But, in the very recent years after the bubble economy was bust, the people have come to realize that the population ageing is now in full swing. There is a resurgence of keen public interest in its enormous impact upon economic, social, psychological and familial spheres of the Japanese life. Slow growth or non-growth in Japan's economy has shattered people's previously held illusion that a bigger pie of economy allocated to each individual earner could easily afford to shoulder an increasing burden of the outcome of population ageing. When the society enters the fin de siecle, there is a growing sense of urgent necessity among the Japanese people to reassess the reality of the trend and to formulate a more innovative and balanced strategy for the forthcoming 21st century.
The first section attempts to describe the general trend of population ageing in Japan and elucidate its several salient features such as rapidity in the speed of population ageing in reference to various indicators of population ageing. Then, the section will go on discussing the factors causing the population ageing and show that fertility is the one which has played the most important role in getting population ageing. In very recent years, however, fertility has fallen to the unprecedentedly low level, hence, to the general reader's interest, a few paragraphs will be devoted to dealing with determinants of the currently very low level of fertility.
The second section is related to the question of the transformation of the family in the face of population ageing. It is extremely interesting to observe how much demographic changes bring about changes in the size and structure of the family and household.
Finally, towards the end of the second section, the paper would discuss what would be good about at the imminent arrival of an aged society. The section would like to evoke some new ideas which might interest the general reader.
