The term "population ageing" has become a household word for average citizens in Japan. Population ageing is viewed almost unanimously here as a process causing shortages of young labour, sluggish economic growth and higher tax burdens to support social security for the elderly. Population ageing has been considered one of the most crucial demographic and social problems facing contemporary Japan. Actually, the awareness of the seriousness of population ageing came rather prematurely in the 1970s and early 1980s when Japan's ageing was not in full swing and the elderly population comprised less than 10% of the total population. Most of discussions and arguments dominating those decades were quite pessimistic.However, adverse effects were not immediately apparent and people tired of its discussion of the issue. The advent of the bubble economy let the general public forget the reality of population ageing.
