REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM

The unprecedented quake and tsunami pummelled an area of Japan that has come to
epitomise the country’s demographic dilemma of a shrinking and greying population.
Towns in the northeast have been losing young people and industry for years, leaving
behind an increasing number of the elderly.

MARCH 2011
 THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011
An elderly man makes his way through the flooded area of Rikuzentakata March 23, 2011, after the area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. REUTERS/Damir Sagol
Japan’s ageing towns pose
rebuilding challenge
By Yoko Kubota
RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan, March 24
M
ichiko Yamada, 75, ran barefoot
with her husband to the rooftop of a
hospital in this coastal town in northeast
Japan, barely outracing the super tsunami
unleashed by Japan’s strongest earthquake.
They spent a cold night there before a helicopter
plucked them to safety.
Their neighbour Hayato Murakami, 73,
scampered up a hill not far from his home just
as the onrushing waters of the gargantuan wave
washed over where he had been standing.
Many elderly people are among the 25,600
dead or missing in Japan’s double disaster,
including at least 1,800 people in Rikuzentakata.
But many if not most of the survivors seen huddled
on their tatami mats in the town’s temporary
shelters are also old. And that is one of the more
remarkable features of the astonishing events of
March 11.
These elderly survivors, most of them on
medication, lame and infirm, drew upon some
inner reserve of strength to run up hills and
rooftops, scramble atop cars, or cling to debris in
the swirling tsunami waters to save themselves.
Now a town whose population has been in
decline for years, abandoned by many of its young
who have migrated to the big city lights to find
work, has gotten even older. Many of those killed
here were vitally needed workers. With the city
almost totally devastated, more of the young will
leave.
“The economy here was not good to begin
with, and now we have nothing left,” said 35-year-
old Tetsuaki Konno, who worked for a local food
processor destroyed by the tsunami. “If I have no
job, then I am troubled, so I may have to leave. It’s
not like I have that much attachment to this city.”
More than a third of Rikuzentakata’s
population was 65 and over, compared with
nearly a quarter in Japan as a whole, which itself
has become the fastest ageing country in the
world. What to do with shattered coastal towns
such as Rikuzentakata will be one of the key issues
of the rebuilding effort, and a test of how Japan
will handle its ageing challenges.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano
made that point in an interview with Reuters on
Thursday. The huge national effort needed to
overcome what Japanese Prime Minister Naoto
Kan has called Japan’s biggest crisis since the end
of World War Two could help Japan tackle the
2
 THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011

deep-rooted problems of a fast-ageing

society and an economy facing stiff
competition from global rivals.
9.0 earthquake off the coast of Honshu, Japan
*

“The energy needed to overcome 141ºE 142ºE 143ºE RUSSIA

the quake disaster and nuclear accident xxx MONGOLIA
will be overwhelmingly greater than JAPAN
that needed to overcome those sorts of Morioka CHINA
problems,” he said. “In the process, we TOKYO
may take a big first step toward finding
out how to resolve such problems as those Rikuzentakata Estimated Population Exposed to Earthquake Shaking
39ºN Selected Cities Exposed*
of an ageing society with a low birthrate.
MMI ß City Population
“Those who are left will have to rebuild VII Sendai 1,038,000
their lives after losing almost everything, Sendai
Epicentre VII Iwaki 357,000
and doing that could, in a sense, become 0546 GMT VII Koriyama 341,000
VII Morioka 295,000
a model for how to ... create communities 38ºN
VII Fukushima 294,000

