The number of registered births in Japan fell to a record low last year, according to the latest official statistic, as the decades-old decline continues as Tokyo’s massive efforts fail to reverse it, according to CNN.
During the past year, the country recorded 799,728 births, which is the lowest number recorded, and the first decrease ever recorded under 800,000, according to statistics issued by the Ministry of Health, on Tuesday.
For more than a decade, the number of deaths annually exceeds the number of births in Japan, representing a growing crisis for the leaders of the third largest economy in the world, who face a bulging elderly population, in exchange for a shrinking workforce to fund pensions and health care for the elderly.
Japan’s population has been in steady decline since its economic boom in the 1980s and the total population reached 125.5 million in 2021, according to the latest government figures.
The country has one of the highest life expectancies in the world; In 2020, nearly one in every 1,500 people in Japan was 100 or older, according to government data.
The country’s fertility rate is 1.3, which is far below the 2.1 rate needed to maintain the stability of the population’s demographic structure.
These worrying trends led Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to warn in January that Japan was “on the verge of not being able to maintain social functions”.
“When considering the sustainability and inclusiveness of our nation’s economy and society, we make supporting child-rearing our most important policy,” he said, adding that Japan “simply cannot wait any longer” to solve the problem of the declining birth rate.
Tokyo is set to launch a new government agency in April to focus on the issue, and Kishida said in January he wanted the government to double spending on programs related to children.
But money alone may not be able to solve the multifaceted problem, according to the network, which indicated that various social factors contribute to the decline in the birth rate.
Among the main reasons for the significant decline are Japan’s high cost of living, limited space and lack of support for childcare programs in cities, all of which make it difficult to raise children.
And in 2022, Japan will be ranked as one of the most expensive places in the world to raise children, according to research from Jefferies Financial Corporation.
In contrast, the real average annual household income fell from 6.59 million yen ($50,600) in 1995 to 5.64 million yen ($43,300) in 2020, according to 2021 data from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.