Outlook on the retirement process of Dankai no Sedai, or the japanese baby-boom generation

1. Preliminary Knowledge: What Is Dankai No Sedai? In Japan, a large nodule of population born immediately after the Second World War, or the Japanese baby-boom generation is called the Dankai No Sedai (hereafter called the “JBB generation”). Generally speaking, this term applies to those born between 1947 and 1949. The celebrated economic commentator and author Taichi Sakaiya, who also served as Director-General of the Economic Planning Agency from July 1998 to December 2000, first coined the term more than 30 years ago in a novel of the same title written about the economy and society. In the form of a novel, Sakaiya predicted that a population group that is larger than the population groups born before and after it would have varying impact on education, economy and society then and in the future as well. The book created a stir, firmly establishing the term Dankai No Sedai since then. Based on the latest Population Census (2005), the population of the JBB generation and the population born immediately before and after the JBB generation, by age, are as shown in Figure 1. If we look at those who correspond to the JBB generation, the population of men and women who were 58 years old at the time of the survey, who roughly correspond to those born in 1947, was 2.18 million, of those who were 57 was 2.29 million, and those who were 56 was 2.31 million. Each age group had a population of above 2 million. On the other hand, if we look at the population of the generation born before the JBB generation, the population of those who were 59 was 1.37 million, those who were 60 was 1.47 million, and those who were 61 was 1.8 million. If we examine the population of the generation born after the JBB generation, the population of those who were 55 was 2.1 million, those who were 54 was 1.95 million, and those who were 53 was 1.84 million, with the population decreasing each year. This shows that the JBB generation makes up a significantly larger population group compared with the generations born before and after it.