Japan’s prime minister issued a dire warning about the country’s population crisis on Monday, saying it was “on the verge of not being able to maintain social functions” due to the falling birth rate.
In a political address to lawmakers, Fumio Kishida said it was a case of resolving the issue “now or never” and that “it simply cannot wait any longer.”
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“When thinking about the sustainability and inclusion of our nation’s economy and society, we place support for raising children as our most important policy”, said the Prime Minister.
Kishida added that he wanted the government to double its spending on child-related programs and for a new government agency to be created in April to focus on the issue.
Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with the Ministry of Health predicting it will register fewer than 800,000 births in 2022 for the first time since registration began in 1899.
The country also has one of the highest life expectancies in the world; in 2020, nearly one in every 1,500 people in Japan were aged 100 or older, according to government data.
These trends have led to a growing demographic crisis, with a rapidly aging society, a shrinking workforce, and not enough young people to fill the gaps in the stagnant economy.
Experts point to several factors behind the low birth rate. The country’s high cost of living, limited space and lack of support for childcare in cities make it difficult to raise children, which means fewer couples are having children. Urban couples are also often far from relatives who could help provide support.
Attitudes towards marriage and starting families have also changed in recent years, with more couples postponing both during the pandemic.
Some point to Japan’s youth pessimism about the future, many frustrated by work pressure and economic stagnation.
Japan’s economy has stagnated since its asset bubble burst in the early 1990s. The country’s GDP growth has slowed from 4.9% in 1990 to 0.3% in 2019, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, average real annual household income dropped from 6.59 million yen (US$50,600) in 1995 to 5.64 million yen (US$43,300) in 2020, according to 2021 data from the Ministry of Health. , Work and Welfare of the country.
The government has launched several initiatives to deal with the population decline in recent decades, including new policies to improve child care services and improve housing facilities for families with children. Some rural towns have even started paying couples living there to have children.
Demographic change is also a concern in other parts of East Asia.
South Korea recently broke its own record for the lowest fertility rate in the world, with data from November 2022 showing that a South Korean woman will have an average of 0.79 children in her lifetime – far short of the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population. Japan’s fertility rate is 1.3, while that of the United States is 1.6.
Meanwhile, China’s population shrank in 2022 for the first time since the 1960s, adding to its woes as it struggles to recover from the pandemic. The last time its population dropped was in 1961, during a famine that killed tens of millions of people across the country.
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