xx/11
and social welfare systems in areas not hit xxx Fukushima VII Yamagata 255,000
by this disaster,” he said. VI Utsunomiya 450,000
Koriyama
Source:
Reuters graphic/Catherine Trevethan
VI Akita 320,000
Schools and hospitals that have been VI Mito 247,000
turned into temporary shelters are full of 37ºN VI Hachinohe 239,000
VI Hitachi 186,000
senior survivors. Almost all of them fled
with nothing but the clothes they were Utsunomiya KEY Perceived shaking Potential structure damage
Pacific Ocean VII Very strong Moderate to heavy
wearing and seem unable to contemplate
VI Strong Light to moderate
a problematic future. They remain in
a state of stunned disbelief over what Source: USGS, *GeoNames Database of Cities with 1,000 or more residents. ß Modified Mercalli Intensity readings
for resistant & vulnerable structures USGS upgraded quake to 9.0 March 14 Reuters graphic/Catherine Trevethan
happened.
For two terrifying minutes starting at 2:46
p.m. on Friday of March 11, the magnitude 9.0
earthquake shook homes and buildings, and some damage here. The town, which boasts one the temporary city hall he has set up in a school
ruptured streets in this town of 23,000 people. of the most beautiful beaches in northeast Japan lunch catering center, one of the few buildings left
Many knew a tsunami was bound to come and and touted as having one of the country’s 100 best standing.
they began running from their houses. views, had built high seawalls to thwart them, About 80 of the 230 employees working at
Rikuzentakata has long been used to tsunamis among the many infrastructure projects Japan City Hall are dead or missing after the tsunami
and conducts annual drills for them. Just last year, had undertaken over the past two decades to lift ploughed through the building. A fifth of the fire
a tsunami triggered by Chile’s earthquake caused the economy out of its doldrums. brigade perished even as they ferried children and
But the dark waves the size of a three-storey the elderly to safety.
house, which followed the quake 20 minutes “From my point of view, many of them could
later, roared in from Hirota Bay and bulldozed have held important roles in our city,” the mayor
right through the barrier and on through the town says. “We do not have enough manpower now,
until they smacked into the hills several kilometers and the city is not functioning.”
beyond, atop which the survivors watched in horror. A number of high school students are also
“There have been tsunamis before but they among the dead and missing. A younger generation
were just a little bit,” Yamada said from her new desperately needed to help reverse Rikuzentakata’s
home at a middle school shelter in the ruined long slow decline has been decimated.
town. “The tsunami was black and I saw people The mayor had plans before all this happened
on cars and an old couple get swept away right in to lure back the young who go to Sendai—the
front of me.” main city in this area—or even Tokyo for university
and never come back.
“SEA ALPS” “We used to have a beach,” he shrugs. “In this
This area of Northeast Japan is mountainous region where the coastline is saw-toothed, here the
near the coast, and the coastline itself largely coastline was straight for 2 kms and pine trees were
consists of jagged cliffs and rock pillars dubbed growing, which is very rare, so many people visited
“The Sea Alps”. from the inland. I wanted to rebuild tourism, as well
Rikuzentakata is the exception. Its long flat as the local seafood industry, with the help of many
beach, lined with tall pine trees and sporting a young people. But now the situation is like this.”
resort hotel, was the pride of the town—and did Fishing was important here, including scallops
nothing to impede the tsunami and abalone. Oyster beds were cultivated in Hirota
Futoshi Toba, 46, who only became the mayor Bay. The industry, in fact, was just recovering from
RESPECT: Bodies discovered by soldiers from Japan’s Self
Defence Force are flagged with red and yellow markers of Rikuzentakata last month, lost his wife to the last year’s tsunami, the mayor says. “I can’t tell you
after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck killer waves, but he’s barely had a moment to how many people would want to do this again.”
Rikuzentakata, northern Japan March 13, 2011 REUTERS/ mourn her. He listens patiently as a steady stream Construction of temporary housing has already
TORU HANAI
of supplicants comes to him with their requests at begun in Rikuzentakata. Toba says the townspeople
3
THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011

