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How Falling Birth Rates Reshape the Healthcare Workforce
Description
In this episode of The Demographics Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore how declining birth rates are creating a critical shortage of healthcare workers in aging societies. They focus on Japan's 2025 crisis, where the number of people aged 75 and older will exceed the number of nurses for the first time. The hosts discuss Japan's policy responses—from raising the retirement age for doctors to recruiting nurses from Southeast Asia—and compare these to the challenges facing the United States, where the ratio of primary care physicians to patients is projected to fall by 15% by 2030. They also examine the economic ripple effects: higher wages for healthcare workers, increased reliance on automation in elder care, and the potential for a two-tier system where wealthy seniors can afford care and others cannot. The episode ends with a forward-looking question about whether technology can fill the gap or if we need a fundamental rethink of how we value care work.