A third of today’s 18-year-olds in Japan may not have children: Study
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The number of children in Japan has been falling for more than four decades
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TOKYO - About a third of 18-year-old women in Japan may never have children, a government institute said on Wednesday, in the latest data spelling an uphill battle to reverse a dwindling population in the world's third-largest economy.
The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) estimated in a report that 33.4 per cent of women born in 2005 would be childless. The most optimistic scenario had that number at 24.6 per cent, and the worst at 42 per cent.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in June vowed to tackle the population crisis with “unprecedented” steps, including bigger payouts for families with three or more children.
But a Kyodo News poll published soon after showed about two-thirds of the public did not think the policies would be effective.
“With the rising cost of living, I don’t think people feel they can afford to or comfortably say they want to have children,” 23-year-old Anna Tanaka told Reuters.
The number of children in Japan has been falling for more than four decades
The IPSS determines the expected percentage of childless women by taking into account factors such as age of marriage in estimating the fertility rate.
Dr Miho Iwasawa, the IPSS’ director of population dynamics research, said people were getting married later, leading to a fall in births. In 2020, women got married for the first time at an average age of 29.4, or 3.9 years later than in 1985, government data shows. Marrying in one’s late 30s often results in just one child, if any, Dr Iwasawa said.
That trend could itself be causing a vicious circle of fewer children begetting fewer children, said Mr Takuya Hoshino, senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. As people have fewer children, they are able to spend more on each child than families were able to in the past. That drives up the average cost of raising a child for the broader population, putting some people off having children.
Tuition fees at private universities jumped fivefold between 1975 and 2021, and by 19 times at public universities, data shows.
“The challenge is that no single cause can be identified for the declining birth rate,” Dr Iwasawa said.
Japan’s population of 126.15 million in 2020 is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070, IPSS said. REUTERS
