Number Of Children In Japan Drops For 33rd Consecutive Year
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Japan’s population remains on a rapidly aging path, with the number of children (aged under 15) having fallen to a record low of just 16.33 million, according to government statistics on Sunday.
This was the 33rd straight annual decline for the number of children, said Japan’s internal affairs and communications ministry; and was the nation’s lowest level since records began in 1950.
Japan’s population remains on a rapidly aging path, with the number of children (aged under 15) having fallen to a record low of just 16.33 million, according to government statistics on Sunday.
This was the 33rd straight annual decline for the number of children, said Japan’s internal affairs and communications ministry; and was the nation’s lowest level since records began in 1950.
Children accounted for just 12.8 percent of the population – by contrast, the ratio of people aged 65 or older was at a record high, making up 25.6 percent of the population.
According to the Japan Times, of major countries with a population of at least 40 million, Japan had the lowest ratio of children to the total population – compared to 19.5 percent in the United States, 18.5 percent in France and 16.4 percent in China.
Some experts have warned that the demographic crisis is so serious that Japan “might eventually perish into extinction”.
According to a study by Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, nearly a third of Japan’s population could “disappear” by 2060.
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The institute claimed that Japan’s current population is likely to decline to 86.7 million by 2060. In 2012, when the study was conducted, Japan’s population was 127.7 million people; today the population has decreased to 127.2 million people.
Meanwhile the proportion of people aged 65 or over is forecast to reach nearly 40 percent of Japan’s population in 2060, the government said.
“If conditions remain unchanged”, Japan’s population may even decrease to 42.9 million by 2110, said the report, with the country’s average fertility rate of 1.39 babies unable to keep up with its mortality rate.
