There is, however, one aspect of social gains which population ageing brings to the society and its people-that is, a remarkable improvement of survivorship. Phenomenal increases in the life expectancies for males and females enable them to reach the adulthood (say, age 22 years) in the probability of 99 out of 100 births born at the same time and to complete their working life at age 65 years in the probability of 88 percent under the lowest mortality experience as seen in Japan. In the case of Japan, say, in 1935, only three-fourths of the babies born could reach adulthood and only 30 percent could attain the terminal age of working life (65 years). In Japan, the total cost of upbringing a new born baby to college graduation is now estimated approximately at US$300,000 according to the current Japanese price index and university fees until he gets a gainful job after graduation from the university. Suppose that approximately 1.5 million babies are born annually in Japan. If they have to go through the same mortality schedule as in 1935, approximately 370,000 persons would never reach age 22. Then, Japan as a whole would have lost US$111 billion since human investment of $300,000 per person could not produce any returns. There is one thing, however, one has to consider additionally that many people die not just one day before reaching age 22; many die during the first year of life after birth long before reaching the age of college graduation, so that the nation actually does not waste $300,000 entirely for each premature death. Suppose the nation wastes only one tenth of $300,000 per young man on the average. Even on this assumption the nation would have saved, under the low mortality level as is being experienced now, about US$11 billion each year for each single-year cohort, which is not small money at all.
If that vein of calculation is extended to assess the number of person years gained throughout working ages and if their net contributions to the society are made possible by an increase in life expectancy (remember that nowadays 88 out of 100 births survive to age 65 while only 30 had a chance of surviving in 1935), then such gains in human resources otherwise foregone by premature death would be tremendous. The gains thus accrued from the increase in life expectancy may compensate at least for a good portion of the increase in the Government's spending for bolstering the social security and medical care cost for the elderly.
At the same time, another cheer for the aged society is an expectation of abolishing centry-old seniority system prevailing in Japan where ascribed status such sex, age, cohort, year of entrance, etc. rather than merit of achievement and performance, determines status, reward and remuneration in social stratification.
