government alerted
Japan’s birth rate falls to new record low
06/02/2023 10:49 am
The number of newborns in Japan hit a new low last year. The corona pandemic has further exacerbated the country’s demographic challenges. Now the government is taking action.
The birth rate in Japan, the world’s third largest economy after the US and China, fell for the seventh straight year in 2022, hitting a record low. It fell to 1.2565, the health ministry said. This breaks the previous low of 1.2601 from 2005. The fertility rate – the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime – is well below the 2.07 mark that is considered necessary for a stable population.
The government is alarmed by the continuing negative development. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made halting the birthrate decline one of his top priorities. His government plans to spend 3.5 trillion yen ($27 billion) a year on childcare and other parent-support measures, despite high levels of debt. “The young population will decrease drastically from the 2030s,” warned the head of government this week while visiting a daycare center. “The time until then is our last chance to reverse the trend of declining birth rates.”
The corona pandemic has exacerbated Japan’s demographic challenges. It has led to fewer marriages, which in turn has contributed to the decline in the birth rate. The number of newborns in Japan fell by five percent last year to 770,747, hitting a new low. The number of deaths, in turn, rose by nine percent to a record 1.57 million. More than 47,000 deaths were due to the corona pandemic.
Japan isn’t the only Asian country struggling with a low birth rate. China and South Korea have similar problems. According to the YuWa Population Research Institute, Japan is the third most expensive country to raise a child. The only countries ahead are China and South Korea, which are also experiencing population declines. These are worrying signs for the world economy, since these three countries are among the pillars of the global economy. In China, the population fell last year for the first time since 1961, the last year of the great famine.