Of late I have become a victim of a recent development on many of Tokyo's trains. Although the problem had never occurred in the past, I recently find that when getting up from my seat, or even just moving around in the carriage, the handgrips dangling from the ceiling either hit me on the head or, worse, smash into my eyes. Perturbed, after all I don’t believe I’ve suddenly grown any taller, I began to ponder this new cause for complaint and detected the whiff of a conspiracy.

It is a well-known fact that old people in Japan not only become increasingly belligerent, but that they also shrink. Surely, then, this lowering of the handgrips is for the benefit of Tokyo’s Obatarians? The very young would still be unable to reach the grips, while those in the prime of adult life will have to endure the same ruined hairstyle and bruised eye sockets that I have recently suffered. But why? The answer is simple.

As is well documented and widely known, Japan’s population is undergoing a process of hyper-aging. Put simply, fewer births and increased life expectancy mean that in Japan the aged outnumber the young. For an excellent treatment of the subject, and the problems it poses for Japanese society and the economy, I recommend Florian Coulmas’ Population Decline and Ageing in Japan. The low-hanging handgrips are but the first sign of a trend that will only increase, by which the needs and comfort of the aged take precedent over those of the less long in the tooth. What is now a conspiracy to please the status-quo maintaining over-60s voters is in fact the beginning of the tyranny of the aged.

Paranoid? Not quite… My suspicions have, in part, been confirmed by a recent report in The Japan Times on a White Paper issued by The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. The paper asserts that the “population of the Tokyo metropolitan area is expected to age more rapidly than the national average.” The Japan Times further explains,

The population of those 65 or older in Tokyo and seven neighbouring prefectures will grow 42 percent over a 10-year period, from 7.61 million in 2005 to 10.78 million in 2015 with the metropolitan area graying faster than the projected average of 31 percent projected for the entire country. The ratio of the elderly to the overall population of the area will reach 25 percent in 2015 from 18 percent in 2005, as baby boomers born in the late 1940s turn 65 or older.

This alone may not mark a conspiracy, but upon reading further I found these ominous words, “To deal with the rapid aging expected in metropolitan Tokyo, the document stressed the need for expanding barrier-free housing and public transport.” Public Transport!

The article also notes that, “carbon dioxide emitted from the metropolitan area accounts for 27 percent of total emissions in Japan”, perhaps suggesting that the aged are more flatulent than younger cohorts. In Tokyo, and soon all Japan, the young live in fear. 

Image courtesy of Baron VC