Also, Japan’s elderly population ratio is much higher than the aforementioned Asian economies whose total fertility rates are low: Hong Kong (13 percent), South Korea (11 percent), Taiwan (11 percent), and Singapore (9 percent). This is why aging issues tend to be regarded in Asia (excluding Japan) as being on the future structural agenda in spite of frequently reported articles and growing awareness.
It is clear that the main issue for Japan is how the society will cope with the rapidly declining rates of its working-age and total populations (charts 16 and 17). Though Germany follows Japan with regard to declining trends in working-age and total populations, those trends could be partially mitigated by net immigration flows.