Japan’s birth rate plunges to a record low in 7th year of decline

TOKYO – Japan posted the fewest births in its recorded history last year, continuing a seven-year decline that further aggravates the challenges of its rapidly ageing society.

The number of newborns fell to 799,728 in 2022, down 5.1 per cent from a year earlier, to the lowest since record-keeping started in 1899, according to Japan’s health ministry on Tuesday. The number of deaths rose 8.9 per cent to 1.58 million for the same period, it said.

The lack of births means Japan will have a smaller workforce and fewer taxpayers to sustain the world’s third-largest economy in the years to come.

The rising cost of caring for its elderly citizens, who make up a higher proportion of the population than in any other country, is draining the nation’s coffers, helping make it the world’s most indebted country. 

“We recognise that the falling birth rate is a critical situation,” said Mr Yoshihiko Isozaki, a deputy chief Cabinet secretary, in a briefing on Tuesday. “My understanding is that various factors are intricately intertwined, preventing individuals from realising their hopes for marriage, child birth and child rearing.”

The government has been trying to increase the labour force by encouraging more women to work and accepting some immigrants. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made support for children and their families a priority.

The government will lay out its child and child-rearing policies and present a framework by June for doubling the budget for them, Mr Isozaki said. 

The government allocated 4.8 trillion yen (S$47.5 billion) from the fiscal 2023 budget to a new agency dedicated to children and their families, the Nikkei newspaper reported in December. 

Japan’s neighbours are facing similar problems. 

China’s population shrank in 2022

for the first time in six decades. It had 1.41 billion people at the end of last year, 850,000 fewer than the year before, according to data released by the National Statistics Bureau last month.

It was the first drop since 1961, the final year of the Great Famine under former leader Mao Zedong, and coincided with the second-slowest economic growth rate since the 1970s. 

South Korea’s fertility rate, the world’s lowest for years,

fell to 0.78 child per woman in 2022, according to the country’s statistics office, aggravating the economic challenges of an ageing population. At 0.81 in 2021, it was already at the bottom of the more than 260 nations tracked by the World Bank. Bloomberg