Vortrag von Dr. Peter Matanle: „Researching Population Decline: Japan as Depopulation Vanguard Country for East Asia“

In  Asia, Japan was the first to encounter depopulation, beginning in 2008. Other East Asian countries, including China and South Korea are following suit. With similar geographies and developmental pathways, can we think of Japan as the forerunner for understanding the outcomes of depopulation in Northeast Asia – what I term a ‘Depopulation Vanguard Country’ (DVC)? Can we then do similar for other world regions and identify countries – such as Thailand in Southeast Asia, or Italy in Southern Europe – whose experiences of depopulation will be instructive for their neighbours as they tackle the grand challenges of our age?

Focusing on East Asia, in this talk I will take Japan as a case study for researching the socio-environmental outcomes of global population decline in East Asia and ask which countries we might assign DVC status in other world regions. I will conclude by suggesting a research agenda for identifying current and future risks and opportunities for countries as they begin to depopulate in a rapidly changing world.

Dr Peter Matanle is Visiting Researcher at the Asian Demographic Research Institute, Shanghai University, China. He received his BA from the University of Cambridge, and PhD from the University of Sheffield, UK. Until this year he was Senior Lecturer at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. His most recent co-authored publication in Nature Sustainability researches depopulation and biodiversity in Japan’s rural agricultural regions. He has authored many articles, chapters, books, and website contributions on this and other topics related to the human geography of East Asia.

Uchida, K., Matanle, P., Li, Y., Fujita, T., & Hiraiwa, M.K. (2025) Biodiversity change under human depopulation in Japan, Nature Sustainability, 8, 883-893. DOI: 10.1038/s41893-025-01578-w.