Japan's fertility crisis is turning into a 'demographic time bomb' — here's how it affects daily life

If you're elderly, it can mean crushing loneliness.

But no matter your age in Japan, chances are good that some aspect of the country's ongoing fertility crisis has touched your life.

Over the last five years, a vicious cycle of low fertility and low consumer spending has led to trillions in lost GDP and a population decline of 1 million people. Economists have a bleak term for this: demographic time bomb.

Demographic experts say that countries need a replacement fertility rate of 2.2 children per woman to keep a population steady. Japan's rate is just 1.41.

UN data

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The intense post-WWII work ethic has lasted. It's common for Japanese workers to log shifts spanning more than half a day.

Despite the ongoing crisis, this is largely how Japan manages to remain the third-largest economy in the world.

On a daily basis, workers who stick to a strict professional hierarchy rise through a given company's ladder. It's reminiscent of US labor trends for most of the late-20th century.

But there are clear downsides — including the lingering preference to hire male candidates over female ones.

feminism's slow build in Japan

At the end of a long, grueling day, many people don't have the time or energy to think about dating, let alone having kids.

The Japanese government has taken extreme steps to counteract the downward spiral, including hosting speed dating events and giving bachelors a chance to experiment with fatherhood.

Ikumen Project

ikumen

The all-male course includes instruction on bathing and changing babies, and provides a simulation of what life is like as a pregnant woman.

Course instructor Takeshi Akiyama said he wants to help men offer a new perspective on adulthood and give them a leg up when searching for a partner.

The pressure young people feel doesn't just come from their employer; it also comes from the responsibility to pay more in social security costs, due to Japan's growing elderly population.

The aging society has seen some extreme outcomes. Adult diapers, for instance, have outsold baby diapers in Japan for the last six years.

The trend is a combination of both greater numbers of seniors and those seniors using diapers for longer than babies typically need them.

are turning into de facto nursing homesWith no one else to care for them, many reoffend just to come back.

More serious ailments are also expected to rise, including dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Currently, dementia afflicts 5 million people in Japan, or 4% of the population. Estimates predict that number will rise to 7 million by 2025.

These threats are made even more serious given the growing crop of seniors who suffer from chronic loneliness.

In Japan, families generally expect younger relatives to care for their elders. But constraints of time and money have prevented many people in younger generations from upholding that role.

With fewer young people to care for them, these lonely seniors wait out their remaining years, sometimes a decade or more, in isolation, according to a New York Times report.

In the most severe cases, people's apartments become their tomb. Neighbors only find out they have died once the stench of death seeps through the walls.

Some people have worked out pacts with their neighbors to watch out for signs they may have died, such as not closing the blinds or turning off the lights, the New York Times reported.

To keep the economy in working order, Japan has turned to artificial intelligence and robotics to replace the young workers that never came up behind older generations.

Japanese companies have also taken leaps in personal assistance technology, as with the robot Pepper, developed by SoftBank.

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Elder care robots have come to play a sizable role.

What was once seen as a biological problem has now been turned into an engineering one. Robots are being taught how to do human tasks without any of the drawbacks that come with fatiguable or impatient caregivers.

But on the other, it signals tacit acknowledgement that a strong workforce is slowly becoming a thing of the past in Japan.

The country has no plans to increase its share of immigrant labor. According to Brinton, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe firmly believes that Japan's labor-force problem can be fixed without addressing the underlying shifts in culture and demographics.

It's a big bet, and one millions of people will be dealing with for the unforeseeable future.