Number of births in Japan at an all-time low | Abroad

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that boosting the birth rate is the most important task. Parents need to get more money, services for families need to be expanded and Japan’s working world needs to be reformed, it said. Experts, however, doubt whether that will bring enough to the dike. So far, all attempts by the government to boost the number of births have failed.

Due to its low birth rate and lack of immigration, Japan is aging faster than any other industrialized country in the world. Entire parts of the country are dying out, houses are empty and dilapidated, schools are closing. Many Japanese are getting married later and later and also postponing the birth of their first child. In addition, many women are not prepared to give up their own careers for children. A lack of participation in family life by men, who work long hours every day, is also put forward as a reason. In addition, many young people simply cannot afford a family.

Some sectors of the Japanese economy, such as construction, trade and hospitality, are experiencing significant labor shortages due to the declining birth rate. In the meantime, the government has succeeded in allowing more women to enter the labor market and older people to work longer, but that does not alter the fact that Japan can no longer manage without foreign guest workers.

At the same time, the country, which prides itself on its homogeneous population, shuns large-scale immigration and, according to experts, it is very unlikely that this will change. The culturally closed country recoils from the challenges that such an opening would entail. For example, there is the fear of more crime in a country that is so far considered one of the safest in the world.