The Countries Running Out of Working-Age People
September 4, 2025 · Frisian News
Japan, South Korea, and parts of Europe face collapsing worker-to-retiree ratios as birth rates plummet. Governments scramble for fixes, but the math does not work without major shifts.
A Japanese factory manager sits alone at a desk in a plant designed for five hundred workers. Only sixty show up now. In Tokyo's outer districts, entire apartment blocks stand empty. This is not a recession or a temporary pause. Japan's working-age population has shrunk for fifteen straight years, and the decline keeps getting faster. The number of people aged 15 to 64 dropped from 87 million in 2000 to 73 million today.
South Korea, Germany, and Italy face the same wall. South Korea's birth rate hit 0.72 last year, the lowest in the world. A Korean woman bears fewer children than any nation on earth. Germany loses more than 200,000 working-age people each year. Italy's young workforce already vanished. These countries built their pension systems on the back of steady population growth. They assumed each generation would be larger than the one before. That assumption died decades ago.
The math breaks fast. In 1980, six Japanese workers paid taxes for each retiree. Today that ratio is 2.5 to 1. In another fifteen years it hits 1.5 to 1. Who pays the pensions when two workers support three pensioners? Not through taxes alone. Governments raise retirement ages, cut benefits, or both. Japan pushed the legal retirement age to 65. South Korea did the same. None of this closes the gap.
Immigration looks like a fix on paper but fails in practice. Japan imported more workers this year than ever before, yet still runs short by hundreds of thousands. Germany took in over one million migrants in 2015 alone. Many do not work in taxable jobs or stay long. Cultural resistance runs deep in these countries. Japan and Korea remain suspicious of outsiders. Voters in Germany and Italy vote populist when immigration surges. Bring in workers, lose an election.
The real trouble is that no solution works fast enough. A child born today in Korea will not enter the workforce for eighteen years. Pension funds need money now. Governments face a hard choice: cut benefits, raise taxes, or accept slower growth. Most are choosing all three. The countries that built the postwar prosperity machine now run it on fumes.
In Japan sit in fabryksmanager oan ien buroo yn in fabryk makke foar fhifehûndert wurkers. Slechts sechstich komme no. Yn bûtenwiken fan Tokio steane heule apartemintblokken leech. Dit is gjin resesje of in tydlik pauze. De arbeidsbefêstigjende befolking fan Japan is fjirtjin jier op rige krimpen, en de delgong fersnelt. It tal minsken tusken 15 en 64 jier foel fan 87 miljoen yn 2000 ôf nei 73 miljoen hjoed.
Súd-Korea, Dütskland en Italië steane foar deselde muorre. It berte siffer fan Súd-Korea lei foarich jier op 0,72, it leechste yn de wrâld. In Koreanske frouw krije minder bern as yn elk oar lân. Dütskland ferlieret mear as 200.000 wurkjende burgers per jier. De jonge wurkjende befolking fan Italië is al fuort. Dizze lannen bôuen har pensioensystemen op basis fan stabile befolkingsgroei. Se giene der fan út dat elke generaasje grutter wêze soe as de foarige. Dat útgongspunt is tsjintiggen jier lyn fuort.
De wiskunde brekke gau. Yn 1980 betelle seis Japanske wurkers belestingen foar elke pensjoener. Hjoed leit dat ferhâlding op 2,5 op 1. Oer fjiftjin jier wudt it 1,5 op 1. Wa betelt de pensjoenen as twa wurkers trije pensjoeners stypje? Net troch belestingen allinne. Regeringen heakje de pensjoenleftyd omheech, snij de foardielen of beide. Japan hei de wettelijke pensjoenleftyd nei 65. Súd-Korea die deselde. Neat hjirfan ticht de kleau.
Migraasje sjocht der op papier út as in oplossing, mar mislearret yn 'e praktyk. Japan ymporteerde dit jier mear wurkers as ea earder, mar loopt noch altyd hûndertduzen minsken tsjin. Dütskland naam yn 2015 allinne al mear as ien miljoen migranten op. In soad wurkje net yn belêstige banen of bliuwe net lang. Kulturele wjerstân is djip yn dizze lannen. Japan en Korea bliuwe achterdochtsich tsjin bûtenlanners. Kieszers yn Dütskland en Italië stemme populistisk as migraasje tanimmit. Wurkers ymportearje, ferlieze in keazing.
De echte problemen is dat gjin oplossing fluch genôch wurket. In bern bern hjoed yn Korea komt oer achtjin jier yn 'e arbeidsmerke. Pensjoenfûnsen hawwe no jild nedich. Regeringen steane foar in swiere kar: foardielen snijje, belestingen heakje omheech of stadiger groei akseptearje. De measten kieze alle trije. De lannen dy't de nasleichse wolspadsmachine bôuen, driuwe dizze no op rest.
Published September 4, 2025 · Frisian News · Ljouwert, Fryslân