Stay informed with free updates
Just enter the Life and Art myFT Digest — delivered straight to your inbox.
As for. A big, round-numbered and scary birthday is coming up in a few weeks. Not to give too much away, but the month I was born, Momoe Yamaguchi's Fuyu and Iro it topped the charts, Fear of Mechagodzilla was about to hit cinemas, and Okinawa was busy with last-minute preparations for Expo '75.
There are different ways to put this sombre event into context. I'm a year younger than Hello Kitty, a decade younger than her Shinkansen bullet train and 100,000 years younger than Mount Fuji. All of those are still going strong, I think, although none suffer from high cholesterol, resting speed or high clicks from a mile of missed opportunities.
But then I remember, with joy, that this birthday will happen in creaking, aging Japan – a country where gray is the new black, lumbago is the new “Lambada” and 50 is not only the new 20, but more or below. medium term.
Japan's demographics – both – place it at the forefront of the world's attention to domestic citizenship and the influx of young people. In what is now being referred to by the public and private sectors as the “2025 problem”, the giant, 8 million generation of post-war children born between 1947 and 1949 have moved from the category of “adults” to “prime”. elders”. By 2030, the government estimates, more than 8mn Japanese will be doing some kind of caregiving role, 40 percent of whom are on real work.
It's impossible to miss. Starting this year, one in five people in Japan will be over 75 and almost 30 percent of the population will be over 65. The census, some economists warn, is about to do as much damage to Japan as the collapse of the asset bubble of the 1980s. No people on Earth have ever aged to this degree for all humans and with this there are many open questions about how it will cope. No peaceful, healthy and well-nourished population has ever shrunk to such an extent. Japan's numbers are staggering economically, socially and socially, but they don't half make a 50-year-old feel young.
And even if it's just another member of the average set, in theory, all I have to do to stop the downward spiral is to stay in Japan and hope the math takes care of the practical side.
For example, on paper I should be healthy. In 2023, after a three-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan restarted its ten-year life expectancy drive. Japanese women lead the world in life expectancy at an average of 87.14 years, but, according to health service charts, a man my age can expect to live another 32.6 years.
Average suggests I'll roll with it too. By hitting half a century in Japan, you enter a large segment of society “over 50s” that accumulates about 66 percent of the country's 7tn cash and deposits. That sector will now inherit a very old pension for the elderly.
And in general, being 50 makes you a political problem in Japan. Even in what is already a thoroughly silver democracy there are more 50-year-olds than any other party, and the country has delivered masterclass after masterclass in matching fiscal largesse to electoral statistics. Trash is a vote.
The over 50s in Japan are the last generation, according to the finance ministry, to be long-term beneficiaries of the government (in terms of education, health care etc). Every little person is red and will remain so until the death heat of the universe. And the peripheral perks are also good. By the time my generation needs one, the billions of taxpayer dollars invested in the development of caring robots may finally produce a decent Nurse-o-tron. It is not.
All this, apart from the increase in life expectancy, is obviously a very bad thing. The promotion of a healthy, happy old age is obvious. But there is a financial (260 percent of the country's total debt to GDP ratio) and emotional (who will take care of mom and dad) burden that has accumulated on the younger generations who have quietly supported this and now look completely, shockingly unbearable.
And finally that's why Japan, for all the wrong reasons, is the perfect place to turn 50 years old. As a nation, it is a global pioneer not only in being old, but in the great comforting illusion that comes with it. In an aging society, we are all technically getting younger. When we speak.
Leo Lewis is the FT's Tokyo editor
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and Xand Sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning