Last year about 1.58 million people died and the number of births record in the country was only 80000.
Japan’s Pm said,” Japan will cease to exist if it can’t slow a fall in its birth rate that threatens to wreck the social safety net and economy”.
Falling Birth Rates in Japan: Causes and Consequences
The Japanese govt is now inclining itself to increase spending on children and families and the rate of decrease has been faster than the forecast.
The population of Japan has decreased from 124.6 Million to 128 million in 2008. And according to reports, it will have a population of 88 million people in the year 2065.
This has been due to the downward trend in the birth rate as currently, the fertility rate is 1.3%, below the rate of 2.1% required to maintain a stable growth rate of the population, in absence of immigration. This has created an inverted population pyramid with a lesser number of young people and more aged people.
The dependency population has been on trend in the country as their life expectancy has increased as one in 1500 people in Japan were 100 years old. This has put a lot of pressure on the lesser number of demographic dividers. The govt spending has increased on the aged people and less on increasing the birth rate of the country.
The demographic dividend is the reason behind china’s growth, with more population, quality cheap labour is available and this gives an impetus to the entry of investment in country and an overall rise in growth and development.
Last year, 29% of Japan’s population constituted 65 aged people. This reduced the country’s economic growth and a decline in the number of men available for defence which keeps Japan on the verge of insecurity.
Causes of low birth rate:
The fall in the number of women of childbearing age has increased. The deaths have outpaced births. The main reasons for such a low growth rate include the high cost of living, limited space and lack of childcare support in cities. In 2022, Japan was ranked as one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a child.
The low wage rate has been one of the major reasons. People find it difficult to pay rent, education etc, and they do not think of bearing children. Japan’s population has been in steady decline, since the economic boom of the 1980s and stood at 125.5 million people in 2021. The average real annual household income has fallen from 659 million yuan in 1995 to 569 million yuan according to the data released by the Ministry of health, labour and welfare.
This has made the economy stagnant with less workforce, more work pressure and an increase in the number of women working as the number of men is less which has degraded the concept of marriage in Japan. The country’s economy has stalled since its asset bubble burst in the early 1990s. The growth rate of the country has come down from 4.9% to 0.3% between 1990-2019 according to World Bank.
It has come up with a new spending package wherein child allowances and child care has been raised.
Of the women aged between 18-34 years, 70% come from unmarried women who are not in a relationship. The average salary of an employee is 1800 dollars a month, but people in the country spend more than it is on rent, paying bank loans and paying into Japan’s social security. The decline in Japan’s fertility rate is because fewer young women getting married as a career is given primacy by them owing to an increase in the economic opportunities for women.
The coupling rate Is also low in the country because of economic insecurity. Most of the people in Japan do temporary jobs which provide low salaries as 30% have no permanent jobs and only 20% of irregular workers can switch to regular jobs at some point in their careers.
There has been a fall of about 3.8 million in the number of regular workers and a rise of about 7.6 million irregular workers. The rise of irregular workers in the country began in the 1990s when the govt revised labour laws to enable the wider use of temporary and contract workers by intermediary firms. 30% of irregular workers in their early 30s are married compared to 50% of full-time corporate employees pointing to people’s preference for permanent jobs.
While the proportion of newer married women at their reproductive age of 25-34 years had been stable until the mid-1970s, and the proportion of single women aged between 25-29 years rose from 21% to 66% between 1975-2020.
Women participating in four-year degrees began to rise rapidly in the late 1980s and reached 51% in 2020.
Though the employment rate has increased at the cost of lower wages. Labour participation has doubled in the country from 45% to 87% between 1970 to 2030.
Solution:
There is a need to solve the problem. More the population growth more strength it gives to the country. And in present, Europe, as well as Japan is going to face a crisis due to the low growth rate. The dependent population is increasing. But open the ng economic horizon more you need more labour more entrepreneurs and more service providers.
Higher population growth with better management will let the country excel by leaps and bounds
Also Read- Japan’s economy is struggling, and control tightens