Kobe earthquake and dwarfing even that

VOICES
want to stay together and rebuild the town,
which is now a vast field of rubble. But it will be of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, making it the
many months at least before permanent housing world’s costliest natural disaster.
can be built for the displaced, and some fear they Standard & Poor’s had cut Japan’s credit
will be forced to settle elsewhere. rating weeks before the quake, saying Tokyo
Even before this disaster the government had no plan to deal with its mounting debt.
had begun merging small towns that have been The rating is now one notch below Spain’s. “The economy here
gradually hollowing out for years, though it may Japan’s nearly two-decade long economic was not good to begin
come under pressure to keep the disaster-struck doldrums had already set in at the time of the
ones intact. Kobe quake. But government debt then stood with, and now we have
“There will be a political and emotional just above 50 percent of GDP. Only 12 percent of
response demanding rebuilding of most of the the population was over 65, half what it is today.
nothing left”
affected villages, even though it may not make Even before the disaster, Tokyo had talked Tetsuaki Konno, 35, employee of a local food
social and economic sense to do so,” said Michael of the need to loosen up immigration to allow processor that the tsunami destroyed
Auslin, a Japan expert at the American Enterprise foreign workers to fill the growing gaps left
Institute (AEI), a Washington think-tank. by its ageing and declining population. It had
also acknowledged a need to reform the highly
OLDER AND DEEPER IN DEBT inefficient but politically influential farm sector. “We do not have enough
Like many other towns in Japan, and indeed Could the disaster spur such changes? manpower now, and the
the national government itself, Rikuzentakata Auslin at AEI says no.
had piled up debt to improve infrastructure “I think just the opposite will happen: city is not functioning”
while trying to maintain the same quality of a renewed emphasis on tapping Japanese Futoshi Toba, 46,
services to its citizens even as its sources of traditional strengths and “doing it by Mayor of Rikuzentakata
income dwindled. ourselves” (with lots of foreign aid, of course),
Now the town’s finances have gone from so as not to leave the impression that the
dire to even worse. quake wound up breaking the Japanese spirit
“People lost their fixed assets so we will not or permanently altering Japanese culture,” he “I can’t commit suicide,
receive taxes for that,” the mayor says. “There wrote in an e-mail interview.
are no places to work, which means no income A weak Democratic Party of Japan government
so I’ll do my best”
tax. We will need the national government to will be under enormous pressure to deal with Yukiko Yamaguchi, 70+,
aid us fiscally.” the multiple demands of the crisis , including Rikuzentakata resident
But Japan’s debt is already more than the near meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi
double that of its $5 trillion economy and the nuclear plant in the quake zone.
rebuilding costs will add a heap more to it. “There will be short-term political unity
The Japan government estimates the among the parties, but I expect soon enough “I DON’T EXPECT THEM
there will be finger-pointing and accusations
disaster could ultimately soar to more than
among political parties,” Auslin added.
[MY SONS] TO COME
$300 billion—three times that of the 1995
BACK HERE”
Takao Sato, 53, senior member of the
Rikuzentakata fire brigade
Japan’s ageing population
150,000
Total population – ’000s Aged 0 – 14 Aged 15 – 64 Aged 64 and over
“The entire country
123,611 126,926 127,176
122,735
is having a tough time
117,060
120,000 115,224
105,695 deciding whether it
90,000
95,152
should invest in this
road, this dam, this
60,000
port, this airport. (The
30,000 quake) showed Japan’s
bigger problem”
0
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 Akira Yamasaki, economics professor at
Chuo University, Tokyo
Note: 2010 to 2050 figures are estimates.
Sources: Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, IPSS
Reuters graphic/Christine Chan 23/03/11

4
THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011

An age-old issue CLICK TO VIEW JAPAN’S

CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
VOICES
Japan’s population is ageing at a rapid pace. Nearly one in four
Japanese are now aged 65 or over and the figure is expected to
reach almost 40 percent by 2050. The population is also shrinking
and forecast to decline by about a quarter to 95 million in 2050. “I wanted to rebuild
tourism, as well as
POPULATION BY AGE & SEX (in thousands) Male Female
the local seafood
industry, with the help
1980 AGE
> 90
85 – 89 of many young people.
80 – 84
75 – 79 But now the situation
70 – 74
65 – 69
60 – 64
is like this”
55 – 59
50 – 54 Futoshi Toba, 46,
45 – 49 Mayor of Rikuzentakata
40 – 44
35 – 39
30 – 34
25 – 29 “Let’s do our best
20 – 24
15 – 19
10 – 14
Takata, let us rejoice
5–9
0–4 that we are alive”
6000 3000 0 0 3000 6000
Posters hung at the entrance to a gymnasium,
currently a temporary shelter
2010 AGE
> 90
85 – 89
80 – 84
75 – 79
70 – 74
“I FEEL THAT IT WILL
65 – 69
60 – 64 SOMEHOW WORK OUT,
55 – 59
50 – 54 THAT I WILL SOMEHOW
45 – 49
40 – 44
35 – 39
MAKE IT WORK OUT”
30 – 34
25 – 29 Koji Yamaguchi, 70+,
20 – 24 Rikuzentakata resident
15 – 19
10 – 14
5–9
0–4
6000 3000 0 0 3000 6000 “There will be a
political and emotional
2050 AGE
> 90 response demanding
85 – 89
80 – 84
75 – 79
rebuilding of most of
70 – 74
65 – 69 the affected villages,
09/02/11

