In the 1970s, with the hyperactive economy causing the cost of living to rise and encouraging young men, and increasingly, women, to focus on their careers, birthrates began to fall. Many analysts attribute Japan’s recent problems, particularly its slowing economy, to the country’s declining birthrates. Others, most notably the growing economic and military threat from China and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, have only grown.
While Japan’s economy has improved marginally since that “Lost Decade,” many of the conditions underlying that decline remain.
Years of rapid economic growth had given way to decline and eventually stagnation. To effect a rapid transformation, Japan had to reimagine and redefine its national image beyond its militaristic and industrial past, which for centuries had been the cornerstone of its economy and national identity.īut by the 1990s, Japan found itself beleaguered, stuck in its worst recession since World War II. The postwar period left no room for the country’s continued reliance on military-industrial production and development. The Japanese Miracle, a period of rapid economic growth lasting from the post-World War II era to the end of the Cold War, made Japan the global model to emulate in industrial policy, management techniques, and product engineering. From the ashes of World War II rose a nation that, in a little over two decades, became the world’s second-largest economy. Japan’s economy was once the envy of the world.
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