Japanese gov't to adopt measures to raise birth rate

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Japan's government will take comprehensive measures to raise the birth rate amid a possible record drop in the country's fertility, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday.

Japan's Health Ministry said last week that 599,000 babies were born in Japan in 2022's first nine months, a number that is 30,000 fewer than that in the same period of 2021. The country's birth rate could fall below 800,000 for the first time if the rate remains the same until the end of the year, the ministry added.

"Comprehensive measures should be promoted to address the decline in the birth rate at all stages of life in the form of economic assistance for marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, creating conditions to combine work and child-rearing for both parents," Matsuno said, as quoted by the Japanese broadcaster NHK.

In early May, the Japanese Interior Ministry registered the lowest share of children in the Japan's population in 41 years (11.7%); they now number 14.65 million.

Japan's shrinking population is an obsession of the world, and even in Japan, the issue has raised so many alarms that one paper called for the declaration of a "declining birth-rate state of emergency."

The first time Japan took notice of its low fertility rates was in 1989, when the country's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was found to be 1.57, much lower than the 2.1 needed for a population to sustain itself.

Moreover, despite three decades of effort, including task forces and government support programs, little has changed, as Japan had a record-low FTR of 1.26 in 2005, which it managed to raise to 1.3 in 2021. 

Recent years have seen Japan facing severe depopulation. From a peak of 128 million in 2008, the country's population has shrunk to 125.5 million in November, the number last seen in 1995. The number may drop below 100 million by 2053, falling even further by 2065 to 88 million, according to the Japanese government’s estimates.