General

Japan’s population declining

by on July 31, 2010 at 6:51 pm
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For the first time in three years Japan’s population has fallen to 127,057,860 as of March. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications say that a majority of it lies within the increase of deaths among the aging population.  Population was down 18,323, where a number of deaths exceeded births. This is a record net drop (natural decline) of 73,024.

The ministry started calculating deaths since March 1980, and since then there is a high total of 1,146,105 deaths. Japan also came to its second lowest figure for birth since March 2006, 1,073,081.

A ministry official stated that Japan, “may have become a society facing full-scale population declines as the number of deaths is on a rising trend amid the aging population.’’

The population decline in the latest survey was partly offset by an increase in the number of people returning to Japan from overseas.  More people returned to Japan than left, resulting in a net increase of 54,701, according to the ministry.

source: japantoday

discussion

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  • http://AJsteezy AyJay

    As long as they don’t use underhanded topics to get the birthrate up like getting rid of abortion clinics (like certain countries are considering) it should be fine.

    I actually heard that another reason is because women in Japan are suddenly realizing they don’t need to just have babies when they’re barely 20 so they have fun and enjoy their careers now.

  • http://youtube.com/user/wvrtv Neika

    Its the economy too…who wants to have babies in a recession, i mean how can you provide for a child when you can hardly provide for yourself…and another fact is people just wanna live carefree with no stress and as much as kids are cute, it can be stressful being a parent

  • Kenchi

    Well i think they are to many already. (not meaning any racist stuff) I mean the world is starting to be overpopulated so I think it’s a good thing that the births of new babies are decreasing.. And 127,057,860 is not exactly a small number.. my country only have 9mill ..

  • AntoinetteDin

    Actually alot of countries around the world are also having this type of problem :(

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

  • kashiko

    V thanks for the link. I’m quite suprised that Korea is even lower than Japan. Well,the government must do something about this. It’s not good for the society to have such low births

  • evil4life

    well Japan is not exactly cheap to live there, the economy is bad, oh and according to about 20 people that i’ve talked to, its the best place to live in if your a foreigner

    and as for Korea well this year things have been pretty bad my friend says stocks are down and the intensity between north and south is pretty bad and scary for people living there

  • Aoiblue

    Huh…..I thought the main problem would be less People getting married and having kids. True story btw.

  • LeeULilBunny

    I will help Japan. Give me Yamapi and i help will populated Japan. I am not doing for myself but to help Japan.

  • ebbysshi

    japan is in need of yunho again

  • http://gallery.asianfanatics.net/ Lady Yuri

    Japan as many old people and doesn’t have many babys that could be it

  • Rai120304

    I see this as a really big problem in the future. Why? Simple, if there are no enough live births today when our generation gets old and there will be no enough manpower to support us and probably the economy will fall. And if this continue sooner or later worst case scenario people will eventually vanished due to insufficient live births. Its no joke. Other countries even spend tons of money just to promote reproduction. Try to look population education, its quite scary to think but it is really coming to reality.

  • Anna Karenina

    This is definitely NOT a good thing for Japan especially because of their elderly population. Who will care for the elderly especially since that population is expected to increase by a huge amount by the next decade. Already Japan is hiring foreign nurses from Philippines to care for the elderly-what will happen as the elderly population increases and the number of young people decreases? Japan may easily have a horrible crisis on their hands as they don’t even have enough nurses now even with the added Philippines ones!
    The young are also needed for labor purposes-what will happen to their economy(they will have to outsource everything not to save money but because they don’t have enough people to make things). I believe that stats a few years ago was that Japans population could half by 2030 (meaning a lot of elderly will die in way greater number than children born) -thats just 20 years away!

  • http://ampedasia.com Krazoom

    I watched an episode of Vanguard on Current that discussed this issue about 2 years ago. Here’s the episode I believe

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxPGnWiLFfo