April 2019

11Apr

Pension burden: More Japanese opt to retire late, extend employment period

Some economists expect the average pension-to-wage ratio to keep deteriorating and worries are growing that Japan's 'pay-as-you-go' pension scheme may be unsustainable Yasuhiro Furuse could have retired two years ago, but he wasn’t entirely happy with his pension income and had to put any such thoughts to bed.It was just as well for Furuse’s employer Orix Corp, a financial services group, which would have struggled to find a replacement, with Japan’s jobless rate at 26-year lows. This win-win arrangement, increasingly common...

April 11, 2019
Aging, Articles, Labor Market,
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March 2019

20Mar

What Japan Can Teach Us About The Opportunities Of An Ageing Society

Prime Minister Abe’s recent visit to the UK was a chance for the two countries to talk about common issues affecting their future. Let’s hope one of the topics they discussed was how to deal with an ageing society. In the 1970s and 1980s the world looked to Japan to learn about lean manufacturing. After the 2007-8 global financial crisis it looked to Japan to see how to deal with the aftermath of a financial crisis. Japan is a...

March 20, 2019
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17Mar

The Feasibility of Reverse Mortgages in Japan

By Richard K. Green (University of Southern California - Lusk Center for Real Estate) & Linna Zhu (USC Sol Price School of Public Policy) This paper examines the feasibility of reverse mortgages in Japan by utilizing stochastic modeling to characterize the movements of three stochastic variables—interest rates, property values and mortality—underpinning the value of reverse mortgages. We use the yield curve to forecast future interest rates, taking into account the interest arbitrage condition and the term premium. We employ hedonic...

March 17, 2019
Articles, Pension design, Savings, , ,
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17Mar

Population Aging, Health Care, and Fiscal Policy Reform: The Challenges for Japan

By Minchung Hsu (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)) & Tomoaki Yamada (Meiji University - School of Commerce) We construct a transition analysis based on a general equilibrium life‐cycle model to investigate the effects of aging, and we evaluate various policy alternatives designed to lessen the negative influence of aging. In particular, we analyze reforms of insurance benefits and tax financing tools that were recently the focus of a great amount of attention and debate in Japan because of...

March 17, 2019
Aging, Articles, Slider-Left, , ,
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February 2019

14Feb

Japan. The 100-year life and public pension reform

The Abe administration emphasizes the arrival of the “100-year life,” and the government envisions labor market reforms that meet the needs of a society in which people live much longer than past generations. While elderly people will need to have more money to cover the expenses of living longer, the policies that address this issue are not being seriously discussed by the government. Given the growing length of post-retirement life, will people still be able to heavily depend on...

February 14, 2019
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January 2019

11Jan

Japan. Face challenges of a shrinking, aging population

The latest population estimate by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, released late last month, points to the accelerating decline of Japan’s population with ever fewer births. The number of babies born in this country in 2018 is estimated at 921,000 — down 25,000 from the previous year and falling short of 1 million for the third year in a row. The lowest annual number of births on record since the government began taking comparable statistics in 1899 was...

January 11, 2019
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December 2018

13Dec

Aging Japan: Dementia puts financial assets of the elderly at risk

“What’s a microwave?” she asked her husband, Eiichi. Yumiko was in the early stages of dementia, struggling with vocabulary and unable to teach the kimono-dressing classes she had run for 25 years. The difficulty with everyday tasks has made life challenging for her and Eiichi, who has been caring for her since 2008. But she is also unable to deal with her finances - a situation that experts say is increasingly common in fast-ageing Japan and that puts trillions of yen worth...

December 13, 2018
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October 2018

26Oct

Japan. AI to transform GPIF manager selection

AI will transform the way Japan’s ¥158 trillion ($1.4 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) to select and monitor its asset managers. The world’s biggest pension fund, which outsources all its investment management, announced plans last year to use AI to better scrutinise its poorly performing active managers. Since then, AI specialists Sony Computer Science Laboratories and GPIF have developed a proof-of-concept prototype that uses deep learning to study manager styles and strategies. The latest progress report on the project promises...

October 26, 2018
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22Oct

Aging Japan rice farmers struggle

Grain falling out of favor with young consumers A crop once deemed so important it served as a form of currency, Japanese rice has fallen out of favor with younger, Westernized consumers, in a shift that has left ageing farmers struggling for survival. Rice consumption has nearly halved over the past 50 years, and as the older generation of farmers and consumers dies out, some fear the industry will be unable to hold its own in a competitive global market. Kazuo Ogura,...

October 22, 2018
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September 2018

17Sep

Japan crosses new aging milestone, with 20% now 70 or older

Abe signals shift in priorities to easing labor shortages TOKYO -- As new estimates put the number of people in Japan age 70 or older at more than a fifth of the population for the first time, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is signaling a renewed focus on contending with the economic impact of an aging labor force. The 70-and-over segment of the population grew to an estimated 26.18 million, or 20.7%, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported Sunday. That marks an...

September 17, 2018
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