(ANSA) – TOKYO, JUNE 04 – The decline in births in Japan continues unabated, settling below the government’s most pessimistic estimates. According to government data, in 2021 the number of children born was 811,604, a decrease of almost 30,000 compared to the previous year, worse than the long-term forecast for 2027 by the executive.
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health – which began collecting data in 1899, the average number of children per woman dropped by 0.03 points, to 1.30, while the number of marriages saw a decline at just over 500,000, the lowest since the postwar period. The current trend, according to the ministerial authorities, is to be attributed to the shrinking of the population made up of women of childbearing age already underway, while the impact of the factors deriving from the Covid pandemic and the general uncertainty on the economic crisis has yet to be established.
Speaking at a conference, Cabinet Chief Hirozaku Matsuno said the low birth rate problem “could destabilize the foundations of the country’s society and economy”, reiterating that its resolution is one of the priorities of the government’s agenda.
Births in Japan showed a downward phase starting in 1973, the year in which they marked the second ‘Baby boom’ with 2.09 million new births. In addition to a fertility rate of Japanese women below the minimum threshold of 2.07 children, considered necessary to guarantee generational turnover, in the Land of the Rising Sun there is the highest life expectancy in the world: about 28% of the population of 126 million inhabitants is over 65 years of age. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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