Australia and Japan - a demographic comparison

When I travel, I like to look beyond the tourist realm.  Naturally, I'm drawn to the demographics of the country I'm in, such as the population, how it's changing, how people live, and how they get around.  I recently travelled to Japan, a country that is culturally, socially and historically very different from Australia.  But how does it compare from a demographic perspective?  Fortunately, the Statistics of Japan website (where I've sourced the statistics) is also in English, so I was able to obtain a lot of interesting data for my readers.


Population 

Australia and Japan have some obvious demographic differences.  For a start, Japan has a much larger population, totalling some 126.4 million (Oct 2018) compared to Australia's 25.1 million (Sept 2018).  Australia is currently in a period of strong population growth, recording a rate of 1.6% for 2017-18.  In contrast, Japan recorded population decline between 2017-18 (0.2%).  Japan's population peaked at 128.6 million in 2009 and has been declining since.

Tokyo's population is growing modestly, but most of Japan recorded population decline in 2017-18.    

Drivers of population change

Both countries have spatial differences in patterns of population change.  We know in Australia that the strongest growth is recorded in our state capitals, particularly Melbourne.  But very few regions (prefectures) in Japan are growing.  In 2017-18, Tokyo-to prefecture grew by 0.7% to reach a population of 13.8 million.  Surrounding prefectures recorded modest growth as well, but many parts of the country recorded population decline of 1.0% or more.  The largest decline was recorded in Akita-ken (-1.5%), located in a more rural area in the northern part of Honshu.   

Japan's population change is driven by natural decrease, ie more deaths than births.  In 2017-18, there were 424,486 more deaths than births.  Contrary to popular belief, there is some migration in Japan, but this totalled 161,456 in 2017-18 - nowhere near enough to outstrip the population change brought about through natural decrease.  This is in contrast to Australia, where overseas migration and a higher number of births are driving the higher rates of population change.  

Similar to Australia, the fertility rate in Japan has been below replacement level (2.0) since the mid 1970s.  The fertility rate and the number of births in Japan have generally trended downward since.  In 2016, the number of births in Japan dropped below 1 million per year for the first time, and continued to fall in 2017 when there were 946,065 births and a fertility rate of 1.43.  This is different to recent trends in Australia which have seen the number of births increase, some of which is due to the larger cohort of younger women, but the fertility rate is much higher than Japan and stood at 1.74 in 2017.

Age structure of Australia and Japan

The graph below shows the age structure of Australia and Japan in 2017.  Clearly, Japan has a much older age profile, with higher proportions of people in the older age groups.  The median age is also much higher - 46.3 years in Japan compared to 37.4 years in Australia according to United Nations data.

About one in seven Australians (15.4%) are aged 65 years and over, compared to 27.6% in Japan.  Australian public policy is increasingly concerned with the 2.0% of the population aged 85 years and over, but this pales in comparison with Japan (4.3%).  More than 5 million Japanese people are aged 85 years and over, compared with less than 500,000 in Australia.

At the other end of the age spectrum, almost one in five Australians (18.8%) are aged 0-14 years, compared to 12.4% in Japan.  The smaller cohorts moving through the age spectrum will impact on education in the short to medium term, and the labour force in the longer term.  

The age structure of the population, alongside the components of change, provide clues as to how it will change in the future.  Japan's older age structure, low number of births and low level of overseas migration combine to create momentum for the continuation of current trends.  United Nation's population projections, using a medium variant scenario, indicate a population of 115.2 million at 2040.  This is a 10% decline on the 2015 population.  In contrast, the same series indicates a population of 30.8 million for Australia, or an increase of almost 30% over the same time.  So while the public discourse in Australia is about the challenges of growth, it is very much the opposite in Japan.

Summary

Australia's population is growing strongly, compared to that of Japan which has been declining since 2009.  The drivers of population change explain these differences.  Australia has a fertility rate of 1.74, and in recent years has recorded historically high numbers of births.  Importantly, there are more births than deaths.  Australia also grows through net overseas migration which has also been historically high for the last decade.  In contrast, Japan has a low fertility rate (1.43), more deaths than births, and a relatively low volume of overseas migration.  Critically, Japan has an older age structure than Australia - 27.6% of the Japanese population is aged 65 years or over compared to 15.4% in Australia.  These demographic characteristics influence how the population will change in the future.  United Nations projections indicate continued population decline in Japan, whereas Australia's population will continue to grow.