TOKYO – Japan will cease to exist if it cannot slow a fall in its birth rate that threatens to wreck the social safety net and economy, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“If we go on like this, the country will disappear,” said Ms Masako Mori in an interview in Tokyo after Japan announced last Tuesday that the number of babies born in 2022 had slumped to a record low.
“It’s the people who have to live through the process of disappearance who will face enormous harm. It’s a terrible disease that will afflict those children,” she added.
In 2022, about twice as many people died as were born in Japan, with fewer than 800,000 births and about 1.58 million deaths.
An alarmed Mr Kishida has vowed to double spending on children and families in a bid to control the slide, which is progressing even faster than forecast.
The population has fallen to 124.6 million from a peak of just over 128 million reached in 2008, and the pace of decline is increasing. Meanwhile, the proportion of people 65 or older rose to more than 29 per cent in 2022.
While South Korea has a lower fertility rate, Japan’s population is shrinking faster.
“It’s not falling gradually, it’s heading straight down,” said Ms Mori, an Upper House lawmaker and former minister who advises Mr Kishida on the birth-rate problem and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) issues.
“A nosedive means children being born now will be thrown into a society that becomes distorted, shrinks and loses its ability to function.”
If nothing is done, the social security system would collapse, industrial and economic strength would decline and there would not be enough recruits for the Self-Defence Forces to protect the country, she added.
While reversing the slide now would be extremely difficult because of the fall in the number of women of child-bearing age, the government must do everything it can to slow the plunge and help mitigate the damage, Ms Mori said.
Mr Kishida has yet to announce the content of his new spending package, but has said it will be “on a different dimension” from previous policies. So far he has mentioned increasing child allowances, improving childcare provision and changing working styles.
But critics contend that throwing money at families with children is not enough to address the problem.
A paper from a government panel on gender equality said comprehensive changes are needed that include reducing the burden on women of raising children and making it easier for them to participate in the workforce after giving birth.
Ms Mori criticised what she said was a tendency to think about the issue separately from finance, trade and particularly from female empowerment.
“Women’s empowerment and birth rate policies are the same,” she said. “If you deal with these things separately, it won’t be effective.” BLOOMBERG