60 – 64
55 – 59 even though it may
50 – 54
45 – 49 not make social and
Reuters graphic/Christine Chan

40 – 44
35 – 39
30 – 34 economic sense”
25 – 29
20 – 24 Michael Auslin, Japan expert,
15 – 19 American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
10 – 14
5–9
0–4
6000 3000 0 0 3000 6000

Note: Data for 2010 and 2050 are projections.

Sources: Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research

5
THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011
PASSING TIME: People evacuated from the disaster zone in a sports hall turned into a shelter in Rikuzentakata after the
area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami March 21, 2011. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
A COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Yukiko and Koji Yamaguchi, a retired
couple in their 70s, escaped the tsunami
carrying only their puppy “Choco” with them.
They sit next to each other at a temporary
shelter in the gymnasium of a Rikuzentakata
middle school, she reading a newspaper, he a
manga comic.
Posters hung at the entrance to the gym
say “Let’s do our best Takata, let us rejoice
that we are alive.” Like other shelters in
the shattered town, it appears to be filled
predominantly with the elderly.
The Yamaguchis, who have been married
for 48 years, are among the generation
that helped rebuild Japan from the ashes
of World War Two to become the world’s
second-biggest economy and an innovative
manufacturing leader. They would like to see
their town rebuilt, but just don’t see how.
“I’m ready to do as much as I can, but
when you’re over 70, you have problems with
your eyes and legs,” the wife Yukiko says. “I’m
worried the town will disappear. I would like to
hear the young people say ‘don’t worry about
it’, but many of them have died.
“Old people can’t work, and stores may
not be able to make a comeback,” she says.
“It’s not just one small town but the entire
coast. We can help one another but there
is a limit to that,” she adds. “I can’t commit
suicide, so I’ll do my best.”
Her husband Koji says he can’t imagine
what the future will be like when the couple
has nothing at all to their name now. “I
feel that it will somehow work out, that I will
somehow make it work out.” Then he adds with
a laugh: “My job now is just to sleep.”
In simpler times, people in the inland parts
farmed and coastal residents fished. The northeast
once supplied 20 percent of Japan’s rice needs.
But farming has become a part-time occupation
in many areas, and the fishermen have been
crowded out by more efficient factory ships.
Data from the farming ministry showed the
number of farming households in the northeast
fell by 30 percent between 1985 and 2005. And
in 2005 nearly a third of the farmers were 65
or over compared with a national average of 17
percent.
The government used to provide younger
workers in the area with jobs on public works
projects, which also kept the stagnant Japanese
economy from tipping into recession. But those
programmes began drying up years ago, as the
national fiscal debt mounted.
“Here in the countryside, public works was very
necessary,” said Tsuneo Onodera, 71, as he surveyed
the ruined town from atop a hill. “Farming is not
sufficient to make a living, so people used to work in
construction in the summer. Then the public works
stopped coming and we started having trouble with
our livelihoods.”
That could soon change. Around 130,000
buildings were damaged or destroyed in total
in the disaster area, along with roads, bridges,
ports and railways. This will require the biggest
reconstruction effort Japan has faced since the
Second World War.
As the world’s third largest construction
market, Japan has the resources, skills and
social cohesiveness required to rebuild quickly,
but the disaster may also spur it to think harder
about how—and where—to rebuild devastated
towns and villages, experts say.
“It will be a good chance to rebuild new
kinds of towns now,” said Akira Yamasaki, an
economics professor at Chuo University in Tokyo.
“It would not be very convincing to invest
in areas where no one will be living in in 20
years. So the key to whether these areas could
be rebuilt is whether the people there would
be prepared to live there in the long-term,
produce things there and have children.
“The entire country is having a tough time
deciding whether it should invest in this road,
this dam, this port, this airport.(The quake)
showed Japan’s bigger problem.”
build a base?
Japan is filled with towns like Rikuzentakata,
falling into slow decline along with Japan’s
population. The March 11 catastrophe will
only accelerate that trend. By 2050 almost
40 percent of the population will be aged 65
and over and the overall population by then
is projected to dwindle to 95.1 million from a
peak of 127 million in 2010.
Over the next four decades, according to
current demographic trends, the economy
will start shrinking along with the population,
unless productivity somehow outpaces the
decline in the labour force. In a milestone of
that decline, China at the end of last year passed
Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy.
FAMILY TIES: A woman carries her daughter in a
shelter for those evacuated from the disaster zone
in Rikuzentakata March 23, 2011, after the area was
devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
5
THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM MARCH 2011

