The future has arrived slightly quicker than expected in Japan, with the news that last year, for the first time since records started in 1950, the country's male population fell. The decline was fractional, and could be totally attributed to more men moving out of, rather than into, Japan, probably because of company transfers. Nonetheless, this was a demographic outcome waiting to happen because of the country's falling birth rate, which set a record low in population growth of only 0.05 per cent last year. Japanese experts are now predicting that next year will see the first decline in the country's overall population.

The shrinking of the workforce and the swelling number of pensioners is a trend occurring across many developed, and some developing, countries. Indeed, thanks to its one-child policy, China is forecast to see the ratio of working age people to pensioners collapse from more than 6:1 in 2000 to fewer than 2:1 in 2050 as that country ages faster than any other in history.