KYOTO — Japan, the world's most rapidly graying nation, can learn from Europe how to cope with an aging society, especially in such areas as increasing the participation of women, according to experts and journalists at a recent conference.
During the EU-Japan Journalists' Conference held in Kyoto by the Delegation of the European Commission to Japan, some 30 journalists and policymakers from the EU and Japan discussed how to sustain social and economic systems as they grapple with longer-living populations and declining birthrates.
Vladimir Spidla, the European commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities, said in his keynote speech that the EU has taken various steps to cope with an aging population, although compared with the situation in Japan, Europe still has a "10-year window of opportunity" in which to prepare.