Tokyo [Japan], July 27 : Japan’s population fell by more than 8,00,000 last one year. The country’s population crisis is accelerating, echoing similar trends seen in other East Asian countries, CNN reported.
Japan’s total population as of January 1, stood at 125.4 million, including both Japanese and foreign residents, according to data released on Wednesday by Japan’s internal affairs ministry. The number of foreign residents rose by nearly 2,89,500 compared to the previous year – a significant increase of more than 10 per cent.
But the number of Japanese residents shrank by 8,00,523, marking the 14th consecutive year of contraction since a peak in 2009, said the ministry. And for the first time, all prefectures across the country saw a decrease in the number of Japanese nationals, a ministry spokesperson told CNN.
However, Tokyo, due to the rise in foreign residents, saw a slight increase in the overall population of all residents regardless of nationality.
The number of deaths last year also hit another record high, with 1.56 million recorded – compared to less than half the number of births recorded, just 771,801 newborns, according to the ministry.
As per CNN, deaths have outpaced births in Japan for more than a decade, posing a growing problem for leaders of the world’s third-largest economy. They now face a ballooning elderly population, along with a shrinking workforce to fund pensions and health care as demand from the ageing population surges.
Since Japan’s economic boom of the 1980s, its population has been in steady decline, with a fertility rate of 1.3, far below the rate of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population, in the absence of immigration.
The country also has one of the highest life expectancies in the world; in 2020, nearly one in 1,500 people in Japan were age 100 or older, according to government data.
Nearby, China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are experiencing similar crises, struggling to encourage young people to have more children, in the face of rising living costs and social discontent, as per CNN.
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