Japan is ageing rapidly and the population is declining by 900,000 a year as the fertility rate falls, in 2024 to 1.15, far below the 2.1 required for population stability; large rural tracts are depopulated, and bears roam happily.

On my first visit to Japan almost a half-century ago, I interviewed Yusuke Kashiwagi, one of the titans of Japanese finance, top bureaucrat, then chief executive of Bank of Tokyo. At the bank’s corporate headquarters, I was greeted with small talk in fluent English and offered refreshment by three stylish young women, who bowed gracefully five times in serving tea. (Later at Industrial Bank of Japan, I got eight bows with tea.) Mystified, I asked Kiyoko Hashimoto, wife of a bank director, what the women’s role was: “To look decorative, greet visitors, serve tea and wait for husbands.” She added that there were formal matchmakers to connect the young women, all impeccably educated at places like Sacred Heart University, to the bank’s rising stars.

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