Taking a purely economic view of these things is to misunderstand what is happening. Sure, it's an economic stagnation/downturn when new jobs aren't created, but more important than the money is the loss of the things those jobs produced in society outside of their economic impact: tools, art, research, creativity.
Japan's current population growth rate is around -0.2%.
It's safe to say that the "evaporating population" hypothesis and it's hypothetical cataclysm on the arts doesn't make much sense nor has any bearing on reality.
> Taking a purely economic view of these things is to misunderstand what is happening. Sure, it's an economic stagnation/downturn when new jobs aren't created, but more important than the money is the loss of the things those jobs produced in society outside of their economic impact: tools, art, research, creativity.
Your "purely economic view" strawman doesn't pass muster. For starters, GDP reflects transactions and economic activity, and money is just the unit of account used to perform those transactions.