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A comment on Japan records lowest number of births on record as population shrinks. Parent comment

Re:Japan records lowest number of births on record as popula... by ghshephard on Thursday January 01, 2015 @02:45PM (#8824000)
I tend to agree - Japan already has a pretty large population (127 million people) for such a small island. That's about 4x what Canada has over a much, much larger land mass and far greater resources. It would seem reasonable for Japan to stabilize at around 5-10mm people. From that perspective, the headline could have been written, "Japan makes great strides towards sustainable population levels once again."
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Re:Japan records lowest number of births on record as popula... by jacquesm on Thursday January 01, 2015 @03:05PM (#8824075)
Canada is mostly un-inhabited, and Japan is quite populous.

They're about the worst countries to compare in this fashion.

Canada is very in-efficient in the way land is used and Japan is extremely efficient.

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Re:Japan records lowest number of births on record as popula... by ghshephard on Thursday January 01, 2015 @05:29PM (#8824578)
What I was trying to (and failing to do), was highlight that the basic carrying capacity of each landmass is not in sync with the existing population. For them to be at parity, Canada would increase it's population, and Japan would reduce it.
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Re:Japan records lowest number of births on record as popula... by CapitalistCartr on Thursday January 01, 2015 @03:10PM (#8824092)
Canada is an extremely low density country. Nine tenths of the population lives within a hundred miles of the US. Most of the rest is Arctic wilderness. A more realistic comparison would be countries such as the United States, Brazil, and the countries of Europe.
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