In Tokyo—the world’s oldest country, thinking about low birth rates has changed. Rather than trying to raise it dramatically, both the government and outside experts are looking for ways to manage the population decline.
Japan said on Friday that the country’s total fertility rate – a snapshot of the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime – fell to 1.3 in 2021, the lowest level in 16 years. While the decline partly reflects the temporary impact of the pandemic, the figure has not remained above 1.5 since the mid-1990s, running well below the level needed to keep the population stable over a long period of time.
The latest release follows an announcement in April that said the population would drop from 640,000 people to about 125.5 million in 2021. The drop was big enough to attract the attention of Elon Musk, who tweeted in May that on current trends, “Japan will eventually cease to exist.”
Years ago, many in Japan shared the Tesla Inc. boss’s sense of alarm. Today his tone seems out of date, experts here said.
“I don’t understand why people fussed so much over Mr. Musk’s remarks,” said Hiroshi Kito, an emeritus professor at Sofia University who studies population trends. “We’ve known this for a long time.”
Pro. Kito said the best thing the government would do is forget about population growth and focus on quality-of-life measures supported by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a club of wealthy countries. These include living space, water quality, time devoted to leisure, and self-reported life satisfaction.
“Adapting to a declining population without pushing yourself too much can bring a new kind of prosperity,” he said. “Then, we may see an improvement in the birth rate.”
Japan’s mood matters because it is often a harbinger of population trends in places such as the US, where fertility has fallen below the level needed to sustain population growth over the long term.
The birth rate, or the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime, needs to be a little over two to remain constant over time. Due to Japan’s low birth rate and rising life expectancy, nearly three in 10 people are now 65 or older.
A senior cheer squad demonstrates in Chiba, Japan, in March. Nearly three out of 10 people in Japan are now 65 or older.
photo:
Kim Kyung-hoon/Reuters
Three decades ago, the realization that the population of 21st-century Japan was bound to decline rapidly caused concern. With names such as the “Angel Plan” and the “New Angel Plan”, the government expanded daycare, promoted work-life balance to include more men in child-rearing, and subsidized children’s health care. Extended. A cabinet post, “Minister of State for Measures to Decline the Birth Rate”, was created.
Today, with more than a dozen ministers cycling through office, none of the measures has had a significant effect in raising the birth rate, though they may have helped prevent further declines. Some other wealthy countries in Asia, such as South Korea and Singapore, have even lower birth rates.
While not officially abandoning the goal of reversing the population decline, in recent years the government has focused on ways to adapt to an era with less young and middle-aged Japanese people. A revised law that took effect last year asks large companies to allow employees to stay at work until age 70, up from 65 previously.
In its annual economic report last September, the Cabinet Office said nothing had succeeded in raising the birth rate and that the government needed to prepare for a further decline. One answer, it said, was concentrating the population more in regional cities so that limited funds for road maintenance and government services could be spent more efficiently.
Responding to fertility numbers released on Friday, chief government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said tackling low birth rates was a priority and the government would continue existing programs such as encouraging fathers to take paternity leave.
In 2019, the government of then-prime minister Shinzo Abe introduced measures to bring in hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers from overseas in response to the labor shortage. The program included a way for some workers to settle permanently in Japan with their families.
Japan recently reopened its borders to foreign workers, after the program was halted during COVID-19 border restrictions. However, the numbers that have come so far are too small to change the population trends significantly.
Conservatives warn that a low birthrate is an issue for Japan’s defense against populous China, and the country’s military is already having trouble attracting recruits.
But the issue no longer receives high-level political attention. In a policy speech in January discussing key priorities, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida dismissed low birth rates in a single line, though he pushed through more liberal insurance coverage for fertility treatments. Such treatments currently result in about 60,000 births a year, so even a significant increase won’t make much of a dent in the population decline.
People at a concert in Tokyo; The country’s low birth rate no longer attracts high-level political attention.
photo:
Viola Kam/Zuma Press
Miho Iwasawa, a researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, called for a re-evaluation of the population targets. She said Japanese businesses in need of workers or customers can find them overseas, where the population continues to grow in many countries.
“It’s a matter of defining a country, and I wonder how important it is for a country’s population to increase or decrease,” Ms. Iwasawa said.
He said the real issue was reshaping Japan’s pension system so that payments to the elderly were manageable, rather than abruptly cut decades from now. The government is already fixing the age for pensioners to get full benefits.
Kazuo Mizuno, a professor of economics at Hosei University who studied the population, said he saw a pattern in East Asian societies such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore, where a passion for work and rapid economic growth made people think about family. Very little space left for He said the country should look for simpler ways to reduce waste and relax, such as demolishing abandoned houses and turning them into green spaces where people can barbecue.
Mr Mizuno said that if Japan becomes a “society where people enjoy working and raising children, the birth rate is more likely to rise.”
write to Miho inada at [email protected]
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