The Journal of Population Studies

Show abstractHide abstract

Population aging is a common phenomenon in the developed countries and it also occurs in Japan. This phenomenon has raised many problems that cover a wide field in our daily lives. And the most important and urgent problem is an increasing burden to the people supporting the dependent people. In other words, it is one of the greatest concerns whether or not we have the economical and social ability to support the dependent people, especially the increasing elderly. In this paper, the author made analysis on the Japanese dependency burden using Labour Force Dependency Ratios (LDR). At first, she projected economic activity ratios by sex and age and consequently the total amount of labour force population until 2025. After that, using the future labour force population, she calculated future LDR. Judging from the results of LDR, the future level of dependency burden will be on the same as or the less than that we experienced already at the past. Today's LDR level (86.0) is the lowest after 1955. LDR will rise to the future. LDR in 2025 will be 103.5 and this will be same level as that in around 1970 and lower than 112.0 in 1955. The future LDR depends on future economic activity ratios. And it is clear that there is a close relationship between LDR and the problems concerning our working circumstances in the future. Various kinds of subjects brought from LDR tend to our choice of the way of working. What we expect for the future working circumstances and hope for a society to live is key issue to work out our future change of the depeudency burden.

View full abstract

Download PDF (2014K)

A demographic analysis of commoners in cites in the Tokugawa period tends to faces difficulty due to the loss of population registers called shummon aratame cho. With genealogical data of daimyo class, however, we can attempt such an analysis by examining the mortality rate in daimyo family in Edo and other castle towns, assuming that this indicate the mortality rate of commoners. In the period from the late 17th century to the early 19th century, infant mortality rate is estimated at 193. 2‰, and child mortality rate is at 229.6‰. They begin to rise in the late 18th century and reach the highest in the mid-19th century. I claim that the increase stems form the deterioration of the environment not only for daimyo's children but also for their mothers and, in this paper, I show that the prevalence of alimentary disease should count as one cause of such environmental deterioration. Urbanization and high mobility of the population from the late 18th century first dissseminate alimentary disease in the densely populated area of commoners, then, the disease spreads in the rather thinly populated area of warriors. In consequence, many children of daimyo class died.

View full abstract

Register with J-STAGE for free!