Japan’s N. Korea Policy, by the Numbers

If you want to figure out what’s happening in Japan and South Korea these days, it helps to look at underlying population trends.

Nicholas Eberstadt, a Harvard University demographer, collects them. He delves through birth and death statistics for clues to the future. These numbers provide some perspective on today’s news.

Over the past few weeks, for example, Japan has been refusing to give rice to help relieve the famine in North Korea. Japanese officials soon may relent, but they so far have proved more reluctant than the United States, or even South Korea, to send emergency food aid.

Why? Japan offers a variety of reasons. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, for instance, has pointed to North Korean kidnappings of Japanese citizens two decades ago.

But the figures collected by Eberstadt suggest another possible factor: Japan may have an unstated interest in avoiding the emergence of a prosperous, reunified Korea, one that could emerge as a competitor.

Let’s take a look at some of the long-range demographic trends for these countries:

No. 1: The Koreans (North and South combined) have been catching up to the Japanese in population, and will continue to close the gap at least for the next two decades.

In 1955, there were about 90 million Japanese and about 30 million Koreans, a ratio of 3 to 1. By 2015, however, there will be 125 million Japanese and nearly 80 million Koreans, a ratio of about 3 to 2.

Now, just for fun, let’s make a few extra assumptions. Let’s declare North Korea to be the basket case that it is. Pyongyang’s Communist regime looks more and more like a failed state whose economic system is never going to survive in its current form.

And let’s make one more big leap into futurology: Let’s say that the two Koreas will, over the next two decades, be united under a system roughly comparable to what South Korea has today. In other words, let’s assume that North Koreans will eventually become part of South Korea. That’s hardly automatic but it’s not utterly beyond belief either.

Now look at a comparison between Japan and South Korea--that is, a non-communist Korea, one which is able to compete economically with Japan.

Add the diminishing difference in their population totals to the lingering historic animosities among Koreans toward Japan. Does the idea seem so farfetched that Japan might not be too eager for Korean reunification?

No. 2: The Japanese population is getting older much faster than South Korea or any other of its Asian neighbors.

Japan’s birth rate is far below the levels needed to replace its population. As a result, by the year 2015, about 24% of all Japanese will be age 65 or older. In South Korea, by way of contrast, the figure will be 10%, and in the United States it will be 14%.

There has, of course, been lots of worry in the United States over the long-range financing of Social Security and Medicare as fewer workers face the prospect of supporting larger numbers of retirees. However, America’s problems pale when compared to those Japan will confront.

The remarkable graying of Japan already has become a factor affecting current government policies.

Only last week, for example, U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, on a stopover in Tokyo, suggested that the Japanese government should rely on domestic demand, rather than exports, to produce growth in its economy. The Clinton administration fears that an increase in Japanese exports would cause America’s trade imbalance with Japan to worsen.

Yet Japanese officials insist that they have to curb government spending, thus limiting domestic demand, because they are worried about whether the country will be able to pay the high costs that accompany growing numbers of elderly people.

The statistics show that South Korea has some significant demographic problems too. That brings us to:

No. 3: South Korea is now producing what appears to be the biggest imbalance of boys over girls in the world.

Increasingly, South Korean couples seem to be choosing to have abortions if they discover, through prenatal tests, that the sex of their fetus is female. As a result, notes Eberstadt, the ratio of baby boys to baby girls in South Korea has climbed from about 105 to 100 (the normal level) to nearly 120 to 100. No other country, except possibly China, has a ratio that high.

For first-born children in South Korea, the ratio of boys to girls is nearly normal. For second borns, it is higher, and among fourth-born children, boys outnumber girls by nearly 2 to 1. In other words, after the first birth, many South Korean couples allow a pregnancy to go to term only if they are having a boy.

It’s hard for us even to guess what these last statistics will mean for South Korea’s future. But we can assume that some day there will be lots of men who can’t find wives or girlfriends inside South Korea. One place to look will be north of the border.

That’s a powerful, although bizarre, demographic factor propelling Korean reunification. The numbers tell the story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Closing the Gap

The Koreans (North and South combined) have been catching up to the Japanese in population, and will continue to close the gap at least for the next two decades. Total population (in millions):

1955: About 90 million Japanese vs. 30 million Koreans, a ratio of 3 to 1.

2015: Estimated 125 million Japanese vs. 80 million Koreans, a ratio of 3 to 2.

Source: UN, World Population Prospects: The 1996 Revision