A financial professional, Chuck (Atsushi) Kawakami (pictured) recently reported on the Impact of declining working-age population in Japan, the United States and China on economic expansion. MIRUPLUS pick up his analysis as follows;

It is often said that the difficulty in expanding Japan's economy is due to the declining population, especially the working-age population between the ages of 15 and 64. Certainly, in Japan, this working-age population has been declining since 1997. The current estimate is that it has fallen below 74 million, which was 84 million in 2005, a decrease of about 10 million over the last 16 years.

On the other hand, the expectation that China's economic expansion will continue is deep-rooted in the market, but the working-age population in China has begun to decline after peaking at 1.15 billion in 2014.

Currently, it is estimated that there are about 1 billion people. It will be about a decrease of 150 million people in just seven years. As far as the working-age population is concerned, China is one of the countries that have been aging.

In addition, the OECD forecasts that the working-age population in the United States will continue to grow, but the OECD's monthly estimates show that it has begun to decline after peaking at 207.5 million in May 2020.

It must be determined whether this will continue as it is, and if the immigrant factor is changing due to the division of the country in the United States, where the population has increased due to the social migration of immigrants, the working-age population will also change. It may not be as expected in the past.

Recently, the media and financial markets have taken up the economic recovery of the United States and China with great expectations, but even if we look at the indicators of China, for example, the business sentiment is recovering and is heading a little.

The corporate debt issue has a larger balance as a percentage of GDP than during the bubble era in Japan, and continues to exist as deflationary pressure. It's a difficult phase to steer. Although the situation is looking after the corona pandemic, it is necessary to recognize that there are still various hurdles.

Chuck (Atsushi) Kawakami

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