Japan’s population has fallen by nearly one million, according to new statistics – the first decline since official census records began in the 1920s.
The country lost 947,345 people – more than the population of San Francisco – between 2010 and 2015.
The decline of 0.7% to 127.1 million has been predicted by the government annually but the new statistics confirm the trend.
It is an indication that as the nation gets older, and people have fewer babies at a later age, a demographic crisis is looming.
According to the United Nations, Japan’s population is likely to shrink to 83 million by 2100, with 35% of them older than 65.
Economists fear that the decline in population spells trouble for the world’s most indebted economy.
Prime minister Shinzo Abe’s government has tried to tackle the coming crisis by installing lawmaker Katsunobu Kato as the “minister for 100 million active people”.
Kato is tasked with stabilising Japan’s birthrate at 1.8, up from 1.41 in 2012.
Experts, however, view the efforts as futile. “What they are talking about and what they are going to try and get minister Kato to do is not doable,” Michael Cucek, an adjunct professor in the faculty of the social sciences at Waseda University, told the Guardian.
“They have a goal of 1.8 births per woman, but to maintain a population of 100 million would require 2.1 births per woman,” he added.
Re you sure? I would think the 1940’s (1945 in particular) would be a decline.
There are too many people in world, and that was true 40 years ago when the population was half, and the proof is that other species, fisheries, clean water, soil have been irreparable damaged or lost. Japan should be commended for decreasing it’s population without the depopulation programs now in effect, such as vaccines, wifi, glyphosate, and other programs expected to reduce life expectancy, autism, alzheimers, cancers. This article does not tell us why less Japanese people are having children. Are they depressed by empty artificial city life and sapped of vitality? A 2012 Huffington Post article states: “The survey,… Read more »
If there are “too many people in the world” then be the change you wish to see and kill yourself. Odd how eugenicist-minded people never seem to view themselves as part of that “too many people”.