The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, said this Monday the 23rd that the country was on the verge of a drop in the birth rate and was at risk of “stopping functioning as a society”. The demographic phenomenon worries the Japanese government due to increases in life expectancy over the past few decades, resulting in the country having a growing number of elderly and a decreasing number of workers supporting them with social security.
The BBC estimates that Japan, with a population of 125 million, had fewer than 800,000 births in 2022. In the 1970s, the rate was over two million people. Researchers predict that the country’s population will reach 53 million by the end of the century, after peaking at 128 million in 2017.
Birth rates are slowing in many countries, including Japan’s neighbors. However, the problem is particularly acute for the Japanese, as the country has the secondhighest proportion of older people (those aged 65 and over) at 28% of the population in this age group. Just Monacoa small state with 36,600 inhabitants, according to the World Bank, has more.
:quality(80)/cloudfrontuseast1.images.arcpublishing.com/estadao/LXEGZTHUUVBJXJB4Y5DEA6FJN4.jpg "Japan is on the verge of a drop in birth rates and is at risk of \"stopping work,\" PM says 3")
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a parliamentary session this Monday, 23. Kishida expressed the government’s concerns about the country’s demographic crisis. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko/AP
Opening Japan’s parliament, Kishida said the country should draw public attention to policies related to children and childrearing. “[Essa] It’s an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed,” he said. “Japan is on the threshold of whether it can continue to function as a society.”
The prime minister also said he should double spending on childhoodrelated programs to give parents more support and announced the creation of a new state agency to focus on the issue. “We need to build a social economy that prioritizes childhood to reverse the (low) birth rate,” he said.
A YuWa Population Research survey, cited by Portal, says Japan is one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, although in recent years the country has tried to use financial and other promises to encourage the population to have more children to get bonuses benefits. only at China and the South KoreaCountries that also see shrinking populations in worrying signs face higher costs, according to the researchers.
According to the BBC, previous Japanese governments’ demographic strategies have failed. Experts, quoted by the British newspaper, must relax immigration rules, which currently involve rigid laws, in a bid to combat an aging society.
The drop in birth rates is due to a number of factors, including rising living costs, more women in education and work, and better access to contraceptives. Last week China recorded its first population decline in 61 years.
According to Yi Fuxian, a researcher at the University of WisconsinMadison, the official recognition of a population decline is a “hugely important historical turning point” for the world as a whole. /With information from AFP