population; it is also important to understand its internal characteristics such as age and gender distribution to be able to make an accurate prediction. It is best to represent this complex data visually for ease of interpretation (Ted-Ed, 2018) . It is in this case that population pyramids come in handy. Population pyramids are divided into male and females, and the data is represented at intervals of each five-year age. It is, therefore, easy to predict how the population is set to behave in the coming years.
Population pyramids are great tools for studying the age-sex structure of a given country. The nature of a pyramid structure means its shape makes it possible to predict the likelihood of future growth. (Ted-Ed, 2018) gives a general outlook of the population pyramid in various countries such as Rwanda, Canada, and Japan, and how it is likely to affect the population in the future. Rwanda’s population pyramid indicates that it is a fast-growing country because most of the population is in the younger age groups (pre-reproductive stage) of the population pyramid. Most of the population in Canada is clustered in the middle years, which means that there are lesser people in the pre-reproductive stage. This is an indication that the population will grow at a much slower rate compared to Rwanda. Japan’s population pyramid shows that the majority of its population is in its post-reproductive years, and the number of its population is smaller at each younger interval. For this reason, if the rate of reproduction remains constant, then the country’s population will begin to decline. The shocking state of Japan’s population statistics draws our interest.
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The predicted decline in Japan’s population in the coming years is a reason for worry and a call to action. The population in the country has already fallen by almost one million over the past five years. This statistic is worrying for a country whose economy is already shrinking and is dependent on an expanding labour force for it to grow. For this reason, the Japanese government is making every effort to tackle this issue by adding the numbers of individuals in the pre-reproductive stages. The target is to raise the birth rate from the current 1.4 children per woman to at least 1.8. Also, Japan is increasing the number of immigrants in the country with the goal of raising the workforce (Hutt, 2018). The pressure to lift Japan out of the population stagnation is high especially after the recently experienced contraction of the economy in the last quarter of 2015. It is very hard to achieve growth from an ageing society, and this portion of the community accounts for the most indebted economy.
It is, therefore, safe to say that the government is currently doing all in its power to ensure that the population of individuals in their pre-reproductive and reproductive years rises. Also, it is very likely that the country has budgeted the largest portion of its finances to cater for the elderly and a lesser amount is directed towards the younger population for obvious reasons. However, imagine a situation where the estimates were off, and the country’s post-reproductive population is not higher than the pre-reproductive and reproductive population!
In such a scenario, then the government will be striving to increase the population of a group that is already large. For this reason, the acceptance of more immigrants and the increase in the women’s reproductive rate will result in the population of people in their productive stages becoming excessively high all over a sudden. The economy of Japan is already very slow, and this means that there will not be enough time for it to grow and accommodate the suddenly expanded population. For this reason, several people in their productive stage are likely to be left unemployed. Also, the fact that the government has only assigned a small portion of the current budget to this portion of the population means that there won’t be enough capital to fund the education of the suddenly expanded population (Hutt, 2018) . That said, the struggles to increase the numbers of individuals in their pre-reproductive stages will only result in more problems for the country.
A proper forecast of the population is very essential for the government of any nation to plan for its people. The fact that the current estimates show that the population of the post-productive people in Japan is the highest means that the government will direct most of the resources to this group. However, the government will also make every effort to boost the population of the pre-productive and productive groups. This means that is the estimates were off, then the population in the pre-productive and productive groups will end up being excessively high, and the funds allocated to this group will not be sufficient. There is, therefore, need for proper and accurate population forecasting and estimation.
References
Hutt, R. (2018). Japan's population is shrinking: What does it mean for the economy?. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/02/japans-population-is-shrinking-what-does-it-mean-for-the-economy/
PopulationPyramids. (2018). Populations of the World (2018). Retrieved from https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/1950/
PRB. (2018). Human Population: Lesson Plans – Population Reference Bureau. Retrieved from https://www.prb.org/humanpopulation/
Reuters, C. (2018). The Problems of a Graying Population. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/world/americas/29iht-letter29.html
Ted-Ed. (2018). Population pyramids: Powerful predictors of the future - Kim Preshoff. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLmKfXwWQtE
