Japan Notebook

Some time around the middle of the last decade, Japan’s population began to shrink. The disappearing act has continued unabated: at the present rate of decline, this remarkable mono-cultural race will have all but become extinct within a hundred years. Worth a visit then, while stocks last: so I gratefully accepted an invitation from the business association known as Keidanren (like the CBI, only with influence). An early-morning meeting with Mr Takahisa Takahara provides a perfect snapshot of the consequences of population implosion. The business he runs, Uni‑Charm, is Japan’s biggest supplier of nappies; but now, said Mr Takahara, his firm sells more of the things to the incontinent elderly than to mothers with young children.

Other countries might consider large-scale immigrant labour as a response to the dramatic reduction in the working-age population — if only to help look after the old folk. In proudly homogenous Japan, that is not an option.