Our world is aging. While many developed countries are beginning to embrace the challenges brought by an aging society, the issue in Japan is the most severe. In 2015, 26.6 percent of the entire population in Japan aged more than 65 years old, placing the nation on the list of countries with the highest proportion of elderly persons. A significant part of the massive senior population in Japan were born in the postwar Baby Boom in the late 1940s, and this essay aims to examine how the existence of this particular group was made possible with an emphasis on food supply.

“Dankai no Sedai,” a term used in Japan meaning “the mass generation,” refers narrowly to the 2.7 million babies being delivered from 1947 to 1949, shortly after the Second World War ended. Generally speaking, all the babies born from 1945 to 1952 could be regarded as members of the postwar Baby Boom. Among the 12.53 million people born from 1947 to 1951, 10.87 million of them are still alive today, forming a huge senior population. According to the data from the Population Census, the population change rate in Japan hit an incredible positive 15.7% around 1950, which was the highest since the Population Census first started in 1920, further illustrating the surge in Japanese population following the Second World War (1939-1945) and the drop in population resulting from the casualties in the war. Nurturing this new-born population, however, was not an easy task for postwar Japan.

Dankai no Sedai, Japanese baby boomers, were born in an era of turmoil, challenges, and changes, with the lack of food supply being the first issue. Famines struck China and Vietnam hard as a result of the catastrophic war, and the problem of food shortage had also occurred in Japan even prior to the end of the war. By the end of WWII in 1945, the availability of rice for domestic use decreased sharply as output decreased to 5.9 million tons in 1945, and the daily ration for an adult fell to 0.4 liters. The deficiency of vital nutrients such as Vitamin C, proteins, and Vitamin B1 accompanied the scarcity of fish, vegetables, and fresh fruits. As a result, not only the growth of children was hindered, but the unborn ones were also affected as the diets of the mothers were compromised. The Food Control Law, first enforced in 1942 to maintain food supply, was kept after the war ended to serve the same purpose. To encourage rice production, the payment made by the Japanese government to the farmers far exceeded the price of rice, creating a large deficit. However, abolition of the law seemed impractical at the time, and little effort was made to repeal the law despite the deficit that followed.

The challenge of food supply worsened in 1946, when the quantity of rationed food was so small that people had to rely on black markets to obtain food. The dire need for food and supply shortage, as suggested by finance minister Tanzan Ishibashi, facilitated the hyperinflation in 1946. The transactions in the black markets started expanding prior to the end of WWII, and the price of rice further increased in the postwar years. As recorded in a USSBS report in October 1945, the average price of rice in Tokyo was 50.20 per sho (1800mL in Japanese unit), while the official price was only 0.50 per sho. The black-market price was 100.4 times higher than the official price in Tokyo. What was even more stunning was the price of sugar in black markets in Tokyo; it was 399.3 times higher than the official price. According to the statistics from the Bank of Japan, the Consumer Price Index increased five-folds in 1946 in Tokyo, and it reached a peak of 73.3 in 1948, when an official rise in price took place; that was also the year when the price in the black markets reached its height.

The involvement in black markets was prevalent; average citizens as well as officials engaged in such acts. As mentioned in a GHQ/SCAP record in 1948, there was a “nationwide” problem of “illicit transportation of food by a railway employee.” The existence of black markets at such a scale posed a threat to the economy as no taxation could be collected by the government; the deficit created by policies to encourage production required extra revenues. Actions were soon taken to resolve such issues as “black market elimination campaigns” were initiated by officials, and 3493 black-market operators were arrested in June 1948 alone. As the officials took proactive measures to eliminate black-market transactions, they claimed that there was a sufficient supply of food in the same report. However, the statement itself does not seem too convincing given the incredibly high price of food in the black markets, implying a huge shortage in supply.

In urban areas, the price of black-market food generally exceeded that in rural areas; it was common to see people from the cities travel to rural areas to make purchases using items like clothing. The main reason for this difference in price was the lack of inflow of materials to urban areas – the war left 10% of the railroads and other land transportation destroyed, and the distribution network was impaired severely as a result. It was said that Judge Yoshitada Yamaguchi from Tokyo died of starvation as he refused to turn to the black markets for food. Though an individual case, the story implies the fact that reliance on illegal means to obtain food had become somewhat inevitable in the immediate years following the end of the war.

The shortage in food did not last very long, and the black markets fell off their height soon. As recorded by a GHQ/SCAP record in 1949/1950 (Program Affairs File-Prevention of Black Market), the price of black-market food declined on all phases of commodities in April 1950. There was also a significant decrease in illegal trades. In Yamaguchi prefecture, only minor violations under the Transportation Control Program were observed as few people attempted to transport rice by bicycles for illegal uses. Large scale transportations of food through trains were no longer a concern. As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the birth rate in Japan bounced to a new high exactly the same year when the influence of black markets seemed to fade. The prosperity of the black markets was very closely related to the living conditions of the people in postwar Japan; although the presence of the black markets posed threats to the national economy, their popularity and high food price implied that the officials could not provide sufficient support to the people through legal means. Families in Japan probably would not have been able to nurture newborns immediately after the war without making purchases from these markets. Before the problem of food shortage was resolved completely, this darker source of food supply probably had helped nurture a generation of people.