Japan records steepest drop in population

TOKYO – Japan had a record fall in its population in 2022, government data showed on Wednesday, as the country struggles to reverse

its perennial low birth rates.

While many developed countries face low birth rates, the problem is particularly acute in Japan, where the population has now fallen for 14 straight years.

The country has the world’s second-oldest population, after tiny Monaco. In January, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Japan was “on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society”.

In 2022, the number of Japanese fell by 800,523, or 0.65 per cent, to 122,423,038 from a year earlier, a survey by the Internal Affairs Ministry shows.

For the first time, the population fell in all 47 prefectures of the country.

The overall drop was the steepest decline recorded since 1968, when the government survey began, the ministry said.

In contrast, Japan’s foreign population increased by a record 289,498, or 10.7 per cent, to 2,993,839 – the highest since 2013, when comparative figures were available.

Japan has relatively strict immigration rules, but the government has been gradually

loosening them to address labour shortage issues.

The sharp increase also coincided with the government’s relaxation of its Covid-19 pandemic border controls.

“Decline in the number of children and population is an important issue that involves Japan’s social, economic and social welfare issues,” top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters on Wednesday.

The government will work towards “prompting women and elderly people to enter the workforce” through reforms of work styles and labour markets, he said.

The country of 125 million recorded fewer than 800,000 births in 2022, the lowest since records began, while the cost of eldercare soared.

In June,

Mr Kishida unveiled a US$25 billion (S$33.2 billion) plan

to expand support for young people and families in a bid to help raise the country’s plummeting birth rate. AFP