Japan’s demographic crisis: how did it get so bad?

“We recognize that the declining birth rate is a critical situation,” senior Japanese lawmaker Arahiko Isozaki said in a measured tone. Masaka Mori, another lawmaker who advises Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, was more direct, saying: “If we continue like this, the country will disappear.”

According to data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, 799,728 babies will be born in 2022, and about 1.58 million people will die during the same period. While experts attribute this in part to a decline in the number of marriages during the pandemic, the figures from Japan, already one of the world’s oldest societies, are still worrisome, with a median age of 48.4. The effects are already being felt in the nation’s labor market, healthcare and financial systems.In a sign of how deeply entrenched the issue is in the minds of Tokyoites, this year’s Oscar entry from Japan (titled 75 plan) is a dystopian film about a government plan to euthanize the elderly in response to a super-aging society.

However, the problem is not unique to the East Asian country. Its closest neighbors, China and South Korea, have also seen declines in fertility and population growth, albeit on very different scales. On the other side of the world, European countries such as Italy and Spain have undergone more gradual demographic changes.

birth rate decreases

Japan, like the rest of the world in the 20th century, had a high birth rate, recorded in 1901 at 33.9 births per 1,000 people. It peaked at a record 35.2 in 1923 and hovered in the 30s for most of the next two decades. The first significant decline in the birth rate occurred in 1938-39, reaching 26.6 in 1939 as World War II plunged the world into uncertainty. Over the ensuing four years, however, rates climbed to an average of more than 30 before falling again. Japan has no official records for 1944-46, but a 1953 paper on Japan’s postwar problems estimated birth rates for those years at about 30, 25, and 25, respectively.

The postwar years, known as the “baby boom,” saw births increase as soldiers returned home and the economy boomed. In 1947, Japan had 34.3 births per 1,000 people, but the birth rate has gradually declined over the decades, stabilizing at single digits in the early 1990s.

However, there was a clear swing in this pattern in 1966, when the birth rate fell from 18.6 in 1965 to 13.7, and then rose slightly (19.4) in 1967. A World Bank report attributed this to the local belief that girls are born on the “Fire Horse” every 60 years and have “bad characters that kill future husbands”. The report advises families to delay having children in that year, as they are aware of the social disadvantages girls born in that year may face.

At the same time, during the same period, the death rate has also declined due to medical advances, access to better nutrition and education, economic growth and improved living standards. Although the Japanese are known for their high life expectancy, the death rate for the aging population exceeded the birth rate for the first time in 2007 and has risen steadily to 11.7 in 2021, while the birth rate has dropped to 6.6 over the same period.

not alone

Japan is not alone in this dilemma. Fertility rates in neighboring South Korea have been among the worst in the world for many years, with fewer than one birth per woman in the country since 2018. According to the World Bank’s 2022 data report, as of 2020, Seoul’s fertility rate is 0.8. China’s fertility rate has also fallen sharply since the controversial one-child policy was relaxed in 2015.

In Europe, Italy and Spain have had fertility rates well below replacement levels for decades. For example, Italy’s fertility rate fell from 2.4 in the 1960s to 1.93 in 1977 and has not exceeded 2 since then. However, in the two decades since 2000, it has managed to stem a plummet in fertility, with the average fertility rate remaining at 1.34, according to the World Bank. A similar situation is seen in Spain, where the fertility rate fell from 2.86 in 1960 to an average of 1.31 between 2000 and 2020.

Like Japan and South Korea, these European countries have benefited from targeted measures such as monthly child allowances, state support for family homebuyers and crowdsourced childcare models. Moreover, they were an attractive target for immigrants, mainly from Western European and neighboring North African countries. At the same time, Japan and South Korea have a lower propensity and success rate in immigration due to language and cultural barriers.

What about the Scandinavian countries?

Also worth mentioning are the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, which have some of the highest median ages in the world. Despite their below-replacement fertility rates, their populations continue to grow at a reasonable rate thanks to a high quality of life and immigration.

These countries consistently rank high for quality of healthcare, education, child care and low income inequality. While Denmark relies mainly on immigrants from its European non-Scandinavian neighbors, Finland, Sweden and Norway welcome immigrants from war-torn West Asian and African countries such as Syria, Iraq and Somalia.

Over the past few years, Japan has been vigorously promoting policies to encourage couples to have children. Central and provincial governments already provide parents with cash grants, subsidized housing and daycare, and assistance for couples opting for infertility treatment. It also opens up important conversations about gender differences in Japanese society, where women disproportionately bear parenting responsibilities.