Status: 01/23/2023 12:40 p.m
Many old people live in Japan, and the society is one of the oldest in the world. What is missing are children. Many couples don’t want one, life is very expensive there. Prime Minister Kishida now wants to change that with his government.
The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wants to deal with the declining birth rate and its consequences in his country with new government measures. “Our nation is at a crossroads as to whether it can maintain its social functions,” Kishida said in parliament. “When it comes to birth and parenting policies, it’s now or never – it’s an issue that just can’t wait any longer.”
In his speech in parliament, Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida made the urgency clear: the country needs more children.
Image: EPA
The development of the birth rate must be reversed, he emphasized. “We must create an economic society that puts children first.” Kishida promised more financial support for families with children, including through more scholarships. He announced plans to double the budget for child-related activities by June. As early as April, a new government agency for children and families is to be set up to deal with this issue.
Third largest economy in the world
Japan’s population of more than 125 million people has been shrinking for 14 years and is expected to drop to 86.7 million by 2060. Unlike other industrial nations – such as the USA or Canada – Japan does not rely on immigration.
The third largest economy in the world after the USA and China has therefore tried several times in recent years to persuade its citizens to have more children with cash bonuses and better social benefits.
Too expensive for a child
But Japan is one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child – according to the YuWa Population Research Institute, only China and South Korea are ahead, both of which are also experiencing a population decline. These are worrying signs for the world economy, since these three countries are among the pillars of the global economy.
Partly because of the high cost of living, official estimates indicate that the number of births in 2022 has fallen to a new record low in Japan: it fell below the 800,000 mark for the first time – a turning point that came eight years earlier than the government had expected.
This is likely to result in a further decline in population in a country where the median age is 49 – the highest in the world, surpassed only by the small city-state of Monaco, where it is 54.5.