Three paths to population decline: Russia, Germany and Japan

This paper compares the causes, likely consequences and responses to population decline in three modern developed countries: Germany, Japan and the Russian Federation. All share low period fertility equivalent to about 1.4 children, with no relief from demographic momentum. In all cases decline is likely to accelerate with population ageing. In Japan decline is moderated by long expectation of life, which exacerbates population ageing. In  the Russian Federation, high male death rates exacerbate decline but moderate ageing. Immigration delayed decline in Germany until recently. In Russia, immigration, low in Soviet times, now substantial from the Central Asian Republics, has stalled decline temporarily. Despite demands from employers, immigration into Japan, resisted for cultural reasons, remains a fraction of that into Western Europe.

Population and fertility decline in Russia, not in prospect until 1991, followed a crisis in economy and politics and is perceived to be threatening, warranting  crude responses to promote the birth rate. The processes in Germany and Japan are more gradual.  Some perceive Germany to have been overpopulated and its decline as unthreatening. Post-war inhibitions about ‘population policy’ have been cast aside. Economy and politics remain robust. Japanese responses are pessimistic, with official projections forseeing continuing low  fertility and even population extinction.

Regional decline is salient in Germany and Russia, in the former East zone and the Northern and Siberian regions respectively. Rural and small city depopulation is salient in Japan. Prospects of recovery seem bleak in Russia, as radical reform of politics and economy are needed.  In Japan, radical cultural changes, difficult to engineer, are needed to revive the birth rate and make immigration acceptable. Germany seems to offer the best chances of an orderly management of decline and the most likely case of stabilisation of fertility and age-structure at a sustainable level.