The population has been declining and society is aging. The working-age population and total population marked their respective peaks in 1995 and 2008. The ratio of seniors aged 65 years or older to the total population has continued to rise. Many people doubt that Japan can achieve economic growth in the situation of the declining and aging population.
Looking back, people used to be concerned about overpopulation. For example, in the first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), Thomas R. Malthus argued that, even though a population increases geometrically, food increases only arithmetically, and thus population growth constrains an enhancement in the living standard per capita.