SPECIAL
REPORTS
More in-depth reports on Japan disaster:

How Japan’s nuclear disaster happened:

http://link.reuters.com/guz58r

Can Japan find new deal after triple whammy?:

http://r.reuters.com/mak58r

Advanced economies recover faster in disaster:

http://r.reuters.com/mak58r

Disaster shows flaws in just-in-time production:

http://link.reuters.com/muk68r
KEEPING WARM: People sit around a fire as they burn trash at a shelter for those evacuated from the disaster zone in
Rikuzentakata March 23, 2011, after the area was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. REUTERS/
In Chernobyl, a disaster persists:
Damir Sagolj
http://link.reuters.com/dyn58r

The first members of the post-war baby
boomers will start to retire this year and
reinforce a demographic downward spiral—
increased deficits to fund pensions and health
care, less revenue from workers’ income, more
debt, and possibly more deflation.
Rikuzentakata has around 20 nursing
homes and facilities, none of which were
seriously damaged in the tsunami. With
the likelihood that young people will move
elsewhere in search of work, the picturesque
coastal town could well end up becoming a
retirement center—if it continues to exist at all
as a town.
Welfare worker Satoshi Yoneta said the
displaced people worry they may be moved
away from the town. “They have no idea where
they’ll be living. It was perhaps half in jest, but
we were talking about maybe inviting the U.S.
military to set up a base here.”
Some 20 warships from the U.S. Seventh Fleet
have sailed to the disaster zone along with soldiers
and airmen to conduct humanitarian missions,
reminiscent of a similar operation in Indonesia Radiation fears may be greatly exaggerated:
during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. http://link.reuters.com/zyd68r
The operation has helped smooth ties
with Japan that had been frayed over the Why Japan will avert a fiscal meltdown:
government’s vacillations over the future of http://link.reuters.com/web68r
the huge U.S. base in the southern island of
Okinawa. Fuel storage, safety issues vexed Japan plant:
But other town residents see no future at http://r.reuters.com/qun68r
all for Rikuzentakata, let alone one as host to a
foreign military base in Japan’s heartland.
Takao Sato, 53, a senior member
of the volunteer fire brigade, described
Rikuzentakata as a community marked for
extinction. “I imagine it will be really tough
to rebuild this place,” he said as he and other
firemen searched the rubble for dead bodies
` GRAPHICS
and personal effects. For a Japan disaster graphics suite, click
Gesturing towards the coastline where here: http://r.reuters.com/fyh58r
two shopping centres once stood, he said
the tsunami had killed many young people
working there. Both of his sons have already
• Additional Reporting:
left the town. “I don’t expect them to come
Ran Kim
back here.”
Paul Eckert
• Editing:
Bill Tarrant

For more information, contact:

COVER PHOTO: A photo of a baby is saved from the ruins BILL TARRANT Publishing: WALTER SIM
of a collapsed house as rescue workers search for victims in ENTERPRISE EDITOR, ASIA
tsunami-devastated Rikuzentakata March 21, 2011. REUTERS/ william.tarrant@thomsonreuters.com
Damir Sagolj

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