PGDA_WP_71. Robots helping Japan’s ageing population - IOL SciTech. Engineers say technology could help ease the social pain of ageing.
Tokyo - As an increasingly crowded world readies to welcome its seven billionth citizen, Japan faces the opposite problem - a shrinking population that has to depend on a new kind of friend: robots. While policymakers grapple with questions of how to pay for the burgeoning pension and healthcare costs of a society where the elderly outnumber working taxpayers, engineers say technology could help ease the social pain of ageing. A variety of companies, ranging from healthcare firms to carmakers, are developing robots they say can provide physical or emotional help to the elderly or those caring for them. Among the most startling is a bed that transforms into an electric wheelchair from Panasonic, and a robot programmed to gently wash the greying hairs of people who find it difficult to lift their arms. But a chronically low birth rate means the post-World War II population boom is set to be dramatically reversed.
62executivesummary_english. Population Aging. Aging of Population Leonid A.
Gavrilov and Patrick Heuveline This is a manuscript of our article in The Encyclopedia of Population. , Macmillan Reference , 2003.