Halloween is growing popular also here in Japan, with more shopping centers and local communities organizing events. I didn’t mean to copy them, but I have also organized a Halloween party with my neighbors for the last five years or so. We started this event with the hope that this could be an opportunity for local residents to get to know each other. Participants would visit places like private houses of seniors who would support the event, a residential home for seniors, a flower shop, a bicycle shop, a chocolate shop, a community house, and many more. Every year, we make up a story (e.g., searching for a “fugitive pumpkin”) and create a map that goes along with it. Children and adults walk around the neighborhood with the map and explore the neighborhood. A dog statue with a red bell pepper (pretending to be the “fugitive pumpkin”) at the entrance of a home for seniors, one of the check points in the walking event. The staff there would wait for participants with
At the International Longevity Center, we have numerous opportunities to visit other countries and speak with local experts and researchers for our international comparative studies. Many of these researchers would ask us such questions as, “What’s the situation with Japan’s consumption tax?” and “What does the government’s debt look like?” As each country provides support for older people under great fiscal pressure, they must be interested in learning about the economic and financial situation in Japan, the leading super-aged society in the world. In this post, I would like to give a quick recap on this topic. Japan’s GDP Japan’s economy hasn’t looked good for years. For example, the proportion of its GDP in the global total decreased from 17.6% in 1995 to 8.6% in 2010, and further to 4.2% by 2022 (Cabinet Office: System of National Accounts and Choice for the Future ). With prolonged deflation, Japan has been left behind in the global growth. The graph below