Japan’s population is in freefall.
In 2022, the number of births registered in Japan plummeted to another record low last year according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health – the latest worrying statistic in a decades-long decline that the country’s authorities have failed to reverse despite their extensive efforts.
The country saw just 799,728 births in 2022 – the lowest number on record and the first ever dip below 800,000 – and about half of the number of deaths, which at more than 1.58 million, was a record high. The number of births in Japan has nearly halved in the past 40 years: in 1982, Japan recorded more than 1.5 million births, a number which was then more than double the number of deaths. This ratio has since reversed.
As shown in the chart above, deaths have outpaced births in Japan for the past 15 years – a trend which is unlikely to reverse ever again – posing an existential problem for the (aged) leaders of the world’s third-largest economy. They now face a ballooning elderly population, along with a shrinking workforce to fund pensions and health care as demand from the aging population surges.
Japan’s population has been in steady decline since its economic boom of the 1980s and stood at 125.5 million in 2021, according to the most recent government figures.
According to CNN, Japan’s fertility rate of 1.3 is far below the rate of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population, in the absence of immigration.
The country also has one of the highest life expectancies in the world; in 2020, nearly one in 1,500 people in Japan were age 100 or older, according to government data.
These concerning trends prompted a warning in January from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that Japan is “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”
“In thinking of the sustainability and inclusiveness of our nation’s economy and society, we place child-rearing support as our most important policy,” he said, adding that Japan “simply cannot wait any longer” in solving the problem of its low birth rate.
A new government agency will be set up in April to focus on the issue, with PM Kishida saying in January that he wants the government to double its spending on child-related programs. But money alone might not be able to solve the multi-pronged problem, with various social factors contributing to the low birth rate.
Japan’s high cost of living, limited space and lack of child care support in cities make it difficult to raise children, meaning fewer couples are having kids. Urban couples are also often far from extended family in other regions, who could help provide support.
In 2022, Japan was ranked one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a child, according to research from financial institution Jefferies. And yet, the country’s economy has stalled since the early 1990s, meaning frustratingly low wages and little upward mobility: the average real annual household income declined from 6.59 million yen ($50,600) in 1995 to 5.64 million yen ($43,300) in 2020, according to 2021 data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Attitudes toward marriage and starting families have also shifted in recent years, with more couples putting off both during the pandemic — and young people feeling increasingly pessimistic about the future.
In 2022, Japan was ranked one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a child, according to research from financial institution Jefferies. And yet, the country’s economy has stalled since the early 1990s, meaning frustratingly low wages and little upward mobility.
The average real annual household income declined from 6.59 million yen ($50,600) in 1995 to 5.64 million yen ($43,300) in 2020, according to 2021 data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
Attitudes toward marriage and starting families have also shifted in recent years, with more couples putting off both during the pandemic — and young people feeling increasingly pessimistic about the future. Who can blame them for not feeling frisky.
It’s a familiar story throughout East Asia, where South Korea’s fertility rate — already the world’s lowest — dropped yet again last year in the latest setback to the country’s efforts to boost its declining population.
Meanwhile, in January China just lost its title as the world’s most populous country to India after its population shrank in 2022 for the first time since the 1960s.
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A problem for the Ponzi economy.
Human beings don’t reproduce well in a zoo. From outside and far away Japan appears to be completely socialized and feminized. There is a correct way (and infinite incorrect ways) to behave in every situation down to the precise angle of head tilt when meeting another. Everything is prescribed and must be done ‘just so’ or face is lost and social opprobrium ensues. Island culture politeness plus the female means of control (ostracism of those who fail to correctly submit to the current social rule) combine to produce people who find it easier to simply withdraw from interaction than to chance being found wanting.
Add to that the effect of education on people so deeply trained to submit to current social rule. Global warming, the death of the planet due to the existence of human beings and our use of resources, a scam, a long, deep and very very rich con that if believed ought to be a powerful suppressor of any conscious desire to produce children. Add to that generally declining economic prospects within a rigidly bound society, particularly among the mass of people, the workers and middle managers, another powerful suppressor of conscious desire to reproduce.
Add to that the training these people receive that separates the act of sexual release from traditional male female interaction… the Japanese pioneer the highest quality sex toys in the world… and there is another more direct suppressor of reproduction, sperm in the sewer won’t impregnate anyone. Obviously the proliferation of queers of every imaginable stripe isn’t helping either.
It seems somewhat simple from outside, i’m sure it is very much more complex when engaged.
The grasseaters over there have one thing going for them: they are still Japanese.
All you mention – and more, have been underway here in the FUSA as well, but with a massive biological shift.
Whatever the fake and gay economy and globohomo cultural ennui has eroded on the surface to overshadow thousand-year traditions and social structures in Japan, there remains a bedrock of Japanese people.
When the globo-fiat craters under the inevitable ponzi, Japan will still be 97% Japanese.
Perhaps a lot fewer of them in the future, but then we also have to divorce ourselves from the ‘muh economy’ presupposition that all growth is good growth – and moar growth is the only way to have progress.
Sometimes populations shrink. Sometimes they grow rapidly. What matters most is who they are.
Meanwhile, who are we in FUSA? Well, its crimethink to even ask. And to ask is in many ways to answer: “we” are but an economic administrative zone in globohomoeconomicus.
A nation of vampire globo commerce and consumer-citizens whose claim to their birthright and posterity has been hypothecated to the greatest economy in the world. Which just happens to conjure paperwork and un-papered defacto consumer-citizens at annual volumes that eclipse entire nation states.
Demographics, not just birthrates, are destiny.
Walter, Dangerous Variant,
Compelling doublesided RANTS!
Two upvotes!
That is a worthwhile refinement of the point. Once relieved of the oppression the people are still whole. Unlike here in US which is thoroughly deracinated.
Walter – Agree with all you wrote here. My only visit to Japan in Jan 2016 (On tour with a thrash/punk band) exposed me to a bizarre culture. Used women panties vending machines. Obsessive gambling, LOTS of hard core drinking. Obsessed with Americana music and culture. I was the only person that did not have a fender or gibson instrument. The food was EXCELLENT, so they have that…
Paul Krugman can fix this.
So the population is too big so we need to reduce it, but the population is shrinking so we need to increase it?
Did I get that right?
Perfect. You get an A. China is having the same problem only on a much larger scale. They are so freaked out they dropped their one child policy but that didn’t do much to encourage more births. Now they are paying stipends to have more children. They even dropped the punishment for out of wedlock births.
Pssst! Don’t mention any European nation – or the fact the US has also dropped below a fertility rate of 2.1
Well, if we really do a good job with vaccines we can reduce the worlds population to sustainable levels. said an altruistic philanthropist
Social engineering is doing the job that Hiroshima and Nagasaki couldn’t. Narratives are deadlier than nukes.
There used to be a commenter here whose comment on every article was “Don’t have kids”. It’s an increasing opinion.
“The test of morality of a society is what it does for its children.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
What does that say about a society that supports not having children in the first place?
It happens in nature all the time. Animal populations grow to the point of unsustainability and then the population adjusts for various reasons. It happens to people too.
Good news Monday story.
Our Father in heaven, deflation be your name
If you want more children ban all birth control. Nature will take it’s course.